BUSH BUDGET BAD NEWS FOR MOST AMERICANS

Caption: The Bush administration has its priorities backwards once again.

Here we go again! President Bush recently submitted his proposed federal budget to Congress.

Here's the non-surprise of the year...it contains more tax breaks for the wealthy and program cuts for just about everyone else.

Oh yeah, and lots of money for the unnecessary war in Iraq.

Here's a preliminary analysis from Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. A sample:

In a sign of the President’s misguided priorities, his budget puts extremely large tax cuts for the most affluent Americans ahead of the needs of low- and middle-income families as well as future generations. Low- and middle-income Americans would be hit by budget cuts in areas from education to protection of the environment and assistance to the poor. Future generations would foot the bill for the much larger long-term deficits that the President’s extravagant tax cuts would produce. The tax cuts in the budget far exceed proposed reductions in domestic programs.

Among programs targeted for cuts are the Children's Health Insurance Program, low income home energy assistance, child care assistance for low income working families, Head Start, food programs for low income elderly Americans. Cuts are also proposed for mandatory programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Tax cuts for the wealthy would be made permanent, adding between $2.3 to $3.5 trillion in costs over the next ten years. Needless to say, all this would increase the nation's growing inequality and the national debt.

As the Charleston Gazette noted about the war budget:

The White House plan would pump another $100 billion into the Iraq and Afghan wars this year, plus $145 billion more next year. The Pentagon budget would leap to $625 billion a year — perhaps exceeding the warmaking expenditures of all other nations on Earth, combined.

CONGRESSIONAL RESPONSE. The Bush budget won't be received with many cartwheels in Congress, where the new majority will face some difficult decisions. As the New York Times

put it yesterday,

...Democrats know that the only way they can find the revenue to restore the administration’s proposed spending cuts would be to cut back on military spending, delay their stated intentions to balance the budget or rescind the Bush tax cuts in future years. They are not especially eager to do any of these.

The most likely result, even some Democrats acknowledge, will be a limited reshaping of the budget by restoring some proposed cuts in a variety of domestic programs, including children’s health care, Head Start and home heating assistance for the poor and the elderly.

I hope they'll do better than that. In any case, advocates of working people, the elderly, and children will have another budget battle in the days ahead.

RANDOM THOUGHT OF THE DAY: If you ever get really bored, try this. Watch infomercials on TV. It doesn't matter what they're for--exercise gear, cleaning materials, cookware, health gimmicks. Then call the toll-free number and ask whoever answers stupid questions about the product, such as a. Can this be used for time travel? b. Will it remove the taint of Original Sin? Does it convey the power of invisibility? El Cabrero and his cabritos used to pass many a dull afternoon in this manner.

Goat Rope...your source for better living.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

HEALTH CARE FOR AMERICA AND A WAGE UPDATE

Caption: This is a plan even a snowy goat would like.

The health care debate is heating up once again in America.

One interesting example is the recent alliance of AARP, the Service Employees International Union, and the Business Roundtable, which have joined to urge Congress to take action to address the health care crisis.

Business Week recently noted another kind of health care related economic problem: "job lock." Kelly Services Chief Executive Carl T. Camden is among those advocating a major health care fix. According to the article, titled "Held Hostage By Health Care,"

Workers, he says are increasingly shackled to their jobs for no reason other than to cling to their employer's health insurance coverage. These are people, he says, "who don't leave a job even though they're unhappy and would be more productive somewhere else."

Of all the proposals on the table, probably the least appealing are the President's, which would tax workers with good benefits, cut Medicare, and push health savings accounts.

One of the most interesting has been proposed by the Economic Policy Institutes's Agenda for Shared Prosperity, which would

extend insurance to all non-elderly Americans through a new Medicare-like program and workplace health insurance, while creating an effective framework for controlling medical costs and improving health outcomes to guarantee affordable, quality care to all.

This proposal merits serious discussion and isn't out of step with public opinion. In Sept. 2006, an ABC News/Kaiser Family Foundation/USA Today survey found that 56 percent of Americans would support a government-run program "like Medicare." More on this to come.

MINIMUM WAGE UPDATE. While we wait for more action on minimum wages at the federal level, the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign just announced that there are now 500 business owners or executives who have signed on to a statement in support of the increase. To view the statement and signatories, click here. If you know of sympathetic executives or business owners, please urge them to add their names to the growing list.

RANDOM THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The next time you are at a meeting and someone says "Are there any questions?," ask the following: "What is the square root of negative 1?"

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED