Republicans are pushing through the budget before critics and the media can point out huge program cuts and corporate giveaways. The proposed budget adds more than $400 billion to our national debt when you include the extra money requested for the Iraq War. According to the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office, the deficit is due mostly to the gigantic tax cut legislation and Iraq spending – two things Congress and the president want to make worse, not better.
The proposed budget gives the wealthiest Americans permanent tax breaks, while cutting programs for the middle class and poor. This budget would make gigantic cuts in health care, especially for Medicaid. Medicaid principally serves two groups: senior citizens and the working poor. Most seniors in nursing homes count on Medicaid. Cuts to the food stamp program are also included. The budget slashes education funding, especially funds for middle-class and low-income Americans. The budget leaves out the needed funding for No Child Left Behind and funds to help moderate-income Americans afford college.
A heavy reliance on cuts to low-income programs is out of line with the very small role that such programs have played in the re-emergence of deficits. They are also out of line with the modest share of the federal budget that such programs comprise.
Deficit reduction can be accomplished without injuring the most vulnerable Americans. The bipartisan deficit-reduction package in 1990 and the deficit-reduction package enacted in 1993 stand out. A combination of reductions in programs and tax increases did much to help move the nation’s fiscal position toward the surpluses that emerged in the late 1990s. Both achieved extensive deficit reduction while strengthening programs that assist the working poor.
The gap between those with and those without is growing at an alarming pace. Isn’t it time to wake up? This president has put us so far in debt already, it’ll take us years to recover. And now he wants to increase the deficit while cutting from those who can least afford it.
Don Sorenson
Stanwood
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