On Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney defended the new Bush-Budget proposal saying that the regime seeks steep cuts in scores of federal programs because the regime is unwilling to back off from the tax cuts during his first term - benefits that primarily went to the wealthy.

At the center of the new 2006 Bush-Budget will be massive cuts in medicaid, the joint program with states that pays the cost of poor people's health care. The budget proposal calls for cutting $60 billion from projected Medicaid spending over the course of the next decade.

The Medicaid law was passed in 1965. Medicaid is funded by both, the states and the federal government. Each state manages and runs its own Medicaid program. Laws require that certain individuals must be covered and that certain services must be provided in all state Medicaid programs. Placing a cap on the funds the federal government pays for Medicaid places huge pressure on states to cut Medicaid services. The federal government pays between 50 and 77 percent of the total, depending on the state. The total now costs over $300 billion annually. The part that is paid by the federal government is expected to be about $190 billion this year. Each of the states manages and runs its own Medicaid program. Until now, most cuts in Medicaid have come from the state governments. The Bush-Budget proposal would eliminate a provision that requires states to get federal government approval before cutting individuals or services from their Medicaid programs.

Those currently covered by Medicaid are poor children, the elderly and disabled individuals who have very low incomes. Medicaid pays at least part of the bill for two-thirds of the 1.6 million Americans in nursing homes. It pays for health care for 40 million people aged 65 and older and people with disabilities.

Families USA reports that Medicaid provides health care for "more than 50 million low-income children, working families, seniors, and people with disabilities, [and] provides crucial comprehensive health care to individuals who would otherwise likely be uninsured." The new Bush-Budget is racist at the core: Medicaid is especially important for many racial and ethnic minorities, who rely more than whites for access to health care. About 1 in 3 people in the United States belong to a racial minority. Medicaid provides health care to about one in five non-elderly Latinos, African Americans, and American Indian/Alaska Natives and to about one in 10 non-elderly Asian Americans. In 2003, 23 million of the 45 million people who had no health insurance were racial and ethnic-minority Americans. Without this coverage the numbers of uninsured individuals will be much higher.

There are a number of factors that cause disparities in individual health. Some of them are due to lifestyle, language barriers and health care preferences. But studies show that the greatest factor contributing to poor health is the lack of access to the health care system.

Social Security

Bush's plan to privatize Social Security will only make matters worse according to lawmakers and some say that Social Security isn't nearly in as dire straits as the Bush regime claims. What Bush will be able to do is what no other administration has ever done - raid social security funds and move them to Wall Street for the use of the wealthy and place individual benefits at significant risk.  Bush is selling his plan to privatize Social Security under his new "ownership society" by telling the American people their money in private accounts would actually be owned by them.  When promoting his plan in Arkansas, he stated:

"I think people ought to be encouraged to own something in America. You'll be owning a part of your retirement account. It's actually your money to begin with. It's not the government's money."

In Business Week, Peter Coy debunks that promise:

"... the more you wonder whether you would actually own the money in your private account -- any more than you can claim to own a burning ball of gas thousands of light years away.

"One thing ownership means is being able to do what you want with something. But under the Bush plan, you'd be given just a small range of approved options of how to invest 'your money'."

Whatever happened to the "Lock Box"?

For decades, workers and their employers have paid 15% of worker income to insure our futures.  Now, like an impulsive spender with cash in his pocket, the Bush regime cannot keep its hands off our coffers of social security funds. They are trying to bail themselvesout of the economic crisis of their own making by raiding the future safety net for millions of elderly U.S. citizens.

In The Unlocked Box - How Bush is Plundering Social Security
to Close the Deficit, Daniel Gross wrote:

"In the 2000 campaign, Vice President Al Gore said we should sequester the Social Security surpluses in a "lockbox" to prevent appropriators from spending them. Bush agreed in principle. But that commitment went out the window soon after the inauguration. In his first three budgets, Bush (who had the good fortune to take office at a time when the surpluses were growing rapidly) and Congress used $480 billion in excess Social Security payroll taxes to fund basic government operations—about $160 billion per year!"

Other cuts to the most vulnerable people in the United States

According to Families USA, a health care advocacy group, optional beneficiaries include 6 million working poor adults, 5 million children, 3 million seniors, 2 million people with severe chronic disabilities and 3.5 million additional adults and children with medical bills.

Half of all personal bankruptcies in the United States are a direct result of soaring medical expenses and our inability to pay for medical treatment and health care!

Children in Poverty in the U.S.

