President Bush has unveiled his budget proposal. It includes the nation’s largest deficit. He did not include the cost for the occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan or the cost of privatizing Social Security.

The majority of the spending cuts and elimination of programs will fall on the poorest of our citizens. In order to maintain services for Medicaid recipients and schools, his proposed cuts at the federal level will have to be picked up at the state level.

Mr. Bush said the cost of the Medicare drug benefit would be $400 billion. As soon as it was passed, he upped the ante to $530 billion. Now we learn it will be $720 billion, yet he will not alter the plan to allow price negotiations with the drug manufacturers.

Mr. Bush insists on making his tax cuts permanent even though they are a major factor in the deficit. These cuts primarily benefit the top 1 percent of taxpayers. Some argue they pay the majority of the collected income tax. They neglect to also say that as a percent of income, the top 1 percent pay a smaller portion in all forms of taxation than do the remaining 99 percent.

Mr. Bush insists on privatizing Social Security with individual accounts. These individual accounts are already in place in the form of IRAs. Instead of revamping the system, why doesn’t he give matching funds to lower income individuals as an incentive to invest in their own IRAs.

Stanley L. Tetenman, Poland

Copy the Story Link