Posted on: Friday, February 11, 2005

EDITORIAL
Congress must act to blunt the budget

While there are disastrous aspects of President Bush's 2006 budget proposal, there are also some hopeful signs.

Some of the proposed cuts are necessary. Bush seeks to scale back agricultural subsidies and target some long-protected military weapons systems.

Realistically, however, both enjoy huge clout on both sides of the aisle in Congress.

Bush also has made a point of cutting or eliminating more than 150 government programs deemed inefficient, overlapping or unnecessary. On this, history teaches a lesson: Of 65 such programs so identified last year, only four were trimmed. In effect, most of these reductions are phantom cuts, unlikely to happen.

At the same time, Bush is urging Congress to make his previously enacted tax cuts permanent, which would have a budget impact over the next decade of $1.2 trillion.

It's simply irresponsible to enact massive tax cuts while fighting and financing two wars.

It is at this juxtaposition of program cuts that make the nation's social safety net ever more threadbare, next to tax cuts that ensure a growing gap between rich and poor that we differ fundamentally with the president's proposals.

In addition, the massive deficits that are certain to result from current spending policies are unconscionable. The savings expected from trims to discretionary programs (while substantially increasing defense and homeland security) are comparatively a drop in the bucket. And few economists see any possibility that the country can grow its way out of the hole Bush is digging.

Meanwhile, the budget fails to mention:

• The cumulative effects of tax cuts in the coming years.
• The cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (Bush is soon expected to request a supplemental $81 billion, with an additional cost projected by the Congressional Budget Office of $383 billion).
• The coming Medicare train wreck.
• The trillions of dollars of borrowing, according to Vice President Dick Cheney, to finance privatization of Social Security.

Congress should not adopt Bush's budget plan as proposed. Deficits and debt will continue to grow, with the bill coming due on future generations, and growing numbers of Americans may find themselves on the wrong side of the poverty line.