Times Union
February 8, 2005
How is it possible to wage war in Iraq, partially privatize Social Security, grant prescription drug coverage under Medicare, permanently enact $1.2 trillion in tax cuts and still cut the national deficit in half by 2009? President Bush attempts to answer that question in the $2.5 trillion budget he proposed on Monday. But his numbers are out of touch with fiscal reality -- notwithstanding Vice President Dick Cheney's description of the spending plan as the tightest one this administration has ever sent to Congress.
As expected, the new budget targets some 150 programs for sharp funding cutbacks or outright elimination. Some proposed economies, such as cuts in farm subsidies, make sense. So do the proposed cuts in some weapons programs, such as slicing billions of dollars for the missile defense. Given the roaring deficits -- likely to reach a record $427 billion this year -- such expenditures can't be justified.
But other proposed cuts make no sense at all. Amtrak would lose its operating subsidy, for example. Last year, the White House proposed a $900 million subsidy and Congress raised that to $1.2 billion. Besides this drastic cut, the new budget would also eliminate $20 million earmarked for high-speed rail, as well as $250 million for railroad maintenance. These cuts would hurt the urban areas that are most dependent on mass transit.
Moreover, while President Bush received strong support in his State of the Union message last week when he called for every county in the nation to have a health clinic for the poor, his new budget would slash $94 million from the Healthy Communities Access Program, shut down the Community Food and Nutrition Program, and gradually eliminate rural health grants.
Perhaps the most wrongheaded proposals come in the areas of education. For all of his commitment to the No Child Left Behind Act, Mr. Bush's new budget would savage 43 separate education programs, including $2.2 billion in state grants for high school vocational education. Given the need for trained workers to fill the technology jobs of the future, these cuts are shortsighted.
Yet even if all 150 proposed cuts were to be approved by Congress -- a highly unlikely prospect given that many of the programs targeted by Mr. Bush are dear to individual lawmaker's constituencies -- the combined savings would total just $15 billion. That would be far short of the savings needed to cut the deficit in half by 2009.
At the same time, the proposed budget doesn't include spending for Iraq or Afghanistan. Those monies will be sought in a supplemental request, the White House says. Nor does the new budget include the early costs of transforming Social Security into a partially privatized system -- assuming Congress approves such a plan.
Mr. Bush needs to get real. He must reconsider his costly tax cuts. And he must start vetoing pork-laden spending bills that Congress sends to him -- something he didn't do in his first term. As Willie Sutton once said, that's where the money is.