clipped from: www.mail.com   
ANDREW TAYLOR

The record $3.1 trillion budget proposed by President Bush on Monday would produce eyepopping federal deficits, despite his attempts to impose politically wrenching curbs on Medicare and eliminate scores of popular domestic programs.

The Pentagon would receive a $36 billion, 8 percent boost for the 2009 budget year beginning Oct. 1, even as programs aimed at the poor would be cut back or eliminated. Half of domestic Cabinet departments would see their budgets cut outright.

Bush's overall request for defense spending in 2009 is $588.3 billion, compared with $670 billion this year. But it includes only $70 billion for initial war
costs in Iraq and Afghanistan, $119 billion less than has been projected for this year. That $70 billion is almost certain to increase
Slumping revenues and the cost of an economic rescue package will combine to produce a huge jump in the deficit to $410 billion this year and $407 billion in 2009
just shy of the record $413 billion set four years ago.