On Feb. 4, President Bush proposed a deficit-doubling $3.1-trillion budget that would drastically increase military spending and cut funding for domestic programs, including Medicare. White House budget director Jim Nussle admitted that the federal deficit would go from $162 billion to $400 billion plus in 2008 and 2009.
Under the new budget Pentagon spending would go up by 8.1 percent—to $518.3 billion—with an extra $70 billion for
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While boosting the budget for militarism, Bush proposes cutting programs like Medicare by as much as $208 billion over five years and eliminating or reducing other programs for education, job training, highways and the environment, totaling another $18 billion in budget cuts.
Medicare, which provides health care for around 44 million seniors and disabled people, would lose $178 billion over five years. Medicaid, a federal-state health program that serves some 55 million working-class people would also be cut by $17 billion. Hardest hit would be elderly and poor people being treated in hospitals and nursing homes.
Other cuts include a 22 percent cut in funding to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, a 7 percent cut for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the elimination of 47 different education programs, including programs to promote the arts, and student mental and physical health—a reduction of $3.3 billion.
Overall, funding to education remains relatively flat in the proposal, with some cuts but also some increases. While needed programs such as special education and Title 1 funding may be increased slightly, other proposed increases are to reactionary programs.
For example, the administration wants to spend $300 million to transfer students to private schools or to schools outside their home districts, if their school did not meet benchmarks under No Child Left Behind. Bush also wants to double funding to $200 million for a merit-pay program for teachers, with pay raises linked to student test scores. Teachers’ unions have consistently opposed such merit-pay plans as educationally unsound and unfair to teachers.
Under the White House proposal, the budget for the Department of Homeland Security would go up 6.8 percent to $50.5 billion, including $442.4 million for 2,200 new Border Patrol agents.
Capitalist priorities
Bush’s budget proposal is a perfect example of capitalist priorities in action. Hundreds of billions of dollars are to be directed toward repressive instruments of the state—the Pentagon, Homeland Security and funding to continue the imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As military spending skyrockets, programs to help working-class elderly and disabled people are cut. The message coming from the capitalist class could not be clearer: elderly people are of no use to the capitalist system; so, there is no point in spending money on their care if they can no longer work and create surplus value—profit for the bosses.
The only thing holding back the capitalist politicians from eliminating programs like Medicare altogether is grassroots political pressure. Medicare was no gift to the workers; it was won through bloody labor struggles. As inadequate as Medicare is, it remains a popular program because it provides at least some medical coverage for many people in need.
Even Democratic Party politicians talk tough about defending Medicare and Medicaid. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, called the cuts “dead on arrival with me and with most of the Congress.”
What the Democrats will not address is the elephant in the room known as military spending. That is what is causing the deficit, not health and education programs. But increased military spending is also what they are relying on to keep the economy from severe recession or depression in the coming months and years.
The Democratic Party will not fight against funding the war or the Pentagon because they fundamentally agree with the aims of the war: U.S. military and economic domination of the world. They want to maintain and extend the dominance of U.S. capitalism abroad and at home.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation, and our candidates Gloria La Riva for president and Eugene Puryear for vice president, stand against imperialist war and the profit-based capitalist system. The economy should be directed toward meeting people’s needs, not for accumulating more profits for a few.
