Fond Farewell
The Do-Nothing Congress finished as it has performed, with astonishing indifference to the public interest.
The legislation was bundled - and sent to the Senate for a single vote, and its popularity easily vanquished a handful of GOP opponents. Republican budget hawks bridled at the measure's cost, and textile state senators objected to trade provisions benefiting Haiti.
The sweeping votes reflected widespread bipartisan support for extending expired tax breaks, including the research and development tax credit for businesses, sales tax deductions for people in states without income taxes, the tax deduction on college tuition, a tax credit for hiring welfare recipients and others facing difficulties finding jobs, tax credits for alternative energy producers and purchases of solar energy equipment by homeowners and businesses.
All told, the tax cuts would cost $38 billion over five years.
Also driving the massive bill forward was an effort to prevent a 5 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors from taking effect January 1. The GOP-crafted solution to the problem was criticized as an accounting gimmick since it would double the cost of fixing the problem again next year.
On the rest of the budget, work remained unfinished on nine of 11 spending bills, requiring the stopgap funding bill to put 13 Cabinet departments on autopilot through February 15 frozen at or slightly below current levels.
Democrats now face difficult choices and weeks of work on the leftover budget, which totals $463 billion and must be passed at Bush's strict budget limits.
"They are leaving us with a tremendous mess," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, told reporters. "We have alternatives, none of which are very good."
The childishness of the representatives of this country’s voters in recent, but thankfully not the most recent, elections, is overwhelming. Before this congress came into office, many of us remember, enacting a budget was a duty and it was dutifully performed in a timely fashion. Only in this congress has the duty been neglected, and now thrown off as if the congress were not sworn to serve the American public.
The childishness of the congress is overmatched however by the White House, which starts the fiscal process with announcements that programs the cretin in chief dislikes were to be crippled. As noted in May of 2004, the budget we are acting under now was blatantly falsely misrepresented.
Administration officials had dismissed the significance of the proposed cuts when they surfaced in February as part of an internal White House budget office computer printout. At the time, officials said the cuts were based on a formula and did not accurately reflect administration policy. But a May 19 White House budget memorandum obtained by The Washington Post said that agencies should assume the spending levels in that printout when they prepare their fiscal 2006 budgets this summer.
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The administration has widely touted a $1.7 billion increase in discretionary funding for the Education Department in its 2005 budget, but the 2006 guidance would pare that back by $1.5 billion. The Department of Veterans Affairs is scheduled to get a $519 million spending increase in 2005, to $29.7 billion, and a $910 million cut in 2006 that would bring its budget below the 2004 level.
Also slated for cuts are the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the Small Business Administration, the Transportation Department, the Social Security Administration, the Interior Department and the Army Corps of Engineers.
Agencies would have the option of preserving current funding levels for programs under their control if they find money from other parts of their budget. But the computer printout contains specific program cuts.
The Women, Infants and Children nutrition program was funded at $4.7 billion for the fiscal year beginning in October, enough to serve the 7.9 million people expected to be eligible. But in 2006, the program would be cut by $122 million. Head Start, the early-childhood education program for the poor, would lose $177 million, or 2.5 percent of its budget, in fiscal 2006.
Nothing is spared in the administration’s efforts to serve the wealthy while neglecting those who are less fortunate.
I have great hopes for the coming congress, to be sure. But it is obvious that by contrast with the GOP-dominated havoc just ended no congress could fail to show improvement.
History will look back on the 109th Congress as a low point, hopefully one that will soon be lost in the mists of time that cover over disasters eventually.
The legislation was bundled - and sent to the Senate for a single vote, and its popularity easily vanquished a handful of GOP opponents. Republican budget hawks bridled at the measure's cost, and textile state senators objected to trade provisions benefiting Haiti.
The sweeping votes reflected widespread bipartisan support for extending expired tax breaks, including the research and development tax credit for businesses, sales tax deductions for people in states without income taxes, the tax deduction on college tuition, a tax credit for hiring welfare recipients and others facing difficulties finding jobs, tax credits for alternative energy producers and purchases of solar energy equipment by homeowners and businesses.
All told, the tax cuts would cost $38 billion over five years.
Also driving the massive bill forward was an effort to prevent a 5 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors from taking effect January 1. The GOP-crafted solution to the problem was criticized as an accounting gimmick since it would double the cost of fixing the problem again next year.
On the rest of the budget, work remained unfinished on nine of 11 spending bills, requiring the stopgap funding bill to put 13 Cabinet departments on autopilot through February 15 frozen at or slightly below current levels.
Democrats now face difficult choices and weeks of work on the leftover budget, which totals $463 billion and must be passed at Bush's strict budget limits.
"They are leaving us with a tremendous mess," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, told reporters. "We have alternatives, none of which are very good."
The childishness of the representatives of this country’s voters in recent, but thankfully not the most recent, elections, is overwhelming. Before this congress came into office, many of us remember, enacting a budget was a duty and it was dutifully performed in a timely fashion. Only in this congress has the duty been neglected, and now thrown off as if the congress were not sworn to serve the American public.
The childishness of the congress is overmatched however by the White House, which starts the fiscal process with announcements that programs the cretin in chief dislikes were to be crippled. As noted in May of 2004, the budget we are acting under now was blatantly falsely misrepresented.
Administration officials had dismissed the significance of the proposed cuts when they surfaced in February as part of an internal White House budget office computer printout. At the time, officials said the cuts were based on a formula and did not accurately reflect administration policy. But a May 19 White House budget memorandum obtained by The Washington Post said that agencies should assume the spending levels in that printout when they prepare their fiscal 2006 budgets this summer.
******************************************
The administration has widely touted a $1.7 billion increase in discretionary funding for the Education Department in its 2005 budget, but the 2006 guidance would pare that back by $1.5 billion. The Department of Veterans Affairs is scheduled to get a $519 million spending increase in 2005, to $29.7 billion, and a $910 million cut in 2006 that would bring its budget below the 2004 level.
Also slated for cuts are the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the Small Business Administration, the Transportation Department, the Social Security Administration, the Interior Department and the Army Corps of Engineers.
Agencies would have the option of preserving current funding levels for programs under their control if they find money from other parts of their budget. But the computer printout contains specific program cuts.
The Women, Infants and Children nutrition program was funded at $4.7 billion for the fiscal year beginning in October, enough to serve the 7.9 million people expected to be eligible. But in 2006, the program would be cut by $122 million. Head Start, the early-childhood education program for the poor, would lose $177 million, or 2.5 percent of its budget, in fiscal 2006.
Nothing is spared in the administration’s efforts to serve the wealthy while neglecting those who are less fortunate.
I have great hopes for the coming congress, to be sure. But it is obvious that by contrast with the GOP-dominated havoc just ended no congress could fail to show improvement.
History will look back on the 109th Congress as a low point, hopefully one that will soon be lost in the mists of time that cover over disasters eventually.
posted by Ruth at 9:01 AM
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