BERRIEN
COUNTY DEMOCRATIC PARTY
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The current national
debt stands at
$9,113,206,502,561.04 debt. That's $10 per day, every day, for every man, woman and child in America just to pay the interest on this debt - not to pay the debt itself. $10 per day, every day, every week, every month. This is what the GOP spending spree, combined with tax cuts to the wealthy, means to America. Can you afford $70 a week, every week, every month, every year just to pay interest on the national debt? Can we as a nation afford this debt?
The projected 10-year surplus of $5 trillion that Republicans inherited from President Clinton has been turned into a projected 10-year deficit of over $8 trillion.
The Republican White House and Congress have increased federal spending by an astonishing 25 percent in just three years' time. This, combined with radical tax cuts, created a $500 billion deficit in 2004 alone.
After six years of Republican control of the White House and Congress, the economy has lost over 3 million private-sector jobs.
Trickle-down economics is not trickling. Over the last two years, wages are up just 2.1 percent, the slowest wage growth in 40 years.
In addition to their deficit spending, the GOP removed $156 billion from our nation’s Social Security Trust Fund.
CONGRESSIONAL STUDY SHOWS BU$H'S TAX CUTS "OFFER MOST FOR VERY RICH": The Bu$h administration has long maintained that the President's tax cuts benefit all Americans. A White House fact sheet from May 11, 2006, claimed, "President Bu$h's tax relief benefits all taxpayers." On April 7, 2006, Bu$h stated that his tax cuts have "created jobs and growth for the American people." But a new study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office shows that families "earning more than $1 million a year saw their federal tax rates drop more sharply than any group in the country as a result of President Bu$h's tax cuts." Households in the top 1 percent of earnings, "which had an average income of $1.25 million, saw their effective individual tax rates drop to 19.6 percent in 2004 from 24.2 percent in 2000." In contrast, families whose average incomes were $56,200 in 2004, saw their average effective tax rate edge down to just 2.9 percent in 2004 from 5 percent in 2000. "That translated to an average tax cut of $1,180 per household, but the tax rate actually increased slightly from 2003." The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has also noted that under Bu$h's tax cuts, the "typical working-age household, meanwhile, has seen income losses during the current expansion. Census data show that among households headed by someone under age 65, median income, adjusted for inflation, fell again in 2005 and was $2,000 below its level during the 2001 recession."
For the first time in history, "more of America's poor are living in the suburbs than the cities -- 1.2 million more, according to a 2005 survey. 'The suburbs have reached a tipping point, says Brookings Institution analyst Alan Berube." WE ARE IN DEEP HOCK: Bu$h sent Congress his 2008 budget, a $2.9 trillion behemoth. The biggest winner is the Defense Department, which would receive an 11 percent boost in funding. Wealthy Americans would also receive a handsome payoff if the President's tax cuts are made permanent, as the budget calls for. The biggest losers are ordinary Americans, who would see sharp cuts to health care, education, environmental programs, and development assistance. Additionally, this budget shows that Bu$h's commitment to fiscal discipline -- like his commitment to eradicating inequality -- is nothing more than empty rhetoric. "According to the president's own numbers," Center for American Progress Director of Tax and Budget Policies John Irons writes, "the proposed tax policies would add $600 billion to deficits over the next five years, and $1.9 trillion over the next ten." Bu$h has "consistently understated the effect on deficits and debt of their budget, and unfortunately America is going being to be in deep hock after this administration leaves town," Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) said.
