Who Matters Less?

If you’re like me, any letter, report, or article about something as arcane, complicated, and detached from everyday life as the federal budget should be enough to make your eyes glaze over well before finishing the first paragraph. At least that’s what I thought before I read the thing. (Having no life, I download these things from CSPAN.) A budget is a blueprint for the way our government plans to spend our money, and it indicates which choices and people are important to that government, and which matter less.

The proposed “Borrow and Spend” GOP budget, (which will be voted on in the Senate this week), is a masterpiece of neglect and obfuscation. It increases already crippling deficits and debt, deals with enormous costs simply by leaving them out, includes more deficit-financed tax cuts for people very unlike us, and focuses on priorities that will prove horrifically damaging for the bulk of the American people.

Here are the details…

The budget simply ignores large costs ­ making deficit numbers look better than they are. It leaves out the cost of revising the Alternative Minimum Tax, making it much more extreme-wealth-friendly. It also fails to provide a realistic level of funding for our wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and for the ongoing war against terrorism. Mr. Bush has requested another $82 billion in “Supplemental” funds for these.

Deficits, as Bush promised, will not be cut in half under this budget; they’ll increase. When these omitted costs are factored in, our operating deficits shoot above $500 billion and reach $569 billion in 2010. If we adopt this budget, revise AMT, and fund our ongoing war costs, publicly held debt will climb to $5.9 trillion by 2008.

Whoa, Nelly! Eyes glazed over yet?

OK, here’s more… These deficits aren’t caused by increased spending, but by a drop in revenues created by the 2001-2004 GOP tax cuts. Last year, revenues as a percent of GDP fell to their lowest level since 1959, while overall Federal spending is still down from levels reached in the 1980's. This budget plans to increase these revenue cuts and make them permanent, providing reconciliation protection for another $70 billion in deficit-financed tax cuts, (specifically, cuts on dividends and capital gains), over five years. These cuts would provide millionaires with another annual tax break of $35,000. The cost of revenue cuts from those making more than $1 million - $32 billion. By the way, if you’re mid-income like me, your taxes overall are going up.

To balance this all out, the budget cuts funding for key programs we all benefit from. For example, it cuts $4.8 billion from education programs, cuts funding for Medicaid, and eliminates funding for AMTRAK.

In then end, whether we like it or not, we must all face a simple fact of living in a Democracy… Government costs money. If you want a cheap train to Boston, it costs money. If you want your children to go to school or to see a doctor when they get sick, it costs money. If you want a comfortable retirement, it costs money. And if you want to use the army to change the political climate of the Middle East, it costs money. These are costs we all must bear. The only question really, is this: are we all in this together, or aren’t we? Who matters more? Me? You? Bayer? GE?

Yes, I am Democrat, and to borrow my party’s slogan, “We can do better”. We need to a budget that puts us back on a path of fiscal responsibility, stops the raid on the Social Security, and focuses on constructive choices for all American people. You know who to call. If you live in Connecticut Senator Dodd is 202 244 2823. Senator Lieberman's is 202 244 4041. Otherwise go to www.senate.gov. Operators are standing by.