[Mb-civic] Molly Ivins: Can the tax cuts, cure the country

Fri Feb 18 21:01:44 PST 2005

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/columnists/molly_ivins/1
0884556.htm?1c

	Posted on Sun, Feb. 13, 2005		

Can the tax cuts, cure the country

By Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate

AUSTIN - I feel snakebit about praising any proposal by George W. 
Bush. Every time I write a column saying, "Look, he's done 
something good!" he does something else that makes it either not 
so good or just plain bad.

But I did find a good idea in Bush's budget: putting a lower cap on 
farm subsidies.

Three-fourths of federal crop subsidies go to the wealthiest 10 
percent of agriculture businesses. This is not a red state-blue state 
issue. Two-thirds of American farms -- those run by families and 
small operators -- do not qualify for subsidies at all.

For years, agribusiness has successfully hidden behind the sacred 
shield of "the family farmer," who is still getting taken. It's a 
monumental rip-off, made worse by a loophole that has allowed 
some huge agribusiness firms to collect millions of dollars a year by 
disguising themselves as several corporations.

Farm conservation programs make much more sense and do 
benefit family farmers.

And that said, what a sham, what a rotten, phony, fake document 
this 2006 budget is.

In the first place, they're trying to fool you into thinking the deficit is 
less than it is by using a fake number from the previous year -- an 
early deficit estimate set way high so they could claim the deficit had 
been "dramatically reduced."

Last year's actual deficit was $412 billion, the largest ever, and 
under Bush's budget this year, it will be $427 billion. The actual 
deficit, with war spending included, would balloon to $1.4 trillion by 
2010 under this plan.

In the second place, the budget contains none of the expenses for 
the war in Iraq or Bush's plan for Social Security.

Third, the values reflected in this budget are deformed.

The cuts take away from schools in need, child-care assistance, 
environmental programs (a whopping 10.4 percent cut there), 
students (he lied about Pell grants), veterans, Medicaid, food 
stamps -- basically the weakest and the poorest Americans.

The money goes overwhelmingly to the richest Americans, who 
would get the permanent tax cuts, and to the Department of 
Defense, the monster.

According to this budget, Defense gets a 4.8 percent increase, bad 
enough (again, this is without counting Iraq). But as William Saleton 
explains in an article on Slate.com, what Secretary Donald 
Rumsfeld has done is to hide at least $40 billion in normal defense 
expenditures in the supplementary appropriation that will have to be 
passed for the war in Iraq.

When he was asked if he was hiding regular spending in the 
emergency wartime bill, Rumsfeld said: "That would be wrong, and 
we wouldn't do that. It's all right out in the open."

Whereupon the press laughed merrily. Saleton estimates it's a 10 
percent increase, without Iraq. Others put it even higher. Ha, ha, ha.

Hubert Humphrey said, "The moral test of government is how that 
government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; 
those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in 
the shadows of life -- the sick, the needy, the handicapped."

Bush seems to think they're all targets.

I'm a great believer in put-up-or-shut-up, so here's where I'd get the 
money to pay for those programs.

Don't make the tax cuts permanent -- they do go disproportionately 
to the very richest people in this country, and it's gross. And stop the 
two new tax cuts that go only to the very, very rich.

Don't put another nickel, not to mention another $9.7 billion, into that 
ridiculous boondoggle, Star Wars.

Track down the $8.8 billion the inspector general for Iraq 
reconstruction now says is effectively unaccounted for because of 
"severe inefficiencies and poor management." The scathing report 
also says lack of oversight opened the funds to corruption.

Oh, and if Congress would like to retain the power of the purse, I 
suggest it look very closely at the fine print in this doozy.

It proposes biennial budgeting and appropriations (of course, not in 
election years), automatic appropriations, a presidential veto on the 
joint budget resolution (Congress' planning document for 
appropriations) and much, much more.
Molly Ivins writes for Creators Syndicate. 5777 W. Century Blvd., 
Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045

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