— (dear Liza, dear Liza…) the latest Bush theme song. The hole is a glacial chasm into which Bush is pushing the least among us, those barely making traction on the ice.
Members of the 30somethingdems in the House fathomed much of the budget, the size of two Manhattan directories, the day it was plopped on their desks this past week, and explained its major flaws that evening on C-SPAN. These guys, as they refer to each other, are brainy bloodhounds, illustrating with charts how a gigantic chunk of the budget goes to paying the interest on the national debt for money borrowed abroad.
Most offensive to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (FL) Tim Ryan (OH) Jason Altmire (PA) and Chris Murphy (CT) were slashes for health care, particularly Medicare. Last year, the Republicans had blocked Democrats’ proposed reforms of the drug program to save Medicare beneficiaries $61 billion over a ten-year period.
First responders? Screw `em. Cut firefighters’ money in half. Education? Rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul. Not nearly enough for the No Child Left Behind Act.
The AARP growled politely.
Bush’s budget would hit low-income seniors particularly hard, via cuts in energy assistance programs, housing subsidy programs and payments to states for administrative costs of Medicaid… .
It batted at proposed means-testing for drug benefits.
…people already pay taxes for Medicare based on their incomes and shouldn’t be socked with income-related premiums as well.
The AMA added:
… cutting funding for SCHIP [pronounced “S – chip,” State Children’s Health Insurance for uninsured] is the wrong way to go. Currently there are nine million uninsured children…
Moreover, it’s sayonara to budding innovative state-sponsored universal health insurance plans, complained the AARP, AMA, and the Center for Medicare Advocacy. Bush’s budget is geared towards replacing Medicare as a uniform health insurance program with a fragmented set of private plans.
This effort is based on industry lobbying and philosophical preferences about how to deliver health coverage, not on a fiscal analysis about what is most cost effective….
As Medicare evolves into an income-based program from a social insurance program, the private plans it subsidizes would bleed its budget, resulting in draconian cuts. Those on lower incomes, still dependent on Medicare, would get the shaft.
This is what left Debbie Wasserman-Schultz agog. Her Florida constituents know Medicare. Just what are Bush’s “family values,” she wondered, that he attacks the old, the disabled, the poor. As he was growing up, what did they talk about around the dinner table? Didn’t his parents speak of taking care of those in need? She, for example, grew up with the basic Jewish value, tikkun olam — “repairing of the world,” the obligation to make it a better place through social action, helping alleviate hunger, homelessness, disease, ignorance.
On behalf of 16 national Jewish groups from all three religious streams and 62 local groups which advocate for vulnerable populations, the United Jewish Communities urged every member of Congress to fight the cuts.
[Such programs as the Social Services Block Grant, the Community Services Block Grant, Food Stamps, State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Low Income Heating Energy Assistance Program] are critical to the elderly, refugees, children and persons with disabilities.
I’ll ask it again, for the least among us. Values? What values in Bush’s budget?
