2-18-05, 3:22pm
From
ILCA
From veterans to impoverished children, college students and vulnerable senior citizens, the $2.57 trillion Bush administration budget for 2006 misses no opportunity to do harm.
And by failing to include the billions needed for the Iraq war and the trillions to restructure Social Security - should the privatization scheme pass Congress - economists say the budget will raise the federal deficit, despite Bush's repeated claims that he'll cut it in a half by 2010.
'The new budget is a statement about national priorities,' economists at the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities said in an analysis. 'The budget features cuts in scores of programs that middle- and low-income families rely on, alongside large, additional tax cuts for those at the top of the income spectrum who have benefited the most from the tax cuts already enacted.'
In fact, CBPP says that by the end 2005, 'the cost of tax cuts enacted over the past four years will be over three times the cost of all domestic programs' for the same period.
Here are some of highlights - or lowlights - from the proposed 2006 budget:
The budget would more than double the co-payment many veterans pay for prescription drugs and would charge some of them a new $250 annual fee for government health care. Some veterans hospitals would be shut down or have their services cut back.
The budget would cut $1.1 billion from the federal food stamp program over the next 10 years, leaving 300,000 very low-income working families without aid.
Medicaid would be reduced by $45 billion over 10 years. The CBPP economists said that reducing Medicaid when the ranks of the uninsured are swelling and states already can't afford their share of the program costs 'would almost certainly push states to squeeze Medicaid programs in ways that further increase the numbers of uninsured children, parents, elderly and disabled people.'
Some of the 5 million people who depend on energy assistance to heat their homes may have to choose between eating or staying warm - as Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords put it - thanks to a $200 million cut in the program, which has taken hits every year since Bush took office.
Among $56 billion in education cuts, Bush wants to end Perkins loans, which provide low-interest loans to low- and middle-income college students. The budget also would end Perkins loan forgiveness for members of military and Peace Corps volunteers. The savings would be redirected to Pell Grants, but many of the students eligible for loans wouldn't qualify for the grants.
Steep cuts - at least $1 billion - in community development block grants that help cities help low-income residents with everything from affordable housing to job training and childcare.
CWA, the AFL-CIO and other unions and activist groups are already rallying to fight the harmful budget proposals. Even among many Republicans, reaction has ranged from concern to anger, according to media reports.
'The Bush budget moves us closer in the direction of a society in which economic security for ordinary Americans is at risk, and the neediest among us will be on their own,' AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said. 'We hope Congress will have the courage and decency to reject such immoral budget cuts and demand a budget that fixes its real problems and gives all workers the support they need to provide for their families.'
