E.J. Dionne is mad. Hear him roar:
Let's get this straight: The administration wants $87 billion in new spending for Iraq, refuses to contemplate rolling back any of its tax cuts to pay for it -- and then proposes holding down new spending on child care for mothers trying to leave welfare.
Oh, yes, and on Sunday, Vice President Cheney insisted that although he and President Bush have presided over a deficit that's reaching well beyond $500 billion this year, we shouldn't worry. Why? "I am a deficit hawk," Cheney explained. "So is the president." Don't you feel better?
The way to reach a balanced budget, Cheney insisted on "Meet the Press," was "to have fiscal discipline on the rest of the budget." That presumably includes child care.
Oh, good heavens! The Children (TM) are in Danger! Whatever else you do in Washington, you can never hurt The Children (TM)!
I won't bore you with the details. But suffice it to say that it involves two hard-hearted Texans cruelly going around making poor mothers on welfare and The Children (TM) suffer needlessly, all while a few liberal Republicans and their Democratic allies seek to thwart these nefarious plans.
What's certain is that the administration believes that making high-income taxpayers "struggle a little bit" is definitely a bad thing. On that "Meet the Press" appearance, Cheney was asked about freezing the administration's tax cut for the top 1 percent of Americans, which, as host Tim Russert pointed out, would generate enough money to cover the $87 billion for the war in Iraq.
No way, said Cheney. "I think it would be a mistake," he replied, "because you can't look at that without considering what its impact would be on the economy. An awful lot of the returns in that top bracket are small businesses, and they provide an awful lot of job growth in this economy."
In a nifty move, Cheney manages to hide all of the nation's millionaires and corporate CEOs -- New York Stock Exchange Chairman Dick Grasso and his $140 million compensation package come to mind -- behind the proprietor of your local laundry or the owner of the neighborhood machine shop. I guess that struggle is a real motivator for Burger King Mom, but not for guys like Grasso.
Ummm...EJ? Cheney may have a point. Those small businesses you think are just a screen for millionaires and their filthy lucre? According to the Small Business Administration, they employ about 109 million people. That's about half of the jobs in the United States. More money to them equals more jobs for schmucks like me. Which means people like me do not have to get their kneecaps broken. Capice?
It would be hard to find a clearer example of why the administration is running into increasing bitterness and opposition over its Iraq policies. By refusing to budge on any of its tax-cutting priorities, the administration is putting many of those who agree that more money needs to be spent on Iraq in an impossible position. If they vote for the money, they know they will be adding to the deficit -- and creating even more excuses to short the working poor.
That's why Congress should reject the new money for Iraq -- beyond what's immediately needed by our troops -- until the administration gives some ground on its tax cuts. Making the administration struggle a little bit would not necessarily be the worst thing.
The oldest trick in the book. See, the government spends a lot of money on a lot of things it neither it nor the people need. Naturally, the government and its political allies want the government to keep what it has and get more. So what they do is when the call for fiscal discipline comes down, they offer up the most politically sensitive programs first. (Usually anything involving The Children (TM), or police, or national defense, or the elderly.) This allows them to look poor while keeping their pork, and make the rest of us feel guilty enough to let them have more of our money. This is what is happening in the Beltway, again. Shame on the democrats for pulling this stunt...again. Even greater shame on Bush for falling for it.
In the world of Harry Potter, there is a demon called a Boggart, "a shape-shifter that takes on the form of its intended victim's worst fear. It generally likes to hide in dark, enclosed places, such as in closets, under beds, or in hollow trees." Boggarts, however, can be defeated simply by 1. Recognizing what they are, 2. Laughing at them, and 3. Giving them a quick blast of the Riddikulus charm. What Mr. Dionne is ranting about, and what everyone in Washington is frightened of, is a Budget Boggart, in this case, one that is taking the form of "Guns vs. Butter," or in this specific case, "Iraq vs. The Children (TM)." So how does one stop a Budget Boggart? Same steps as a regular Boggart. Identify, laugh, and kill.
In this case, steps #1 and #2 have already been taken care of. Citizens Against Government Waste have compiled a list of all the wasteful spending in Washington, line by dirty line. Everything from duplicate agencies to corporate welfare.
So I whipped out my printing calculator, picked an agency from the drop down menu, and went to work. Half an hour and three feet of calculator tape later, I had found exactly $87.003 billion dollars in things that we could easily do without. (For the picky, the cuts were made in Agency-wide spending, Treasury, Agriculture, Interior, the SBA, the EPA, several Independant Agencies, Education, the USPS, the GSA, State, Commerce, the FDIC, Legislative and Judicial branches, plus selected cuts from Transportation, Labor, Justice and HUD. I didn't even have to touch Health & Human Services, foreign aid, Defense, Veterans Affairs, FEMA, or Social Security. And this is just government operations and a few grants to states.) That's the president's whole $87 billion for Iraq right there, plus a lot more for E.J. and The Children (TM). Your mileage may very. Dionne's raving about how much Republicans hate children and families is starting to look very, ahem... Riddikulus by comparison.
Now if only Bush would whip out his wand...er, pen, make the cuts, and have enough of a spine to tell Congress to take their pork and shove it up their barrels, thus saving $87 billion for people who could really use the cash.
Posted by Thief at September 16, 2003 02:35 PM