Opinion
 

Staff Editorial

Matthew Dulin        Ray Hafner       Geronimo Rodriguez
         Shaun Salnave          Cara Sarelli

Big Money

Itis $2.3 trillion, but we understand if you havenit heard much about it. There are bigger things in the news these days.

But trust us when we say this is pretty big, too.

Itis President Bushis budget plan for the next year -- fiscal year 2004 -- and itis got big money written all over it. Big money and big deficits.

The plan will endure months of political bickering between the White House and Congress, but itis safe to say the big increases, such as towards the Defense Department and even NASA, will stick around. With both houses of Congress controlled by an eager Republican majority, most of the presidentis plans will most probably be finalized in their current form.

Oddly, however, the budget does not include the costs of waging a possible war with Iraq, according to The New York Times. 

But the Pentagon did manage to conquer the federal budget pie, as it does every year, now getting a proposed $16 billion jump, coming up to nearly $380 billion. 

The new Department of Homeland Security is included in the budget considerations, absorbing 20 existing agencies with a total budget of $36 billion.

The budget also outlines a $470 million NASA boost, which, according to the White House, was proposed months before the Columbia disaster. Of all the increases, this is most commendable.

Bushis big plans sound nice and all, but when the numbers add up, America ends up with a big minus sign. On top of trying to bolster the lackluster economy, the Bush administration looks like itis going to add to its woes by spending more than it really has. 

Itis hard to see how thatis supposed to be beneficial. Bush offsets the budget with a remark saying that history "will remember if we failed to try" to fix the economy. That may be true, but the budget doesnit seem attuned to that solution.
 

The environment was at the center of this controversy. Rather than tackle the true source of the problem (the fact that Houston is a mecca for refineries), the TNRCC elected to solve our environmental woes by dropping the speed limit by 15 miles per hour. Send comments to dccampus@mail.uh.edu