it will balance the federal budget by 2012. But as the Washington Post notes, Bu$h's "balance is more illusory than real." The $77 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid are unlikely to receive broad support from either party in Congress. He does not account for Iraq war costs beyond 2008, nor does he "include the cost of extending changes to the Alternative Minimum Tax beyond 2008," which "would top $90 billion in 2012 alone." It also "assumes the government will collect far more revenue than the Congressional Budget Office projects, amounting to a $150 billion difference in 2012." Judd Gregg (R-NH), the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, admitted, "I don't think it [Bu$h's budget] has got a whole lot
of legs." for the Pentagon's budget, an 11 percent increase from its current level. He also asked for "an additional $100 billion for Iraq and the global war on terrorism this year, on top of $70 billion already sought." For 2008, the budget includes spending of $145 billion and $50 billion in 2009, "although administration officials conceded that the 2008 and 2009 requests could go higher depending on the progress of the war effort." According to the Congressional Research Service, total spending on the Iraq war for fiscal years 2001 through 2006 was $318.5 billion. The Bu$h budget would bring total proposed spending in Iraq to $683 billion through 2009, eclipsing the amount spent ($662 billion) in the 10-year Vietnam War. Another $140 billion is allocated for weapons procurement, research, and development. As the New York Times notes, much of this money is wasted on "products of cold war strategic thinking [that] have outlived their rationale in a world with no superpower arms race." For example, Bu$h asks for $4.6 billion to purchase 20 more F-22A Raptor fighters, which was "originally designed for air-to- air combat against Soviet-style MIG fighters" and is "arguably the most unnecessary weapon system currently built by the
Pentagon."
funding; it also requires a commitment to homeland security. Bu$h's 2008 budget neglects that commitment. National Journal notes that "funding for state homeland security grants would be less than half the current level, falling from $510 million to $250 million. Grant assistance to firefighters would be cut from $662 million to $300 million. And law enforcement terrorism prevention program grants would drop from $363 million to $262 million." State and local law enforcement assistance grants would be cut by 70 percent. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said the budget request "again highlights the chronic and troubling under funding of first-responder grant programs." She added that a reduction for the state homeland security grants program "will be a severe blow to states' abilities to prevent, prepare for, and respond to terrorist attacks and other emergencies." As Center for American Progress Senior Fellow P.J. Crowley notes, "The federal government needs to significantly increase federal homeland security grants in order to support the country's security and preparedness
requirements as well as provide more first-operability." nearly 47 million." The Center for American Progress reports, "As health care costs have skyrocketed, employer- sponsored coverage has eroded, and the cost of private coverage has spiraled out of reach, many families and children who cannot otherwise afford coverage have turned to the Medicaid and SCHIP programs. Since 2000, 6.8 million people have lost health coverage, but SCHIP and Medicaid ensured that the proportion of low-income children without health insurance actually declined during this period, from 20 percent in 2000 to D14 percent in 2005." Bu$h's 2008 budget would reverse this positive trend. He proposes slashing the programs by at least $77 billion over the next five years, and $280 billion over the next ten. More than six million people with disabilities and five million people over the age of 85 receive assistance from Medicare. "Fifty percent of people with Medicare coverage have incomes below $20,000 a year, and nine out of 10 Medicare beneficiaries have at least one chronic health problem." While the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) would receive $5 billion more in funding over five years, in reality, its funding is being cut. The Congressional Research Service estimates that "$15 billion would be needed to cover everyone who now receives benefits." Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association noted, "[The] budget is devastating news for children, seniors and the disabled who depend on the Medicare and Medicaid programs. They
are being unfairly singled out to carry the burden of achieving a balanced
budget." inequality exists in America: "The fact is that income inequality is real. It has been rising for more than 25 years." But apparently, he's not quite ready to do anything about it. Low- and middle-income Americans are hit the hardest by Bu$h's 2008 budget. A total of 141 government programs will be eliminated or sharply reduced if the budget is enacted. Bu$h cuts housing for low-income seniors by nearly 25 percent, a program to provide low-income people with assistance paying heating costs by 18 percent, funding for community development grants by 12.7 percent, and grants for education and employment training by 8 percent. Bu$h's budget also cuts funding for child care and HeadStart, an early education program for low-income children. It also provides no new funds for family planning, even though 1 million more women are in need of contraceptive services and supplies since 2001. The bottom line: 200,000 fewer low-income children would receive child care assistance. Wealthy Americans, however, will not have to suffer under Bu$h's budget, which proposes making his tax cuts permanent at a cost of $1.6 trillion over 10 years. According to the Urban Institute- Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, "if the President's tax cuts are made permanent, households in the top 1 percent of the population (currently those with incomes over $400,000) will receive tax cuts averaging $67,000 a year by 2012. In
today's dollars, that amount is larger than the entire income of the typical
American household." climate change in his 2007 State of the Union address. But his 2008 budget doesn't live up to his rhetoric, granting drilling leases in the Alaskan wilderness to oil companies and cutting the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by $116 million. He has also proposed a $35 million decrease in funding "for State and local programs that help keep our air clean in our cities and states," a $5 million decrease in funding for the EPA's science and technology budget for climate protection, and a $7 million decrease in funding for cleanups at Superfund sites, efforts which are meant to clean up the nation's most heavily contaminated toxic waste sites in communities across the country."
