That Compassionate Conservative: "bush** s budget targets the poor"

[leftchick]

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpdef094139108feb09,0,4249408.story?coll=ny-editorials-headlines

Never mind that programs benefiting struggling Americans are not the cause of the federal government's record-setting deficits. Or that "non-security domestic discretionary spending," as it's known in budget parlance, at $391 billion this year is only 17 percent of what Washington spends. Or that Bush wants to make his unaffordable tax cuts permanent at a cost of $1.1 trillion, when the rational way to balance the budget is to eliminate some of those tax cuts.

When it comes to spending restraint, more than 80 percent of the budget is essentially off the table. There's no choice with debt service, Social Security and Medicare. Those obligations must be met. But Bush's budget includes $19 billion more for the military in 2006, on top of a hefty $97 billion increase since 2001; and $1 billion more for homeland security, on top of $21 billion in increases since 2001.

What's left to cut? Programs for the financially hard-pressed who lack political clout. The benefits in Bush's crosshairs include vocational education, housing assistance, Medicaid, student loans, home heating assistance, child care, community development block grants and food stamps.

Bush's budget would cut domestic programs outside defense and homeland security by 1 percent in 2006 and then freeze funding at that level for the next four years. It may not sound big - 1 percent - but an actual cut followed by a freeze is unprecedented. With inflation, the result would be a steady and dramatic erosion of what that money would buy.

...repuke christian values....