Third Party & Independents: Archives

Should Bush/Congress Harm Americans With Their Budget?

Quality of life and even life itself depends directly in America upon money. President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans are going to cost other Americans dearly in terms of quality of life and even life itself. Whenever an administration puts foreign affairs ahead of domestic priorities, it will increase tax payer dollar spending in foreign lands and decrease the services and benefits to the tax payers here at home. This is in fact an accurate depiction of the President’s 2006 Budget which again will set a new record deficit.

According to the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing this morning, the President's budget seeks to cut Veteran's benefits in some ways to include a two year limit on eligibility for health care and reducing VA health workers by 3700 even as patient load is expected to increase. Long term care Veterans will be booted from the system by the President's Budget as the per diem funding to states is reduced at the same time most states are scrambling desperately to keep their budgets from sinking. Should the wealthy keep their tax cuts while Veteran's go without?

It is true that VA funding has been increasing about 9% per year over recent years and much improvement has taken place. But the VA itself indicates it has and still needs about 13% increases in order to meet our veteran's needs. It is just so inappropriate that the President should deny the VA what it needs after making such erroneous an decision to invade Iraq which has increased the demand for Veterans Administration services. The President's decision go to war electively while refusing to meet the VA's funding needs is the height of irresponsible government and leadership.

USA Today reports: "The Food and Drug Administration's proposed budget for next year includes cuts to nearly all its inspection programs, from checks on imported food to reviews of overseas plants that make prescription drugs bound for the USA." Should Americans suffer illness, disease, and injury due to this kind of lowering of priority for American tax payer safety and health?

At the same time the President is pushing for changing laws to reduce and even eliminate law suits against corporations who put profitability above safety for consumers, The Washington Post reports:

The number of elderly Americans treated in hospital emergency rooms for product-related injuries rose strongly from 1991 to 2002, according to a report issued Monday.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said emergency room admissions linked to consumer products for those 75 years and older rose 73 percent over the period, even though the population of that age group grew just 27 percent.

An Associated Press article states: "Five months after a presidential commission recommended spending billions more to protect the nation's oceans, the White House has proposed a budget that would reduce funding for fisheries and eliminate the Pacific Islands regional office in Hawaii." Americans are already being poisoned by pollutants building up in the fats of fish consumed by American tax payers. More authorities are warning pregnant women to avoid fish due to the growing health issues related to its consumption. And this budget cut will in effect, sweep the problem under the rug, rather than deal with it.

And while the President is sending 100's of billions of taxpayer dollars overseas, he has failed to provide accountability for those hard earned tax dollars. At least 9 billion, much of it American tax dollars, are unaccounted for in Iraq as reported just a few weeks ago. Yet, these stories of waste, fraud, and abuse of overseas spending continue to surface. The BBC reports: "Millions of dollars were wasted by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) that ran Iraq after the fall of Baghdad, a former official has said."

Associated Press reports: "The Pentagon is investigating eight more Air Force contracts handled by Darleen Druyun, the former Air Force official who was convicted last year of giving The Boeing Co. special treatment on a tanker lease deal."

And the Washington Post reports: "A government contractor defrauded the Coalition Provisional Authority of tens of millions of dollars in Iraq reconstruction funds and the Bush administration has done little to try to recover the money, an attorney for two whistle-blowers told Democratic lawmakers Monday."

So to add insult to injury, in addition to cutting and removing services and benefits to tax payers and veterans here at home while deficit spending at record levels, this President is not even implementing the accountability and practices necessary to insure that tax payer dollars sent overseas are spent on their intended purposes.