Only the most heartless person can turn their back on a child. According to the Children’s Defense Fund, 12.9 million U.S. children younger than 18 lived below the poverty line in 2003. More children are living in poverty today than 30 or 35 years ago. A child in America is more likely to live in poverty than a child in any of the 18 other wealthy industrialized nations for which data exist. Many U.S. citizens are under the impression that U.S. children are in poverty because their parents don’t work. The Children's Defense Fund states that for the second consecutive year (2003) childhood poverty increased in working families:

"The number of poor children in working families increased to 8.6 million in 2003, up from 8.3 million in 2001—a rise of 355,000 children—according to an analysis of Census Bureau data by the Children's Defense Fund. Seven out of ten poor children lived in a family where someone worked for at least part of the year and almost three out of four poor children lived in families with full-time year-round workers in 2003.

"The number of children in extreme poverty (in families with incomes of one-half of the poverty level or lower) grew at almost twice the rate of increase for child poverty overall from 2002 to 2003 (11.5 percent compared to 6.0 percent). This significantly faster growth in extreme poverty is evidence of a collapse of the social safety net for children at the very bottom of the economic scale."

In the article, The Impact of Poverty on Children, an organization named, The Future of Children (Princeton-Brookings) has this to say:

"It is not difficult to document that poor children suffer a disproportionate share of deprivation, hardship, and bad outcomes. (See Table 1 in the article by Brooks-Gunn and Duncan in this journal issue.) As Sophie Tucker once observed, "I have been poor and I have been rich. Rich is better." Not only do poor children have access to fewer material goods than rich or middle-class children, but also they are more likely to experience poor health and to die during childhood. In school, they score lower on standardized tests and are more likely to be retained in grade and to drop out. Poor teens are more likely to have out-of-wedlock births and to experience violent crime. Finally, persistently poor children are more likely to end up as poor adults."

Education

On January 8, 2002, George W. Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). The act’s overall purpose is to ensure that children in every classroom enjoy the benefits of well-prepared teachers, research-based curriculum and safe learning environments.

In his 2006 budget, Bush targets Education for spending cuts. About one-third of the programs being targeted for elimination are in the Education Department, including federal grant programs for local schools in such areas as vocational education, supporting drug-free schools and Even Start, a $225 million literacy program.

In an analysis titled Nearly Every School District in America Left Behind by President's Education Budget, The Children’s Defense Fund reports on the reality of Bush’s NCLB:

"The Bush Administration, and its allies in Congress, have consistently shortchanged NCLB by billions of dollars. For the upcoming 2004–2005 school year, this underfunding already will result in 7,000 school districts and 11 states actually losing significant funding for Title I—the very program intended to raise the achievement of the nation's most disadvantaged students. The President's proposed budget for the 2005–2006 school year calls for $9.4 billion less than he and Congress agreed would be necessary to fund NCLB, including $7.1 billion less than the $20.5 billion promised for Title I. This shortfall will affect nearly every school district in America."

The following education programs are slated for major reductions or total elimination in the new Bush-Budget Proposal. If you think these programs need to go, see the descriptions of these programs in Major Reductions and Terminations in the 2006 Budget, published in the Washington Post).

Alcohol Abuse Reduction
Arts in Education
B.J. Stupak Olympic Scholarships
Close Up Fellowships
Community Technology Centers
Comprehensive School Reform
Demonstration Projects to Ensure
Quality Higher Education for Studentswith Disabilities
Dropout Prevention Programs
Eisenhower National Clearinghouse for Math and Science Education
Eisenhower Regional Math and Science Education Consortia
Elementary and Secondary School Counseling
Even Start
Excellence in Economic Education
Exchanges with Historic Whaling and Trading Partners
Federal Perkins Loans
Foreign Language Assistance
Javits Gifted and Talented Education
Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnerships
Literacy Programs for Prisoners
Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers
National Writing Project
Occupational and Employment Information
Parental Information and Resource Centers
Projects With Industry
Ready to Teach
Regional Educational Laboratories
Regional Technology in Education Consortia
School Leadership
Smaller Learning Communities
Star Schools
State Grants for Incarcerated Youth Offenders
Supported Employment State Grants
Tech-Prep Demonstration
Tech-Prep Education State Grants
Underground Railroad Program
Vocational Education National Programs
Women’s Educational Equity

The Bureau of Indians Affairs will be cut by $100 million. The reduction would come almost entirely from the agency's effort to build more schools.

Of great importance are the Bush-Budget cuts to the program that helps low-income people heat their homes. This will be especially important for the elderly and children living in cold climates in the U.S. The Bush-Budget will cut the $2.2 billion program from $2.2 billion to $2 billion as the price of home heating oil continues to climb, despite the invasion of Iraq and theft of their oil reserves.

USA Today reports that the Bush-Budget of 2006 will reduce funding for clean-water projects, Amtrak subsidies and air-traffic controllers. The highway bill under consideration in the Senate would provide $318 billion over six years for highway construction, maintenance and repair. This highway bill would provide a jobs program and a way of relieving traffic congestion. Bush wants to reduce that amount to to $256 billion. The fund is financed by an 18.4-cents-a-gallon gas tax. The administration warned against raising the tax.

The Bush-Budget will cut spending for the Army Corps of Engineers, whose dam and other waterway projects are needed

The Environmental Protection Agency will lose $8.1 billion (about 6%) in funding with most of the reductions coming in water programs.

The budget of the National Park Service will be cut nearly 3 percent to $2.2 billion.

The American Institute of Physics reports other Bush-Budget reductions in funding:

U.S. Geological Survey (total): -0.2%

National Science Foundation Research and Related Activities: -0.7%

U.S. Geological Survey Biological Research: -1.6%

National Science Foundation (total): -1.9%

NASA Science, Aeronautics and Exploration: -1.9%

U.S. Geological Survey Water Resources Investigations: -2.0%

U.S. Geological Survey Geologic Hazards, Resources, and Processes: -2.1%

U.S. Geological Survey Mapping, Remote Sensing
and Geographic Investigations: -8.5%

National Science Foundation Education and
Human Resources: -10.4%

Department of Energy Biological and
Environmental Research: -10.8%

National Institute of Standards and Technology
Advanced Technology Program: -17.0%

Department of Energy Science Laboratories
Infrastructure: -22.7%

U.S. Geological Survey Science Support: -27.8%

National Science Foundation Mathematics and Science Partnerships: -43.0%

If you think the programs listed below need to go, see descriptions of these services in Major Reductions and Terminations in the 2006 Budget, published in the Washington Post.

Natural Resource Conservation Service, Conservation Operations

Agricultural Research Service, Salaries and Expenses

CSREES, Research and Education Grants

Rural Utilities Service (RUS) Electric Loan Program

Loan Level Reductions

RUS Water and Wastewater (W&W) Grants

Rural Business Service (RBS) Value Added Marketing Grants

Rural Housing Service Rural Firefighter Training

RBS Rural Strategic Investment Program

RBS Rural Business Investment Program

Forest Service Forest Land Enhancement Program

Military Spending

Analyst Robert Higgs wrote that there is a great deal of hidden military spending that is not included in the official, annual military budget proposed by the White House and approved by the congress. Added to the official "defense" budget are outlays for the industrial military complex, for things like military-related agencies, interest on debt-financed military spending, U.S. foreign aid that is used as "foreign military financing". For example, the Democrats and Republicans in Congress approved an additional $62.6 billion last spring and a whopping $87 billion November for making war.

On January 19, 2004, Higgs wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle:

"The super-grand total in fiscal year 2004 will reach the astonishing amount of nearly $754 billion—or 88 percent more than the much-publicized [2004] $401.3 billion—plus, of course, any additional supplemental spending that may be approved before the end of the fiscal year."

The proposed spending in the new Bush-Budget (the biggest part of discretionary spending), is on target to rise by 4.8 percent in 2006 to $419.3 billion, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press. This figure does not include the additional $80 billion the administration has said it soon will seek to pay for the costs of continued Bush-wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We can be sure that it will be much higher.

Another beneficiary of the 2006 Bush-Budget will be the Coast Guard which Bush has now placed under the Department of Homeland Security. The Coast guard will get $8.1 billion, $600 million over this year. This will include a nice increase for Coast Guard plans to buy more oceangoing vessels which will put smiles on the face of the new chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Thad Cochran, a Republican from Mississippi where many of the ships are built.

According to the National Priorities Project, the cost of the Bush regime's war in Iraq thus far is pegged at $153.5 Billion+ and it continues to mount by the minute. 

The Deficit and National Debt

The current national debt is at a record high of $7.5 Trillion and climbing. The Bush-Budget proposal will spend $2.5 trillion in the budget year that begins Oct. 1. For the current year, he is estimating the budget deficit will reach a record $427 billion. compared with a deficit of $412 billion deficit last year. This will have been the third consecutive year that the Bush regime will have set record deficits. In an interview last Sunday, Dick Cheney refused to confirm or deny that this budget proposal could cost an estimated $4.5 trillion in additional government borrowing over 20 years.

Associated Press 

Associated Press 

Boston Globe

Families USA

Global Policy Forum

San Francisco Chronicle

American Institute of Physics