With the first round of Operation Offset on its way to becoming law, Dubya submits a $2.8 trillion budget that further reflects the egregiously screwed-up priorities of this administration. The proposed budget “would cut billions of dollars from domestic programs ranging from Medicare and food stamps to local law enforcement and disease control while extending most of his tax cuts beyond their 2010 expiration date… [these] tax cuts, tax incentives and tax-cut extensions would cost the Treasury $1.7 trillion over the next decade, dwarfing the $172 billion in entitlement savings and proposed user fees in the budget.” Why didn’t anyone think of this before? Conducting war is so much easier when only the poorest Americans have to sacrifice. And as for the exploding deficits? Hoo boy. For an administration that purportedly cares about the unborn, this White House seems to have no qualms about foisting debt on the next generation.
Tag: Nutrition Support
That’ll teach the poor.
Operation Offsetted: By the slimmest of margins (216-214), the House GOP pass the “deficit-cutting” (read: millionaire tax-giveaway off-setting) bill striking $40 billion from “Medicaid, welfare, child support and student lending.” (It previously passed the Senate on Cheney’s vote.) I’m reminded of a quote by Walter Lippmann on the Goldwater ’64 campaign: “We all know of demagogues and agitators who arouse the poor against the rich. But in Barry Goldwater we have a demagogue who dreams of arousing the rich against the poor.“
ANWR’s Nine Lives.
“The legislation would allow states to impose new fees on Medicaid recipients, cut federal child support enforcement funds, impose new work requirements on state welfare programs and squeeze student lenders.” Although a tie-breaking vote by Cheney got the deficit bill passed — meaning people on Medicaid, welfare recipients, and students with loans will soon be paying for Dubya’s millionaire tax breaks — the Dems do succeed in beating back ANWR drilling, much to the chagrin of Ted Stevens, who gambled that the Senate wouldn’t vote down a defense bill.
The Eye of the Needle.
“They are trading the lives of poor people for their agenda. They’re being, and this is the worst insult, unbiblical.” As liberal Christian groups protest GOP cuts in poverty programs, the Post looks into why the usual right-wing suspects are AWOL on the issue of poverty.
The Demise of Dubyanomics?
After some balking by GOP moderates — and a surprising defeat on a spending bill — yesterday, the House manages to pass their budget. Still, “Republicans salvaged the win this time only by jettisoning one of President Bush’s top domestic priorities, opening Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, then trimming planned cuts to food stamps, Medicaid and student lunch programs.” And, on the Senate side, GOP moderates not only joined Dems in preventing the renewal of Dubya’s capital gains and dividend tax cuts, but raised taxes on oil companies (which, of course, may prompt a Dubya veto.) Sure, there’s still a lot of lousy stuff in these bills, but it’s nice to see some of the central premises of Dubyanomics — soak-the-poor, cut the rich a break, a free ride for Big Oil — fall apart in a GOP-controlled Congress.
War on the Poor.
“It was unfortunate political timing for House Republicans: On Friday, as the Agriculture Committee was drafting budget-cutting legislation that could knock 295,000 people off food stamps, the Agriculture Department released findings that 529,000 more Americans went hungry last year than in 2003.” As is their wont, the House GOP cut food stamps, student loans, Medicaid, and child support enforcement in the name of preserving Dubya’s tax breaks for millionaires. Whatsmore, “[a]ccording to the Congressional Budget Office, neither the House nor the Senate bills will actually trim projected budget deficits, since they will be followed by a package of tax-cut extensions that would cost the Treasury $70 billion over five years.”