The Era of Exploitation By BOB HERBERT
Published: March 25, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/25/opinion/herbert25.1.html?hp

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."

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