The federal deficit is soaring. The war on Iraq is costing more than a billion dollars per week. On top of all of this, add the renewal of the Bush tax cuts, additional funds for the war, past the 87 billion already allotted and you have a recipe for disaster. The Bush administration has not only cut the federal income, but increased its spending. This total lack of responsibility is threatening the safety and prosperity of the American people.

Mr. Bush’s new spending bill exceeds more than 870 billion dollars, and yet is woefully lacking in the areas the country needs the most funding increase in. It proposes that, to save money, the federal government decrease the time it keeps background checks on gun purchasers, from 90 days to 24 hours. This is an appalling example of the Bush administrations total disregard for the safety of it citizens. If anything, the time period is too short, yet Bush has traded political favors at the cost of American lives. This is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

When Mr. Bush introduced the “No Child Left Behind Act”, it had enormous bipartisan support. Liberals like Sen. Ted Kennedy and conservatives like Sen. Bill Frist supported it, and welcomed it as the dawn of a new educational era. However, when it was never specified where the 9.4 billion in funding would come from, the states had to go into debt to pay for the act. This enormous un-funded mandate forced all the states to comply with it, yet never provided the promised funding. Massachusetts is just one of the states facing a deficit, due in part to this. Ohio alone would have to pay more than 1.4 billion past federal aid to comply. “No Child Left Behind” does just that: leaves the children behind. It is a sorry excuse for reform and does not aid in the least millions of American children. It’s another issue being renewed by Bush’s budget, a futile attempt to “strengthen” our country.



If we want to just examine numbers, the horrifying nature of the budget is truly revealed. It decreased funding in every government agency except the Dept. of Homeland Security, which saw a 9.7 percent increase. Funding was cut to the Environmental Protection Agency by 7 percent, or more than 600 million dollars, and gave people earning more than a million dollars a year over $107,000 in tax cuts, while people in the middle income bracket would receive less than $655. The Bush Administration, which promised 1,836,000 new jobs by the end of this year delivered 221,000, a 1.6 million-job shortfall. Mr. Bush’s budget assumes more than 1.3 billion dollars in profit from ANWAR drilling, a proposition Congress has voted down more than three times. This total disregard for the actions of Congress is chilling.

This deficiency in understanding is not only affecting politicians in Washington or autoworkers in Michigan. We can see evidence of it at home too. Crumbling schools, underpaid teachers, and states unwilling to make up the margin. Taxes are being raised on a local level to give only the basics of education. While it is unfair to place blame entirely on the Bush administration, it is because of public policies championed by Republicans and sometimes Mr. Bush that we find ourselves in this mess today.

There are 43.6 million uninsured people in this country, and the only solution the Bush Administration added to their budget to deal with this was a 534 billion dollar giveaway to the pharmaceutical and HMO corporations. Simply meaning he has cut Medicaid and Medicare, and increased government overpayment of the large HMO’s. Remember back in the State of the Union when Bush promised 15 billion in funding for fighting AIDS in Africa? That never happened. The budget falls more than 200 million dollars short of the promised 3 billion dollars over a 5-year period. While this is still a substantial amount, it is another example of Mr. Bush not following through on his promises. This new budget is distressing, and hopefully Congress will have the foresight to vote it down.

No one is perfect, and no budget can please all factions. But when a fiscally and social irresponsible financial plan is passed off as sound reason, it demonstrates a profound lack of compassion for the more than 6 million unemployed and all members of the struggling U.S. economy. George Bush has often quipped about his tax cuts, “It’s your money.” He’s right, it is our money. But now, this budget and deficit is our problem.