thank goodness for the op/ed section
Feb. 19th, 2004 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
novapsycheBudget cuts fall heavily on needy
Bush blames spending, but revenue slide drives deficit
Destructive fine print is showing through the budgetary bandwagon President Bush has designed for his re-election drive. It turns out that hundreds of thousands of poor and low-income families will lose child care and housing assistance if the administration's ballyhooed spending cuts take place. In trying to campaign as a late-blooming fiscal disciplinarian, the president is making a show of marking 128 programs--count 'em, GOP budget hawks, 128--for elimination or cutbacks in many vital social service areas. As if they are at the heart of the administration's rolling deficits, which threaten the nation's economic future.
The savings from the draconian budget theatrics would total no more than $4.9 billion. This is less than 1 percent of the record $521 billion deficit Bush helped create with tax cuts weighted toward the affluent.
Likewise, after all the bipartisan dedication to steering people from welfare to workfare, the White House would demonstrate election-year toughness by cutting child care aid for the working poor, who need it most. In cutting these indispensible programs, Bush is trying to tell voters that down is up--that the deficit problem is rooted on the ledger's spending side, not the revenue side, which he has systematically choked by trillions across the decade. Government data actually indicates that spending as a share of the economy has not rocketed and remains relatively low, while the Bush tax cuts increasingly drive the grim deficit outlook.
Congress should be the first to recognize and dismiss the president's budget as an arrant campaign pamphlet. It would leave profligate Republicans picking on the poor in a desperate attempt to stand for fiscal responsibility.
--The New York Times, as printed in The Ann Arbor News, Feb. 19, 2004
Bush blames spending, but revenue slide drives deficit
Destructive fine print is showing through the budgetary bandwagon President Bush has designed for his re-election drive. It turns out that hundreds of thousands of poor and low-income families will lose child care and housing assistance if the administration's ballyhooed spending cuts take place. In trying to campaign as a late-blooming fiscal disciplinarian, the president is making a show of marking 128 programs--count 'em, GOP budget hawks, 128--for elimination or cutbacks in many vital social service areas. As if they are at the heart of the administration's rolling deficits, which threaten the nation's economic future.
The savings from the draconian budget theatrics would total no more than $4.9 billion. This is less than 1 percent of the record $521 billion deficit Bush helped create with tax cuts weighted toward the affluent.
Likewise, after all the bipartisan dedication to steering people from welfare to workfare, the White House would demonstrate election-year toughness by cutting child care aid for the working poor, who need it most. In cutting these indispensible programs, Bush is trying to tell voters that down is up--that the deficit problem is rooted on the ledger's spending side, not the revenue side, which he has systematically choked by trillions across the decade. Government data actually indicates that spending as a share of the economy has not rocketed and remains relatively low, while the Bush tax cuts increasingly drive the grim deficit outlook.
Congress should be the first to recognize and dismiss the president's budget as an arrant campaign pamphlet. It would leave profligate Republicans picking on the poor in a desperate attempt to stand for fiscal responsibility.
--The New York Times, as printed in The Ann Arbor News, Feb. 19, 2004
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-19 03:46 pm (UTC)