|
|
| |
| Mon, Sep. 8, 2008 |  |
 |
|
||
| |
Cheney breaks tie; class massacre ensues Saturday, Dec 24, 2005 By John Brummett Vice President Dick Cheney rushed back from Iraq to cast a dramatic tie-breaking vote Wednesday. Thus the U.S. Senate salvaged a subsidy for sugar producers while cutting funds for Medicare, Medicaid and student loans. The combination will make a tiny dent estimated at $39 billion over five years in a federal budget deficit amounting to 40 times that during those five years. It's a deficit run up in large part by the Bush administration's tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Let's put all that another way: It's a merry Christmas from the Bush White House and the Republican Senate for rich folks and sugar producers. It's a sparse stocking for old folks, sick folks, poor folks and college students whose interest rates on their loans will go up. All 44 Democrats in the Senate, including our Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, voted against this budget bill. They said the cuts on working and vulnerable Americans were too harsh, particularly against the backdrop of tax cuts for the rich. Joining them was Jim Jeffords, the Vermont independent. Five moderate Republicans joined in opposition as well. They were Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island, Gordon Smith of Oregon, Mike DeWine of Ohio and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine. That made 50, necessitating Cheney's return for the tie-breaker. For a while, it had appeared that Cheney's vote wouldn't matter. A sixth Republican, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, was opposed to the bill because it scaled back subsidies for sugar producers. But the Republican leadership restored the sugar subsidies so that Coleman would cast an essential vote to cut Medicare, Medicaid and student loans. They could have lowered some of the Medicare and Medicaid premium increases instead, and maybe picked up a moderate Democrat here and there - say, Lincoln or Pryor. But they went with the Republican special interest rather than the Democratic general interest. Needing to buy a vote somewhere, they spent their money on sugar producers instead of disabled old folks needing home health care. It is as simple as that. The wealthy elite get a series of lucrative cuts in their tax rates from the Bush administration. The Clinton surplus is squandered and the budget deficit soars. The Republicans say they must responsibly reduce that onerous deficit, which they blame on social spending, not tax cuts. They do not take back the tax cuts. Instead, they increase patient costs under Medicare and Medicaid. They increase interest rates on student loans. They keep a subsidy for sugar producers. They say the Democrats, who opposed the tax cuts in the first place because they would inevitably force these kinds of cuts, are the irresponsible ones, the obstructionists. Republicans allege that rhetoric of the kind in this column amounts to class warfare, and is bad. But there's no class warfare. It takes two armed sides to wage war. This is class massacre. For a primer on how to reduce the deficit fairly and responsibly, please see Clinton's first presidential year, 1993. He proposed reductions in rates of spending growth over seven years on a wide variety of programs. He proposed increased taxes, not decreased ones, on the top bracket. He used basic arithmetic, in other words. Clinton passed his budget by Al Gore's tie-breaking vote. When Clinton left office seven years later, the country enjoyed prosperity and the government had a surplus exceeding $200 billion. I'm starting to wonder if maybe I shouldn't have appreciated Our Boy Bill a little more. ------- John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699. |
