President Bush submitted his 2006 budget to Congress on Monday and surprise, surprise: more funding for the military and homeland security with severe cuts in practically every other department, from education to health care for veterans.
“It is a budget that sets priorities,” Bush said. And those priorities are: working or not working rich and Bush family friends, high priority; children in poverty and the working poor, low priority.
Almost every program for lower-income Americans was potentially expendable in Bush’s budget, including food stamps, farm subsidies, Medicaid, public-housing programs. His budget would cut the Environmental Protection Agency by 5.6 percent. A number of community development programs would be cut by about 40 percent. And the budget would expand Pell Grants, but only at the expense of the $6 billion Perkins Loan Program, which would be eliminated.
But apparently making Bush’s tax cut for the wealthy permanent is too important to sacrifice. Furthermore, the budget submitted to Congress is incomplete because it does not include spending for the president’s number one foreign priority, our various wars in the Middle East, and it does not include spending for the president’s number one domestic priority, overhauling Social Security. The administration has requested $80 billion for the former, and the latter, some experts estimate, will cost around $3 – $4.5 trillion over a 20-year period.
This is a question of priorities. The government has a responsibility to provide for our safety, but safety from terrorists is only one part of that equation. Safety also includes providing a safety net for those less fortunate. Safety includes keeping us safe from disease and environmental disaster. Pushing privatized Social Security over adequate health care is not the kind of thinking that will keep us safe.
Bush explains Social
Security, sort of
Speaking of Social Security, are you confused about how President Bush is going to solve the Social Security crisis? Well, you are not alone. Apparently President Bush isn’t totally clear about it either, as evidenced by his attempt to extemporaneously explain it to a confused audience member on Feb. 4 (we are not making this up):
“All which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There’s a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those — changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be — or closer
delivered to what has been promised.
“Does that make any sense to you? It’s kind of muddled. … I’ll keep working on it.”
Well, we are convinced. If you want an actual explanation of the president’s plan, read the Emerald’s Tuesday cover story (“Security for the future,” 2/8/05).

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