March 2003

It’s The Economy Stupid

Well, the Bush budget proposal is on the streets, and it contains nothing but bad news. It calls for the expenditure of 2.2 trillion dollars, and forecasts a deficit of 304 billion dollars for the next fiscal year. Over the next 5 years, the Bush budget forecasts deficits of over 1 trillion dollars. Mitch Danielson, the Bush budget advisor, say that the deficits are of no consequence, and blames them on outside events…keep in mind, as Candidate Bush, deficits were totally unacceptable…right.

As a PR scam, the Bush budget is a masterpiece…there are color photos of many Afghan children lining up for kindergarten, and pictures of brave, young men and women soldiers. As a serious economic framework, it is absolute folly. This Bush/Cheney/Rumsfield/Rove magnum opus calls for an increase of 380 billion dollars for the Defense Department, and a 41 billion dollar increase for the new Homeland Security Department. This budget does not even factor the cost of a war with Iraq. This would come as an emergency allocation from the Congress … estimates of the cost of this military adventure range from a low of 50 billion dollars to a whopping 1 trillion dollars. These figures do not include the cost of nation- building…after the regime change…more on that later.

As you might have guessed, this economic pipe dream calls for enormous cuts in domestic spending. At a recent meeting of religious broadcasters in Nashville, our ever-so-sincere President spoke about the need for ‘compassion’ in public policy…how about that? Against that backdrop his budget will drop the hammer on the needy, the elderly, the disabled, and just about everybody else except for 5% of the wealthiest Americans. Housing subsidies for the elderly will be whacked, funding for about 500,000 kids in after school programs is on the line…this is truly a travesty. So much for the government commitment to helping single parents keep their jobs. Did you know that most juvenile crimes are committed in the hours immediately following the end of the school day? Did you know
that a great majority of teenage girls who are pregnant got pregnant in the hours immediately following the end of the
school day. Go get ‘em, oh compassionate leader…take those kids off the dole…who needs a supervised after school program for those young criminals? The new budget also calls for a reduction in aid to rural schools, cuts in subsidies for public housing construction, and an end to federal financing for extra police.

Just weeks before he revealed his budget, Bush introduced an economic stimulus plan to the Congress. The bill for that is 670 billion dollars. It calls for acceleration of the aforementioned tax cuts for the wealthy; furthermore, it calls for the elimination of taxes on stock dividends. This ‘stimulus’ package proposes making it more difficult for families in the ‘economic borderline’ status to qualify for any federal assistance…whether it be food, heat or health insurance. This plan offers no federal assistance to state and local governments…who will surely be expected to pick up the slack left by the Bush plan.

How about the backbreaking shortfalls that almost every state and municipality are now experiencing?? New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg recently raised property taxes by 17 per cent. He is raising transit fares, tolls and parking fines. He has cut services, laid off municipal workers, and still NYC faces a 2 billion dollar shortfall for the current fiscal year…and a 12 billion dollar deficit for the coming fiscal year…and still no help from Uncle W.

Consider Ohio where Republicans have ‘run the table’ in nearly every election for the past 12 years. Their ‘tax and spend Democrats’ mantra has rewarded them with nearly every elected office in the state…yet they find themselves in perilous economic waters… drowning…Mr. GOP Taft is proposing tax increases on everything
from tickets to sporting events to massages to manicures to a six pack of beer. The Republican economic program is firmly ensconced in this state, yet our elected officials find themselves dead-ass broke…hustling like pimps to raise money and cut expenses to every fucking program in the state. So much for fiscal conservatism…and still no help from W….what is wrong with this picture??

Ohio is not alone in this predicament. From California to Virginia, from Oregon to Massachusetts, state and local governments are in dire economic straits. Oregon has shortened the school year by 3 weeks…a Coos Bay American history teacher wondered whether he would cut his unit on the civil rights struggle or the one on the Vietnam war. Kentucky has released several nonviolent prison inmates simply because they couldn’t afford to keep them locked up. California is staggering under their budgetary situation….but part of their problem goes back to the days when Enron ripped them off for 30 billion dollars and then conveniently declared bankruptcy.

The official unemployment figures for January were just released, and according to them the jobless rate dropped
to 5.7%…a figure that is completely off-the-wall. It doesn’t count the people who have stopped looking for work. This cadre of so-called ‘discouraged workers’ has grown by over a million since last summer. The official unemployment rate also does not factor in another serious employment problem…the burgeoning number of hard core jobless, undereducated 16 to 24 year olds hanging out on the streets with nothing much to do. Some estimates
indicate that there are about 5.5 million of these folks, and their numbers are increasing daily. And still no help from
W.

Our Boy Wonder insists that he is concerned about unemployment… a recent CNN sound byte says he won’t be satisfied until every man and woman who wants a job can get one. Sure. Just how in the hell does he intend to do that? With more tax cuts for the wealthy? With more welfare for the rich? So here stands our fearless leader with his 13 pound, high- gloss PR scam disguised as fiscal responsibility…the economy is in the tank. Citizens are faced with the tough choices daily…will it be food or heat or medication? Cities and states can’t pay their bills…and still no help from W.

There is yet another astounding number that the Bush economic program has failed to address…41 million. 41 million Americans have no fucking health insurance, and most of these people are employed. They earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, and too little to afford health insurance. He has already raided the Social Security and Medicare cookie jars. These programs had surpluses before the tax cut fueled recession of 2001…but that’s all gone now. And still no help from W.

So it has come to this. We are an underemployed nation, on the brink of a war that we can’t afford, in debt up to our ears while we daily amass more debt.

Our grandchildren will be footing the bill for Bush’s wretched excess. Oh yeah…about the tab for our Iraq adventure..if you think the military action will be expensive, just wait until the bills come in for nation-building. New York Times correspondent, Tom Friedman referred to it as the ‘pottery shop rule’—if you break it you bought it’…quite true…we are about to break Iraq…can we afford to put it back together again??

The Bush economic vision is a wet dream for the hard core right wingers…social programs die of starvation while there is ample welfare for the rich. In a recent New York Times column, Bob Herbert quoted the late Tip O’Neal on Ronald Reagan…”He has no concern, no regard, no care for the little man of America.” “George W. Bush,” continued Herbert, “is making the Gipper look like a softy.” And you are right…still no help from W.