In 2006, Treasury officials told Senate aides that without an increase in the nation's $8.81 trillion debt limit, the government "would default on obligations for the first time in history sometime during the week of March 20." The Senate will have to take up the issue soon since "federal default is considered unimaginable because it would rattle bond markets, force interest rates higher and shake the economy." The debt limit increase to around $9 trillion would be the fourth increase in five years. "I don't think the leadership wants to have any debate on this, and I think the reason is pretty clear," Finance Committee ranking member Max Baucus (D-MT) told CongressDaily. "It's embarrassing." To avoid an extended debate, the leadership is set to vote on the issue as close to the March 17 recess as possible. Finance Committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has admitted he wants the debt limit increased "with the least debate" possible. "I would like to see a bill on any Thursday night just prior to a recess," he said. The New York Times warned the Senate bill may "be put to a voice vote, so that no individual would have to go on record as approving the measure.
The American people deserve better." on the very first day of work," Vice President Cheney said on March 2, 2006. "Yet a lot of American families live paycheck to paycheck...and this underscores one of our fundamental obligations in Washington: to be good stewards of the taxpayer's dollar." But as Bloomberg columnist John M. Berry said, "The reality is that taxes and spending are badly out of whack, and hardly anyone - certainly neither President George W. Bu$h nor Vice President Richard Cheney - wants to admit it." Cheney, after all, once claimed, "Deficits don't matter." The $5.6 trillion projected ten year surplus, accumulated as part of what American Progress Senior Fellow Gene Sperling describes as "the rainy day savings of the 1990s," is gone. "The outlook for the federal budget over the next decade continues to be bright," the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) wrote in January 2001. "Such large surpluses would be sufficient by 2006 to pay off all debt held by the public that
will
be available for redemption." The current national debt stands at
$8,269,768,312,946.41. extending the Bu$h tax cuts and the Alternative Minimum Tax at $3.3 trillion over ten years. This figure includes $486 billion in interest payments for servicing the debt. (By comparison, Bu$h's 2007 defense spending request is $439 billion.) To put this into perspective: over the next ten years $917 billion of these tax cuts will go to just the wealthiest 1 percent of families (those earning more than $400,000 in today's dollars). Rather than face up to the fiscal challenges facing the country, the administration continues to urge Congress "to make the Bu$h tax cuts permanent." Even a "budget hawk" like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is caught up in the tax-cutting frenzy. McCain voted in favor of extending tax cuts on dividends and capital gains. Yet in May 2001, when the fiscal picture was rosier, McCain voted "no" because he was "very concerned about the deficit." (Bu$h still claims: "You cut taxes and the tax revenues increase.") "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate
among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief," McCain
said at the time. traded world markets," ABC News reported In contrast, only "1 percent of all active corporations that filed taxes in 2002" are foreign-owned. While there is nothing inherently wrong with foreigners buying our debt (foreign central banks have kept interest rates low), a "disorderly situation would occur if foreign money dried up suddenly when the United States still needed it. Then the adjustment in American savings might happen involuntarily. Interest rates would rise sharply, and the dollar could fall abruptly. This could induce a sharp economic contraction, even stagflation." If we continue to live at the mercy of the main financiers of our debt - whether it's Japan, China, the United Kingdom, or "Caribbean Banking Centers"
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we could find ourselves on "on
increasingly thin ice." right wing pushes budget cuts under the guise of "deficit reduction." On the revenue side, the budget proposals would extend tax cuts for the wealthy at a cost of $1.7 trillion. On spending, the budget proposes $36 billion in Medicare cuts, $276 million in cuts to the Centers for Disease Control, a 3.8 percent cut to the Department of Education, and nearly $600 million in cuts to science and technology programs. The American people deserve fiscal accountability.
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What does this mean
to you? $10 a day per person just to pay the interest on the 
