Opinion

A divided GOP cuts programs for the poor

Congressional Republicans pulled their divided caucus together and passed a budget through the House on Friday. It's now in the hands of the Senate, and the upper chamber needs to take a serious look at retaining beneficial assistance programs while bringing deficit spending under control. The House budget bill's negotiations exposed deep divisions among Republican moderates and hard-liners. The bill passed in the House by a narrow 217-215 vote after weeks in which moderates and conservatives batted about major portions. On Thursday - the day before the bill passed - moderate Republicans opposed to broad cuts in health care and education programs joined a united Democratic Party in turning down a previous spending package that cut more deeply into necessary programs. Yet Friday's approved five-year spending plan still cuts funds for programs such as food stamps, Medicaid and student lunch programs. The spending package represents a failure by elected leaders to make decisions that would significantly cut the $319 billion budget deficit. When President Bush took office in 2001, he inherited a budget surplus of $236 billion left to him by the Clinton administration. Tax cuts, the war in Iraq and homeland security have fueled much of the deficit spending. The budget passed on Friday cuts spending by approximately $50 billion, nowhere near the budget deficit. The budget process will be remembered for a pork-heavy transportation bill that may have awakened in Americans a knowledge about excesses in congressional spending. Two notable transportation bill "earmarks" - as pork is known in Washington - were bridges in Alaska. One was the "bridge to nowhere." The two would have cost taxpayers more than $440 million. A story in Salon.com reported that $223 million was set aside to build a bridge from Gravina Island, population less than 50, to Ketchikan, population 8,000. It would have been 80 feet taller than the Brooklyn Bridge and almost as long as the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. The other bridge would have connected Anchorage to Port MacKenzie, population 1, and to Knik, population 22, at a cost to taxpayers of $231 million. After heavy press coverage, funding for both bridges was removed from the transportation plan in an effort to build support for the budget.

In a more positive direction, but in an issue that divided Republicans, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was removed from the budget. Yet while oil companies may have lost that battle, they are poised to win another. A Senate plan to impose a $4.3 billion tax on oil companies has not been warmly received at the White House. Bush is threatening to make it his first veto if it is sent to him. The House vote was secured by Republicans after the Alaskan drilling was removed and cuts to programs that aid America's poor were moderated to about $4 billion over the next 5 years. Nonetheless, the cuts will come at the expense of programs that include those specifically intended to help the poor. And the House budget preserves tax cuts for mostly wealthy Americans. Congress and the president should abandon tax cuts that benefit mostly rich Americans and that further the country's deficit spending. The process is not over. The Senate is working on a version that may restore some of the funding cut by the House. But the Senate also needs to look at tax cut extensions that have added to the deficit. To bring deficit spending under control, it needs to take a serious look somewhere other than programs that aid the poor. - M.H.