Dean Baker catches an eyebrow-raising change in Medicare financing:
... if the NYT got its facts right. According to this article, President Bush proposes to change the rules on the means-testing of Medicare benefits, so that the income current cutoffs of $80,000 for individuals and $160,000 for couples are not indexed.
This means that over time, more and more of the senior population would have to pay premiums that largely cover the cost of their Medicare. In other words, Medicare will no longer be government provided health care for most of the elderly population.
The indexation in question is for inflation, and it is probably worth noting that even with inflation-indexation growth in real incomes alone implies that more and more of the senior population faces higher premiums (though obviously at a much slower rate than would occur in the absence of adjustments for inflation). Given that the lack of indexation has created widespread dissatisfaction with the alternative minimum tax, I'll count this particular provision as somewhat surprising.
From Angry Bear, some useful pictoral perspective: A graph of payroll taxes as a percent of GDP -- subsequent to the Greenspan Commission reforms of the early 1980's, the number has stabilized at about 7 percent -- and a graph of defense spending relative to GDP -- at about 5%, higher than 2000, lower than 1990.
Michael Mandel laments that the budget fails, in his opinion, to devote sufficient funds to "R&D spending on these four categories--energy, atomic energy, natural resources and environment, and transportation."