It’s likely that Congress will soon put its seal of approval on a budget that is irresponsible and self-indulgent. Instead of spending our hard-earned tax dollars where they are needed, the majority is poised, once again, to reward the richest individuals and businesses in the country with more unnecessary tax cuts. It’s the moral equivalent of a family recklessly borrowing to build a pool instead of replacing the leaky roof on the house.

There is no question that our national fiscal affairs are in disorder and that something must be done. The question is: What? Since 2001, federal revenues have dropped considerably relative to the size of the American economy, while federal spending has soared. The consequence: the transformation of ample surpluses into draining deficits far into the future.

The “solution,” Republican congressional leaders think, is to take up to $50 billion over the next five years from programs such as Medicaid, the health care program for low-income Americans. In Maine, poor children, seniors and disabled people, as well as hardworking families that don’t have any other health insurance, would be hard hit by that move. Our nursing homes, clinics and other health care providers would also be singled out for devastating cuts.

And that’s not all. If Congress adopts the proposed spending cuts, college students faced with ever-rising tuition bills, dairy farmers trying to stay afloat and families struggling to buy groceries and heat their homes, among others, will face even greater hurdles.

Simply reducing tax cuts previously given to the upper 1 percent of the population – households earning $384,000 or more a year – is a far better alternative. This small group of very affluent Americans has done very well as a result of tax cuts enacted during the Bush presidency. This year, and every year, they collectively have an extra $50 billion to stash away or spend. The congressional leadership, however, does not want to repeal, reduce or touch these tax giveaways. Indeed, they propose to make them permanent and to enact even more tax cuts for the favored few. And what does it say about priorities that the revenue increases congressional leaders are entertaining include proposals to sell off our national treasures – public lands, national parks, national monuments and oil drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?

These priorities are part of this administration’s determination to shift the overall tax burden from the wealthiest 1 percent to the middle class, from those who live off investments to those who must work for a living. Since 2001, taxes paid by the wealthy and by prospering corporations have been drastically cut, but spending has not. Instead of the $5.6 trillion in budget surpluses over 10 years that were projected at the end of the Clinton administration, we are facing $3.5 trillion in deficits projected over the same period, a swing of more than $9 trillion in the wrong direction.

Who will pay off this debt? Not the beneficiaries of today’s enormous tax cuts, but rather the children and grandchildren of today’s working families.

The budget debate has taken on a new, disingenuous twist as a result of the additional obligations the federal government has taken on following the devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. About $62 billion has been pledged for the recovery effort, and more may be needed. It’s appropriate to ask how we will pay these expenses. What’s not fair is to ask this question only now, when it comes to relief for hurricane victims. As budget analyst Gene Sperling recently observed, today’s leaders fail to ask how to pay for the “dramatic, perpetual costs of permanent marginal, estate, dividend and capital gains tax cuts for America’s most fortunate or the escalating tab for the President’s prescription drug bill, not to mention the war in Iraq.”

Congressional leaders’ newly found concern about the cost of relief for Gulf Coast Americans, whose lives have been devastated by natural disasters, smacks of an excuse to cut programs they already had their sights on.

I have participated in this debate from key vantage points. As a member of both the House Budget Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid and other programs slated for massive cuts, I will continue to stress that the choice is not between punishing the super-rich and coming to the aid of our fellow citizens in desperate need. Instead, let us find ways to take care of our mutual responsibilities fairly, by making budget choices that share both the benefits and sacrifices of living in a civilized society.

U.S. Rep. Tom Allen represents Maine’s 1st Congressional District.