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What type of investigation into the federal response to Hurricane Katrina do you favor?


 

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Budget

More on the Budget

Democrats believe that on every issue our nation faces, we must pursue new policies that take our country in a different direction.  The Bush Administration’s FY 2007 budget fails on that score; it continues with more of the same wrong priorities of the past five years that have taken our country in the wrong direction.  It put special interests first and the American people last.  It is fiscally reckless, adding trillions to the deficit over the next 10 years, and morally irresponsible, slashing funding for key priorities, such as health care and education, critical to America’s middle class.  It fails to live up the rhetoric of the State of the Union.  Democrats are fighting to restore fiscal responsibility and to bring real solutions to the American people, along with economic prosperity, a strong national defense, affordable health care and energy prices, and strong public schools. 

The Republican budget is fiscally irresponsible, creating trillions of dollars in new deficits that threaten our economy.  The Republicans’ fiscal recklessness is a tax on our future, creating a deficit in 2007 that is likely to top $380 billion.  The Republican budget creates trillions in new deficits over the next 10 years, squandering $1.5 trillion on tax breaks for the wealthy.  The President’s budget fails to cut the deficit in half by 2009.  The President makes this claim by omitting enormous costs from his budget, including the five-year costs of fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax and the costs for the Iraqi war (assuming only a meager $50 billion for 2007 and no cost thereafter).  Republicans have already taken a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion, and turned into a $3.5 trillion deficit, and this budget continues this path of mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren.

 The President's budget is morally irresponsible, slashing funding for critical domestic initiatives. 

