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Volume CXXXII, Number 16 |
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Removing the proverbial wool from our eyes
BRYANT ANTHONY RICH
CONTRIBUTOR
It's been over a year since President Bush so insightfully found Iraq to be a threat worthy of military action, which is interesting because the United States stopped a North Korean freighter bound for Yemen carrying 15 scud missiles, found the missiles, and then proceeded to let the ship continue; yet he still quarrels over mythical weapons in Iraq.
Since then, the nation has been consumed in the debate over whether or not military action is warranted, but what have the Bush administration and the Republican party been up to on the home front while we've all been distracted by international affairs? A cute little ancillary effect of all the attentions spent on whether or not to attack Iraq is that the Bush administration has been able move the country further right along the ideological spectrum and further away from the progress attained by the Clinton Administration. Let's take a look at the ruin that has become American domestic politics.
The Bush administration has decided that it is the role of religious charities to ease the suffering of America's poor as more and more programs to aid the poor, ill, disabled and elderly are cut by the Bush administration. The following are just a few examples. The Bush administration has proposed a federal law that if implemented would raise the rent payments required of poor people who receive housing aid. It has made plans to change Medicare in a way that would reduce the quality of healthcare services provided for the elderly. His plan cuts funding for juvenile delinquency programs, public housing assistance, and children's health insurance.
Though the new proposed budget would total 2.2 trillion dollars, and will result in huge budget deficits, it will end funding for after school programs, which occupy children during the time when juvenile crime is most apt to occur for 500,000 needy children.
Meanwhile, the President's plans for government spending become increasingly reckless. The chairman of the Federal Reserve referred to the huge budget deficits that will result from the Bush tax plan as "sobering." The New York Times' Hal Varian said on the Congressional Budget Office's conclusions concerning the Bush administration's fiscal policy, "Their conclusion is that current patterns of spending and revenue are just not sustainable. Large future tax increases or drastic spending cuts are virtually inevitable." In fact, in order to ease the passage of his irresponsible tax cuts, the president's budget refers to them as being temporary. Forecasts under the present system predict that the government will spend $5.4 trillion more than it takes in for the next ten years.
Even the President's strongest base of support, house republicans, have expressed concern about the president's fiscal policies. In fact they are particularly wary of the Bush administration's flagship tax cut on stock dividends that would cost the treasury $300 billion over the next ten years.
One of the president's most repeated promises during his campaign for the presidency was his promise to leave no child behind, in the arena of public education. In the face of the president's educational spending, educators have had to swallow that now all too familiar pill force fed to them by the Bush administration-the pill that promises substantially more support than is actually delivered. Educators and backers of the No Child Left Behind law state that the actual levels of federal spending are significantly lower than the administration agreed to spending when it negotiated with congress. The president's budget raised spending in the nation's lowest-income schools to 12.3 billion, but this number is six billion short of what the administration promised. Also, the bill covers its increase in spending in certain areas by cutting others. The level of funding is not only inconsistent with the promises made by the administration but also inconsistent with the high expectations that the administration makes for the improvement in our nations' schools. Essentially, he raises the bar while simultaneously cutting the legs out from under schools.
In fact statistics show that the bush administration did raise spending on poverty stricken schools early in his administration's tenure, though he still did not attain the levels promised, yet every year spending on schools continues to fall further behind the administration's promises.
Perhaps the most egregious example of failing domestic politics are the massive gaps in state budgets. Budget shortfalls are staggering and many state employees are losing their jobs. What is the relationship to the Bush administration? Unfunded mandates by the federal government, including many homeland security measures and education, are undermining state budgets. Though they are not the only problem, adding $25 billion in new unfunded mandates, on top of old ones are certainly not helping.
While the Bush administration drags the nation into war it also wreaks havoc upon our nation's finances. The Bush administration's fiscal policy is reckless at best. The danger lies in this statement: talk is cheap. The Bush administration preaches compassionate conservatism; meanwhile its policies suggest that the president probably doesn't understand the meaning of the word. Either that or he's flat out lying. Though the Bush administration preaches about its noble intentions his actually policy reflects his domestic political impotence.
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