Republicans to increase deficit while cutting critical programs

Our Republican controlled U.S. House of Representatives has passed a budget bill by a 216 to 214 margin that will cut $40 million from the budget most through reducing spending on critical programs like Medicaid, student loans and child support enforcement. Perhaps these cuts could be justified in the interest of deficit reduction if similar cuts were being made across the board, but this is not the reality. In fact, Republicans in Congress want tax cuts that far exceed the total spending cuts to programs which include areas like renewable energy research. The reckless Republican fiscal policies are clearly summarized in this February 3 report http://tinyurl.com/djkqp from Reuters.

"House Speaker Dennis Hastert, also speaking to journalists, emphasized trying to balance the U.S. budget, which the Congressional Budget Office says will hit a $337 billion deficit this year. 'What we want to do is hold the line on spending,' said Hastert, an Illinois Republican. He added that he wanted to restore "a surplus in the budget."

"Republicans have sought to advance both objectives in Congress this week. Democrats argued that the goals were in direct conflict, with the proposed renewal of tax cuts more than wiping out savings in federal spending. The Senate on Thursday approved $70 billion in tax cuts, part of the Republican effort to maintain President Bush's lower tax rates. Differences will have to be negotiated with the House, which has passed a $56 billion tax-cut bill. The House narrowly approved earlier in the week a controversial bill to cut domestic spending by $39 billion."

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorialized in December that "With all the pork, boondoggles and pet projects gouged out of the federal treasury each year, it's dumbfounding to see Congress take one-third of its budget cuts out of the hides of college students and their families."
http://tinyurl.com/8jled Bush is cutting student loan programs while stressing the need in the Status of the Union address for "more engineers and scientists that are able to compete with other students around the world."

George W. Bush called for a greater emphasis on renewal energy resources in his State of the Union speech, however, the New York Times http://tinyurl.com/9zua4 reported on Thursday that Republican budget cuts will reduce spending on energy research.

"The Energy Department will begin laying off researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the next week or two because of cuts to its budget."

"A veteran researcher said the staff had been told that the cuts would be concentrated among researchers in wind and biomass, which includes ethanol. Those are two of the technologies that Mr. Bush cited on Tuesday night as holding the promise to replace part of the nation's oil imports."

The cuts in child support enforcement agencies are especially short-sighted as the activities of these programs pay for themselves. Child support enforcement plays a important role by reducing welfare dependency, recovering the cost of public assistance programs and reducing the need for Medicaid expenditures through obtaining private health insurance for children. Child support enforcement agencies help to make sure that deadbeat parents pay their share of the cost of raising children rather than the taxpayers.

Let's hope that the voters will end this insanity by defeating members of Congress who vote to increase the deficit through massive tax cuts while cutting critical programs for those without powerful lobbyists.