New American Priorities

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Fri, 25 Mar 2005 15:48:01 -0600

New American Priorities

 

 

 

OP-ED COLUMNIST

The Era of Exploitation

 

By BOB HERBERT

 

Published: March 25, 2005

 

Congress is in recess and the press has gone berserk over the Terri

Schiavo case. So very little attention is being paid to pending budget

proposals that are scandalously unfair, but that pretty accurately

reflect the kind of country the U.S. has become.

 

President Bush believes in an " ownership " society, which means that

except for the wealthy, you're on your own. The president's budget

would cut funding for Medicaid, food stamps, education,

transportation, health care for veterans, law enforcement, medical

research and safety inspections for food and drugs. And, of course, it

contains big new tax cuts for the wealthy.

 

These are the new American priorities. Republicans will tell you they

were ratified in the last presidential election. We may be locked in a

long and costly war, and federal deficits may be spiraling toward the

moon, but the era of shared sacrifices is over. This is the era of

entrenched exploitation. All sacrifices will be made by working people

and the poor, and the vast bulk of the benefits will accrue to the rich.

 

F.D.R. would have stared slack-jawed at this madness. Even his grand

Social Security edifice is under assault by the vandals of the G.O.P.

 

While the press and the public are distracted by one sensational news

story after another - Terri Schiavo, Michael Jackson, steroids in

baseball, etc. - the president and his party have continued their

extraordinary campaign to undermine the programs that were designed to

fend off destitution and provide a reasonable foundation of economic

security for those not blessed with great wealth.

 

President Bush has proposed more than $200 billion worth of cuts in

domestic discretionary programs over the next five years, and cuts of

$26 billion in entitlement programs. The Center on Budget and Policy

Priorities, which analyzed the president's proposal, said:

 

" Figures in the budget show that child-care assistance would be ended

for 300,000 low-income children by 2009. The food stamp cut would

terminate food stamp aid for approximately 300,000 low-income people,

most of whom are low-income working families with children. Reduced

Medicaid funding most certainly would cause many states to cut their

Medicaid programs, increasing the ranks of the uninsured. "

 

Education funding would be cut beginning next year, and the cuts would

grow larger in succeeding years. Food assistance for pregnant women,

infants and children would be cut. Funding for H.I.V. and AIDS

treatment would be cut by more than half a billion dollars over five

years. Support for environmental protection programs would be sharply

curtailed. And so on.

 

Conservatives insist the cuts are necessary to get the roaring federal

budget deficit under control. But they have trouble keeping a straight

face when they tell that story. Laden with tax cuts, the president's

proposal will result in an increase, not a decrease, in the deficit.

Shared sacrifice is anathema to the big-money crowd.

 

The House has passed a budget that is similar to the president's,

except it contains even deeper cuts in programs that affect the poor.

In the Senate, a handful of Republicans balked at the cuts proposed

for Medicaid. Casting their votes with the Democrats, they were able

to eliminate the cuts from the Senate budget proposal. The Senate also

added $5.4 billion in education funding for 2006.

 

All the budgets contain more than $100 billion in tax cuts over the

next five years, which makes a mockery of the G.O.P.'s

budget-balancing rhetoric. When Congress returns from its Easter

recess, the Republican leadership will try to reconcile the

differences in the various proposals. Whatever happens will be bad

news for ordinary Americans. Big cuts are coming.

 

The advances in areas like education, antipoverty programs, health

services, environmental protection and food safety were achieved after

struggles that, in some cases, took many decades. To slide backward

now (hurting millions of people in the process) because of a desire to

siphon funds from those programs and hand them over as tax cuts to the

wealthiest members of our society, is obscene.

 

This is not a huge national story. It's just the way things are. It

was Herbert Hoover who said: " You know, the only trouble with

capitalism is capitalists. They're too damn greedy. "

 

E-mail: bobherb

Paul Krugman is on vacation.