http://archive.nytimes.com/2003/03/27/opinion/27THU2.html
Selective Sacrifice on the Home Front With a costly war raging and the government's deficit deepening by the day, Republican Congressional leaders are rushing to an insiders-only closed conference that threatens to be a landmark in down-and-dirty budget politicking. Tax cuts for the affluent paid for by program cuts for the needy will be on the table. The leaders' main goal is to reverse the embarrassing Senate blow dealt to the president and salvage his full $726 billion deficit-feeding plan for more tax cuts for upper-bracket Americans. While the House followed President Bush in lock step, Senate Democrats and moderate Republicans rebelled at such wartime excess and cut it in half. The conference, run tight as a poker game by a few G.O.P. leaders and White House budgeteers, will dictate a resolution of the differences. We urge the Republican moderates who have been arguing for fiscal sanity to pound on the conference door, if necessary, in defending their stand. They must make it clear to their leaders that they will not vote for any bill that includes such crippling tax cuts in a time of war. Far more is at stake than the rebellion against the $396 billion dividend tax cut, which House leaders will be fiercely protecting in the resolution haggling. Disastrous spending cuts already approved by the House across a wide swath of health, education and welfare programs are also at issue. These $265 billion in cuts were ordered in a blanket attack against "waste, fraud and abuse" by House leaders in a pretense at budget responsibility as they embraced Mr. Bush's far more costly tax cuts. The most vulnerable Americans will not be represented at the conference, but three-fifths of the cuts are likely to fall on the impoverished, the disabled and the working poor, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington watchdog group. Millions of needy children are particularly targeted by severe cuts looming in child care, food stamps, workfare and school lunch programs. Their fate will be set. Senate moderates must resolve to vote against any budget resolution that hacks away at the needy. President Bush did not seek these cuts. Here is his chance to wax compassionate and order his conferees to fight as much for the poorest Americans as for the wealthiest. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
