Below is a good article from TomPaine.com that analyzes the dishonest that has been put forth by the Bush Administration:"The budget George W. Bush submitted to the Congress yesterday is a lie and a moral disgrace. No surprise. Dead on arrival, it provides little more than carrion for what will be a long, vitriolic partisan food fight that will largely ignore the true challenges facing this country.
The budget is a lie because it shamelessly omits a true accounting of the nation’s financial outlook. To cover the costs of his tax cuts, the White House doesn’t supply projections beyond 2011. Its budget excludes the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan (to say nothing of Iran) after 2007. It omits the cost of fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax—which will total hundreds of billions over the next five years.
The budget is a moral disgrace because it shamelessly calls for lavishing benefits on the wealthy—$136,000 annually for those earning over a million a year—while inflicting pain on the most vulnerable—cuts in food programs for the impoverished elderly, in child care for poor working mothers, in preventive health care for vulnerable children. It would even eliminate Social Security’s token death benefit ($225) that helps poor families defray some of the cost of burial. It lavishes more than $500 billion—one half of all discretionary spending—on the Pentagon, the largest source of waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.
But this is simply business as usual for this administration. The worst spending cuts will be resisted and the Congress—while lining up to vote for the bloated military—is likely to defer most of the tax cuts. But the entire debate will leave Americans even more in the dark about how deep a hole we are in.
Much of the vitriol from both conservatives and Democrats will focus on the budget deficit. The president claims his plans will cut the deficit in half as a percentage of GDP over the next five years. Democrats are already exposing the omissions that make Bush’s promises a joke. But the ensuing partisan barrages will drown out any mention of the staggering deficit ignored by both parties—the investment deficit in areas vital to our future.
Consider energy independence. The Apollo Alliance has called for a $30-billion-a-year, 10-year investment program that would generate more than 3.3 million jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. By investing in energy efficiency and alternative energies, we could generate good jobs here, reduce our trade deficits, capture the growing green markets of the future, help clean our air and reduce respiratory diseases and begin to address the real and present danger of global warming. The president made a rhetorical bow to this imperative when he called for ending our “addiction to oil” in his State of the Union address. But there’s no 12-step program in his budget. Bush’s budget actually cuts funding for energy efficiency, and for research on hydropower and geothermal energy. In an annual budget of $2.7 trillion, $30 billion a year is a pittance, but the president is intent on putting a lid on domestic spending—not willing to add anything beyond the military and homeland security.
Consider education. Every American is taught the importance of getting a decent education. Yet, we’re not even providing the basics for children—infant health and nutrition, pre-school, small classes in early grades, skilled teachers, after-school programs, help for schools that aren’t working, and a guarantee that college is affordable. Bush’s budget reduces spending on education, training and related social services by 20 percent. Poor schools will get less money. The president once more breaks his promise to fund his own education reforms. He breaks his promise to raise Pell Grants, the basic college grant program. In a time when tuitions are soaring, Pell Grants will be frozen for the fifth year, and student loans will be more expensive. More and more students will be simply be priced out of the education that they need and have earned.
This investment deficit—in everything from transportation to modern communications to public health— has been building over the last 25 years of conservative rule. Conservatives are now scorning Bush as a big spender. And total federal spending is up as a percentage of the economy (GDP) to 20.1 percent since Bush has been in office. But that percentage is lower than spending any year from 1960 to 1996. Washington is fixated on the budget deficit, but Americans are suffering far more from a growing investment deficit.
Similarly, the Bush presentation utterly distorts the debate over “entitlements” for seniors. The president is earning praise for suggesting cuts in Medicare and Social Security, while warning of the impending crisis posed by the retirement of the baby boomers. But the true entitlement crisis has little to do with the retiring boomers and nothing to do with Social Security. The true problem is our utterly broken system of providing health care. We are now devoting more of our resources to health care than any industrial nation and suffering worse health. The president’s program—paring costs of Medicare and Medicaid, subsidizing individualized health insurance—is little more than a diversion from the debate we need to have on health care reform.
Dishonest figures. Disgraceful priorities. Debates that distort and distract. The budget doesn’t even try to estimate the staggering cost to the nation of three more years of this lame duck president. "
Congressman Ford is fighting hard for a budget that is honest and fair and that makes America competitive once again.
In a release earlier this month Ford said of the budget:
"Last night the President had some soaring rhetoric and lofty goals, but today, the Congress responded by telling students they would have to pay more for their student loans, business leaders that their interest rates will go up, seniors that their health care is going to be cut, and parents that their child support may be cut. We can do better. America needs a real competitiveness strategy that balances the budget, makes health care easier and cheaper to get and cuts taxes on the middle class. This budget moves us in the other direction," said Ford.
Once again Congressman Ford is fighting the good fight and looking for real solutions to real problems while his opponents do nothing except make up lies and attack him.
36 Days
Days of Congressional Inaction on Ethics
Above is the number of days that have passed since Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to bribing Congressman.
It is also the number of days in which Congress has failed to pass an ethics reform bill that would limit private travel, ski and golf junkets, and would call for a full disclosure of expenses by lobbyists on members of Congress.
It is time for Congress to step up and pass an ethics reform bill that would do all of the above. In addition, it is time to end the pork barrel spending system as we know it and establish an independent ethics commission that would review ethics complaints against members of Congress.
I am proud Congressman Harold Ford Jr. is fighting for that reform!
Read Congressman Ford's call for reform of the House rules here!