  •  Medicare and Medicaid.  The budget slashes Medicare by $36 billion over the next five years and $105 billion over the next ten years.  These cuts include cuts in payments to hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, ambulance services, and other providers and increases in Medicare premiums for certain beneficiaries.  At the same time that the budget slashes Medicare funding, it protects the special interests, leaving intact the $10 billion Medicare slush fund for HMOs.  In addition, the budget slashes Medicaid by $13.7 billion over the next five years.
  • Health Care.  The budget has a proposal to expand Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), costing $125 billion over 10 years, despite the fact that HSAs are simply tax shelters for the healthy and wealthy.   HSAs provide employers an enormous incentive to drop or reduce health benefits for their workers, leaving most Americans worse off.  The budget once again severely underfunds NIH.  The Republican Congress actually cut the NIH budget in FY 2006, even without adjusting for inflation.  In this budget for FY 2007, the President is proposing freezing the overall NIH budget at the inadequate FY 2006 level.  However, this overall freeze includes cuts in 18 of the 19 institutes at NIH.  The budget also cuts health professions training and eliminates several key health programs, including the $99 million Preventive Health Block Grant, the $83 million Healthy Communities Access Program, the $20 million Emergency Medical Services for Children Program, and the $10 million Universal Newborn Screening Program.
  • Energy.   President Bush promised in his State of the Union speech that his Administration was committed to reducing our dependence on foreign oil.  However, the next day, Bush's Energy Secretary, Samuel Bodman, was backpedaling on the President’s promises, while the National Renewable Energy Lab announced that, due to GOP budget cuts, it would begin laying off researchers investigating the use of wind, biomass and ethanol as sources of energy. The President’s budget fails to turn this around.  For example, he provides a paltry increase of about $130 million for renewable energy programs, while eliminating research on other renewables, including geothermal and hydropower.  His proposed increase in clean energy research “amounts to just 7 percent of Exxon Mobil’s profits for the fourth quarter” of 2005 [Atlanta Journal Constitution, 2/2/06].  In fact, his budget would not get renewable energy and energy efficiency funding back to where it was at the end of the Clinton years.
  • Innovation/Competitiveness.  Democrats unveiled an Innovation Agenda in November, and the President’s budget reflects a number of those priorities.  Unfortunately, his budget does not live up to some of the promises from his State of the Union Address.  The President’s budget cuts or eliminates funding for a variety of programs to bring broadband access to all of our communities. The budget slashes funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), which helps small U.S. manufacturers with everything from plant modernization to employee training, by nearly 60 percent, and the Advanced Technology Program, which sponsors research to solve manufacturing problems.
  • Economy and Jobs.  More than 2.8 million manufacturing jobs have been lost over the past five years, and families are struggling to make enough to pay the bills.  Small businesses employ nearly half of all workers and create three out of four new jobs, but the budget continues the elimination of appropriations for 7(a) small business loans.
  • Education.  Despite very modest increases for math and science education, the President’s budget cuts overall discretionary appropriations for the Education Department by 3.8 percent below this year’s level, even before adjusting for inflation.  The budget provides $15.4 billion less in funding for education than promised by the No Child Left Behind Act.  Under the President’s budget, the cumulative funding shortfall for No Child Left Behind would be $55 billion. The budget completely eliminates several key education programs, including Vocational Education State Grants, Educational Technology State Grants and Safe and Drug-Free School State Grants. The budget once again freezes the maximum Pell Grant at $4,050 – meaning that it will be frozen for the fifth year in a row.
  • Homeland Security.  The President’s budget for FY 2007 continues the trend of cutting first responder grants to the states under the Department of Homeland Security.  In FY 2005, the three first responder programs of Homeland Security Grants, Urban Area Security Initiative, and Local Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention were funded at $2.3 billion.  Now the President is proposing terminating the Local Law Enforcement Terrorism Prevention program and funding the other two programs at $1.5 billion – which is 35 percent below FY 2005.  It also slashes the Firefighter Assistance program by nearly 50 percent.  The budget also underfunds such key priorities as rail and mass transit security and port security.
  • Veterans & Military Retirees.  For the fourth year in a row, the budget raises health care costs for hundreds of thousands of veterans, imposing new co-payments on prescription drugs and enrollment fees that will cost veterans hundreds of millions of dollars.  This will drive more than 234,000 veterans out of veterans’ health care. The budget also increases TRICARE health care premiums for the nation’s military retirees.
  • Armed Forces.  The budget cuts the number of National Guard, despite recent reports of the tremendous strain that the Iraq and Afghanistan War have placed on our troops.  Under the President’s budget, the Army would fund the Guard at the existing level of about 333,000 troops — 17,000 less than now authorized by law — and would maintain six fewer Guard combat brigades.
  • Environment.  The budget slashes overall funding for EPA by 4 percent below the FY 2006 enacted level and by 9 percent below the FY 2005 enacted level.  It also abandons the principle of “polluter pays” for Superfund toxic waste cleanups and assumes there will be drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  It slashes Clean Water funds by 22 percent below the FY 2006 enacted level and by 37 percent below the FY 2005 enacted level.  The budget also cuts funding of the Interior Department by $633 million or 6 percent.  This cut includes a cut of $100 million in the already-struggling National Park Service.
  • Rural Communities. Once again this year, the budget slashes rural development programs, freezes funding for rural education, and phases out rural health grants.  It slashes $5 billion in funding for farm subsidies, including crop insurance over the next decade, cutting funding for farmers growing everything from cotton, rice, corn, soybeans, and wheat.
  • Social Security. Despite the American public’s clear opposition to his flawed privatization plan, the President’ budget still turns Social Security’s guaranteed benefit into a guaranteed gamble.  Despite Democrats success in killing the risky Social Security privatization plan, the President will never give up on privatizing Social Security. 

Democrats have a better way.  Democrats are seeking a new direction for America in which the interests of working families take priority over the special interests.  That kind of honest leadership is needed to bring real solutions to the American people, along with economic prosperity, a strong national defense, health care that works for everyone, fiscal responsibility, and strong public schools.  Democrats insist upon fiscal discipline with budgets that pay as you go, and over the coming months, we will fight for a budget that reflects the values of America’s middle class.  Together, America can do better than out-of-control deficits and misplaced priorities.


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Cifras Reales
2.9 million

2.9 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since the beginning of the Bush Administration. (National Economic Council)


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