Editorial: Deficit or Deficiency?

In his new budget proposal, President George Bush has uncovered a way to cut the large national deficit by almost a third. Bush's plan proposes decreasing social spending while increasing military and homeland security spending. "My administration has focused the nation's resources on our highest priority - protecting our citizens and our homeland," said Bush.

Not only will the budget deficit decline dramatically in this plan, but there will somehow be more money available for military spending as well. Fact is, the United States is currently facing a record high deficit of $432 billion for the last fiscal year and a dramatic change is indeed in order. The logic of cutting programs is a good one, maybe not the best method since areas like healthcare are indeed important, but why does military spending gain funds instead of losing them?

BBC News reports that Bush is seeking a 6.9% hike in US military spending and a 3.3% rise in homeland security funds. The increase goes hand in hand with cuts in Medicare and "savings in vocational education, justice and transportation." Healthcare takes the biggest blow in this proposed budget, which requires major cuts in key funded areas.

Bush hopes his budget will halve the national deficit by the year 2009 with these cuts but there are other controversial issues in this budget beyond reducing social spending while increasing military/defense spending, tax cuts. New York Times writer Paul Krugman calls the latest budget proposal "top-down class warfare in action." Krugman is talking about backdoor tax cuts that benefit the wealthy since 97% would go to people with incomes exceeding $200,000. He also found that a rollback in tax rates for high-income brackets, on capital gains and on dividend income, would also eliminate roughly a third of the deficit without negatively affecting middle class families.

Cutting small programs that do little do affect the budget deficit must be done in large amounts to have a real impact and that is what Bush is proposing. Instead of targeting a few rich people, Bush is targeting "hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable Americans," said Krugman. If the plan is approved in Congress, it would be harder for low-income families to receive food stamps or child care assistance. Cuts in education programs, health care, veteran's benefits and the environment would occur as well. Even children's health insurance, aid to law enforcement, farm subsidies and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would receive big cuts as well.

Unless you are a rich American, it seems as if the United States is not a good place to live (especially if your hunting buddy is Dick Cheney). While it is true that Americans will be quite safe in our homeland, it does not seem to matter as much if you actually survive while living here. This statement is undoubtedly untrue but can you blame a low-income, working class family or an elderly citizen for feeling this way? It is their own president that is proposing to cut programs that will make life even harder. Hopefully congressmen can see past the deficit-fixing budget plan and see that Bush's plan is actually deficient.