POLITICS: Critics Unite to Pan Bush Budget

House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi calls Bush's budget a "hoax." Neither Iraq nor social security - the two big topics in the President's state of the union address - are anywhere to be found in his budget. Commentators and even some Republicans who face re-election battles this year share Pelosi's view. The Bush budget cuts farm subsidies, health programs for the poor and veterans, literacy programs and critical environment protection programs like clean water programs. Military and homeland security get the only big spending increases - and critics say the allocations just funnel hard earned tax dollars to international corporations.





The Bush budget provides tax cuts to the already rich, on the backs of veterans, children and the the poor, and funnels Americans' hard earned tax dollars straight to international corporations' accounts, say critics.

Democrats denounced the budget as wrongheaded in its priorities and said it masked the fiscal effects of the administration's policies. Noting that the administration's budget made no allowance beyond this year for the costs of the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and left out entirely the costs of Mr. Bush's proposal for overhauling Social Security, they said his proposals were not credible.

"This budget takes cops off the street, hurts veterans and punishes schoolchildren while saddling future generations with record budget deficits and mountains of debt," said Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. "There's nothing fiscally responsible here."

Even as his plan took a knife to many spending programs in the name of fiscal responsibility, it left room to make permanent the tax cuts of Mr. Bush's first term, at a cost of $53 billion in the next five years and $1.1 trillion through 2015. ...The new budget proposal also called for new tax cuts worth $23 billion in the next five years and $117 billion through 2015.

Budget Wrongheaded

Military critics say the budget focuses on developing and manufacturing unnecessary and dangerous WMD's, paying private security firms 500-1000 times the price to do the job American troops should be supported for doing - and developing military robots to replace the nation's own troops.

Overview: The New Military


Environment critics say essential protections are being stripped to protect chemical and drug industries, at the expense of American peoples' health. Current EPA regulations are inadequate to protect the nation from Mad Cow and other emerging diseases; funding for enforcement is already lacking.

Total EPA funding would decline from $8 billion that Congress allocated for the agency to protect the nation's air, water and land in the current budget year. ...Most of the EPA cut for 2006 is due to a reduction in government contributions to a revolving fund that states use to upgrade sewage and septic systems and storm-water run-off projects. Funding for the fund fell by $361 million, or 33 percent, in the Bush administration budget proposal.

EPA Cuts

At the same time, health supports are cut. Over 100 million Americans are chronically disabled - many by preventable health problems that come from infectious and chemical contaminations in the nation's food, air and water. Over 46 million Americans cannot afford health insurance.

...the budget would more than double the co-payment many veterans pay for prescription drugs. It also would require some veterans to pay a new fee of $250 a year if they want to join the government's health care program.

Budget Disses Veterans

...

President George W. Bush's budget proposal contains cuts to the Medicaid program that, if enacted, would threaten the ability of public hospitals to continue serving the state's most vulnerable residents.

The President calls for cutting $60 billion from the Medicaid program, which provides essential health services to our nation's neediest people.

"The safety net is already under funded," said Denise K. Martin, CEO of the California Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems. "Cuts to the Medicaid program means that people lose needed health care services."

Budget Shafts the Uninsured Middle Class

Also see:
Medical bills spark 46% of U.S. personal bankruptcies

Americans are angry that international security and defense corporations get all the nation's money, again, while ordinary Americans pay the price.

This budget may be the issue that unites America. If critics do unite effectively against the budget, there may be changes coming.



Related News Links:
www.qctimes.com

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
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OP/ED: Bush Budget: More Pork, Less Beef

[edit on 8-2-2005 by soficrow]

No matter how bad or irrelevant the Bush administration's budget is, it is hard to call it a "hoax". It's real, as farmers, educators and trees and microbes will attest to.

Looks like a porkchop to me..as in, a lot of pork getting cut. Lots of congresscritters losing their pet projects, entitlements, subsidies. It's these smaller, constant drains over decades that have caused significant waste and fiscal pain. It's easy to cut the big ones, each new administration does it to the previous one. but typically they leave the sacred bureaucratic cows alone.

There needs to be accounting and proper responsibility for SS and defense,and the ineffective Homeland Security, but they're much easier targets. We the people have tried focussing on the beig hemmoraghing for decades, and have gotten nowhere. Let's try a different approach, get rid of the deeper cancers, then work on stitching. Who knows, a differnt approach might work.

Sofi, would you stop being so damn right about everything? I owe you for 2 headaches now...


This article touches on so many issues that americans will be dealing with far after the Bush empire has fallen/retired... that is unless ol Jeb decides to run.

I am particularly upset with the cuts towards veterans. they give on one hand to those that die, but if you are quick enough to survive... you get shafted...
leaving thousands of wounded veterens in financial trouble...

Originally posted by MaskedAvatar
No matter how bad or irrelevant the Bush administration's budget is, it is hard to call it a "hoax". It's real, as farmers, educators and trees and microbes will attest to.

from Merrium-webster Online
Main Entry: hoax
Function: noun
1 : an act intended to trick or dupe : IMPOSTURE
2 : something accepted or established by fraud or fabrication

so then everything that bush said in the sate of the union address, especailly the parts about social security reform and the Iraqi war was a "hoax" instead?