3-31-05, 8:45 am

Not only does Bush’s 2006 budget punish veterans, the poor, retirees, and other working people for not being rich, it is a blatant power grab. Bush’s budget, one commentator notes, is based on three propositions: poor people have too much money, the rich have too little and our problems abroad can be solved only by the military. Despite the president’s claims, his budget isn’t about fiscal discipline. He doesn’t present real numbers about the cost of his wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, nor does he even hint at the cost of Social Security privatization he proposes. Some of this budget is simply cruel, some of it is downright stupid, but it is all about class warfare.

Bush’s budget is an ideologically driven, partisan agenda designed to benefit the rich and large corporations that backed Bush in the election and the expense of working people. Bush’s budget proposes spending $2.57 trillion with revenues of $2.18 trillion, an optimistic deficit projection of nearly $427 billion, and spending cuts in the hundreds of billions. Bush’s numbers prompted one economist to scoff that Bush’s numbers are “not credible,” saying they “haven’t been for the last few years and they shouldn’t be looked at with much seriousness now.” In fact, Bush uses one set of economic projections to paint rosy pictures about the effects of tax cuts for the rich and the deficit, while using a much bleaker set of numbers to predict Social Security’s imminent collapse. Which fantasy does he expect us to believe?

Proposals in the budget are also meant to eliminate constitutionally-mandated checks and balances between the president and Congress. Bush proposes to do away with rules that give oversight of the budget process to Congress. His plan uses backdoor maneuvering and strong-arm tactics to force Congress to accept his extremist agenda. These proposed rule changes would concentrate enormous power in the hands of a single individual as never before in US history. Apparently, Bush wasn’t kidding when he implied in his 2000 campaign that he wouldn’t mind being a dictator. We offer here 38 reasons to reject Bush’s budget:

Bush’s power grab: Bush seeks to limit the amount of annual appropriations for “discretionary programs,” including for defense, education, veterans’ medical care, housing, biomedical research and international affairs programs. Bush wants a “pay-as-you-go” rule: any new law that increases the cost of an “entitlement” program would have to be “paid for” by other cuts. Tax cuts for the rich are exempt, however. Bush is demanding line-item veto power, allowing him to strike any parts of a bill sent to him. This would force Congress to pass only what he wants. Bush wants the power to sign or veto Congress’ annual joint budget resolution, its guide for various committees to plan their spending. This power would give Bush control over what Congress asks for. Bush wants his spending proposals to be automatic, if he cannot agree with Congress on budget items. This would give him power to push his agenda without having to negotiate with other elected officials. What Bush wants to cut: Assistance for 300,000 children by 2009. $12 billion from funding to needy schools, reneging on his campaign promise. Veterans’ Administration funds, while doubling co-pays charged to veterans for prescription drugs and imposing a new $250 yearly “user fee” for veterans’ health care services. $45 billion from Medicaid, including funds to provide health care for 1.8 million low-income children. 8.4 percent from low-income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps people pay their heating bills. Over $400 million from Trade Adjustment Assistance and eight other federal job training programs for teens, other jobless adults and veterans. Over $16 million from worker safety and health programs: $6.7 million from OSHA, $4.9 million from MSHA and a $5.1 million from NIOSH. This is less than $8 per worker to protect us from job injuries, illnesses and death. Pell Grants and work-study funding for low-income college students. $530 million from education funding. $360 million from the Clean Water State Revolving Funds. $3 million from Fish and Wildlife’s endangered species programs. 30 percent from the FIRE Act, which provides equipment, training and staffing to local fire departments. $587 million from farm subsidies. $50 million from Department of Energy’s energy efficiency and renewable energy programs. 6 percent from the EPA’s budget, including $47 million from science and technology research. State and local sewage treatment funding. Some of the 150 programs and benefits Bush would eliminate: 22. Food stamps benefits for up to 300,000 working families. 23. Eliminate over 48 programs in the Department of Education that total $4.2 billion in cuts. 24. Community Development Block Grants that help cities build and maintain clinics, day-care facilities and housing developments. 25. Even Start literacy program that helps poor children learn to read. 26. Healthy Communities Access Program. 27. Rural health care grants. 28. The Community Food and Nutrition program. 29. Migrant and seasonal farm worker training programs. 30. Amtrak funding. Bush’s new spending and other backdoor cuts: 31. Cuts federal grants to state and local governments by nine percent, while increasing the Pentagon’s budget by $19 billion, not including for the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. 32. Adds new tax cuts that will cost $1.6 trillion over 10 years, more than half of which would go to households that earn more than a $1 million yearly. About 97 percent of the benefits of the cuts go to the top 2.7 percent of the population, while virtually nothing will go to households earning less than $100,000. 33. Adds money for nuclear weapons, while condemning Iran for developing a nuclear weapons program. Altogether the US spends $40 billion annually on nuclear forces. 34. Adds $38 million for failed abstinence-only “sex education” programs, bringing the yearly total to $206 million. Cuts $301 million from programs that train doctors at children’s hospitals. 35. Bush’s pension-related funding proposals restrict the amount of pension benefits that workers can get if their employers declare bankruptcy. 36. Increases subsidies for dangerous nuclear power plants. 37. Raises the low electricity rates charged by the federally owned and operated Power Marketing Administration. PMA supplies large parts of the country with inexpensive electricity generated mostly from hydroelectric dams. This proposal is seen as a first step towards privatizing federal electrification projects by giving them to corporate-owned utilities that will charge much higher prices. 38. The proposed budget for the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service calls for allowing the meat industry to fund meat inspection. If the industry funds its own regulators, then the effectiveness of inspections would be dangerously compromised.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, increases in programs that provide benefits and services for needy families, children and elderly and disabled people account for only six percent of this year’s cost of Bush’s policies. Meanwhile Bush’s tax cuts that have primarily benefited the wealthy account for almost half of the increase in the 2005 budget deficit. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cost of Bush’s rich tax cuts will be over three times the cost of all domestic program increases enacted over this period, yet Bush targets domestic programs for cuts rather than elimination of the tax cuts aimed at the already very rich. The total cost of Bush’s tax cuts will be about $2.1 trillion by 2015 and the deficit will spiral to $1.4 trillion in five years.