[NV Greens] Fwd: The Era of Exploitation

[Paul Etxeberri]

>
>
>The New York Times
>
>March 25, 2005
>
>Op-ed columnist
>
>The Era of Exploitation
>
>By Bob Herbert
>
>Congress is in recess and the press has gone berserk
>over the Terri Schiavo case. So very little attention
>is being paid to pending budget proposals that are
>scandalously unfair, but that pretty accurately reflect
>the kind of country the U.S. has become.
>
>President Bush believes in an "ownership" society,
>which means that except for the wealthy, you're on your
>own. The president's budget would cut funding for
>Medicaid, food stamps, education, transportation,
>health care for veterans, law enforcement, medical
>research and safety inspections for food and drugs.
>And, of course, it contains big new tax cuts for the
>wealthy.
>
>These are the new American priorities. Republicans will
>tell you they were ratified in the last presidential
>election. We may be locked in a long and costly war,
>and federal deficits may be spiraling toward the moon,
>but the era of shared sacrifices is over. This is the
>era of entrenched exploitation. All sacrifices will be
>made by working people and the poor, and the vast bulk
>of the benefits will accrue to the rich.
>
>F.D.R. would have stared slack-jawed at this madness.
>Even his grand Social Security edifice is under assault
>by the vandals of the G.O.P.
>
>While the press and the public are distracted by one
>sensational news story after another - Terri Schiavo,
>Michael Jackson, steroids in baseball, etc. - the
>president and his party have continued their
>extraordinary campaign to undermine the programs that
>were designed to fend off destitution and provide a
>reasonable foundation of economic security for those
>not blessed with great wealth.
>
>President Bush has proposed more than $200 billion
>worth of cuts in domestic discretionary programs over
>the next five years, and cuts of $26 billion in
>entitlement programs. The Center on Budget and Policy
>Priorities, which analyzed the president's proposal,
>said:
>
>"Figures in the budget show that child-care assistance
>would be ended for 300,000 low-income children by 2009.
>The food stamp cut would terminate food stamp aid for
>approximately 300,000 low-income people, most of whom
>are low-income working families with children. Reduced
>Medicaid funding most certainly would cause many states
>to cut their Medicaid programs, increasing the ranks of
>the uninsured."
>
>Education funding would be cut beginning next year, and
>the cuts would grow larger in succeeding years. Food
>assistance for pregnant women, infants and children
>would be cut. Funding for H.I.V. and AIDS treatment
>would be cut by more than half a billion dollars over
>five years. Support for environmental protection
>programs would be sharply curtailed. And so on.
>
>Conservatives insist the cuts are necessary to get the
>roaring federal budget deficit under control. But they
>have trouble keeping a straight face when they tell
>that story. Laden with tax cuts, the president's
>proposal will result in an increase, not a decrease, in
>the deficit. Shared sacrifice is anathema to the big-
>money crowd.
>
>The House has passed a budget that is similar to the
>president's, except it contains even deeper cuts in
>programs that affect the poor. In the Senate, a handful
>of Republicans balked at the cuts proposed for
>Medicaid. Casting their votes with the Democrats, they
>were able to eliminate the cuts from the Senate budget
>proposal. The Senate also added $5.4 billion in
>education funding for 2006.
>
>All the budgets contain more than $100 billion in tax
>cuts over the next five years, which makes a mockery of
>the G.O.P.'s budget-balancing rhetoric. When Congress
>returns from its Easter recess, the Republican
>leadership will try to reconcile the differences in the
>various proposals. Whatever happens will be bad news
>for ordinary Americans. Big cuts are coming.
>
>The advances in areas like education, antipoverty
>programs, health services, environmental protection and
>food safety were achieved after struggles that, in some
>cases, took many decades. To slide backward now
>(hurting millions of people in the process) because of
>a desire to siphon funds from those programs and hand
>them over as tax cuts to the wealthiest members of our
>society, is obscene.
>
>This is not a huge national story. It's just the way
>things are. It was Herbert Hoover who said: "You know,
>the only trouble with capitalism is capitalists.
>They're too damn greedy."
>
>E-mail: bobherb at nytimes.com
>
>Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/25/opinion/herbert25.1.html?hp
>_______________________________________________________
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand