From: “Sightlines” op-ed column, Belva Ann Prycel: Lincoln County Weekly, March, 2006

                            WAR AND DEBT: THE COST TO MAINE

      With a ballooning deficit and ever more tax giveaways to those of wealth coming into effect next year, the administration delivered their latest boondoggle, a proposal called the 2007 “federal budget”. This debt-laden plan for disaster comes with a stunning disregard for middle income Americans and the most vulnerable---the elderly, children, and the poor. With the Iraq War and increased military spending consuming ever more of the budgetary pie, the proposed 2007 budget aims to deeply slash domestic programs. One hundred and forty-one such programs are slated to be killed or cut.

     The budget may be the most irresponsible fiscal proposal put forth by any party in our lifetimes, and it should be a signal to all Americans about where the administration’s priorities lie.

     First, while making permanent the 2001-2003 upper bracket tax breaks for those of wealth---and thereby creating a revenue deficit of $1.7 TRILLION over the next ten years---the proposed budget widens next year’s deficit hole by another $354 billion. However, this figure does not include complete funding for the Iraq War, projected to add another $70 billion in debt in 2007.

     The Defense Department budget however experiences no monetary constraints and would be increased by $29 billion dollars. The cost for the Iraq War is already at $311 billion, and in Maine, the cost to the taxpayers for this war is $896 million and rising.

     Discretionary spending apportions the 2007 budgetary pie in this manner: MILITARY SPENDING, 51% (again, this does not include the massive spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan); DOMESTIC SPENDING, 39%; HOMELAND SECURITY, 6%; and INTERNATIONAL SPENDING, 4%.

      For the people of Maine, the budget priorities are not abstract; they directly affect people’s lives. Programs for food and nutrition, health benefits, low-income home heating assistance, education, community policing, community development, and environmental protection would all be severely cut or eliminated.

     For example, data from the National Priorities Project estimates the president’s 2007 budget would eliminate the Commodity Supplemental Food Program which provides hundreds of thousands of Maine’s seniors with nutritious meals. It would cut another critical food program, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). Maine would lose $426, 260 in WIC funds, in a state in which 9.8% of our residents experience food shortages and hunger.

    Where the harshness of northern winters and skyrocketing fuel costs hit hardest on the elderly and low-income residents, Maine would lose the equivalent of $2.3 million (when rising costs are factored into the equation) in its Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. It will therefore be left to already overburdened charitable efforts, groups such as our local volunteer CHIP organization, to try to stem the rising tide of need.

    And in an administration that claims to leave no child behind, the Bush budget proposes to reduce funding for the Department of Education by 9%, chopping vocational education and drastically reducing monies for Head Start. Under the 2007 budget, ALL of the $5.8 million dollars of federal funds Maine receives for vocational education would be eliminated.

    Additionally, Maine’s Community Development Block Grants would be cut, losing $4.6 million dollars. These programs assure that cities and towns can provide affordable housing, services and jobs.

     Federal Environmental Protection Agency Grants to the states and local communities would be cut by 14%. Under this proposal, Maine would lose $1.7 million dollars for programs such as those to improve drinking water. Many thousands of residents currently drink water with reported health violations.      

     The list goes on. And the priorities of the budget show a federal government that is abandoning its role in the public good as the number of hungry Americans rises at about 10% a year to 38 million, the middle class dwindles, and more Americans slip into poverty---17% more since this administration took office.

    It is obvious that whatever the current budget is, whatever policies and attitudes it represents, it is not a vision of compassionate conservatism---nor with its stratospheric debts is it remotely related to financial conservatism. It is closer to malfeasance and gross maladministration, and it will hobble this country for a generation.

    The only way to change this bottomless hole, is to change the political landscape of Washington. This begins with an acknowledgment that the White House’s policies are failures and that we need responsible fiscal decision-making again. It should be self-evident that if the nation falls apart from within, it does little good to defend it from without.

      Our representatives need to know the depth of our concern. The 2006 mid-term elections are not far off. Come November, it’s time to begin to set our financial house in order. It’s time for a re-ordering of American priorities. It’s time for regime change.

Belva Ann Prycel