Prescription Drugs for Elderly Will Be A Bush Tax-Cut Victim

[Guest guest]

>

> A Tax-Cut Victim

>

> If there was one thing Americans had a right to expect from Congress, it

> was a federal plan to help the elderly pay for prescription drugs. It is a

> promise that has been made again and again in particularly high decibels

> during the last presidential election. The House and Senate have passed

> bills, and although both are flawed, this page has urged Congress to

finish

> work on them as a first step toward fulfilling this longstanding

commitment.

>

> Unfortunately, things have changed. The government cannot afford the

> program now. That is the fault of President Bush and the Republican

> majorities in the House and Senate. They broke the bank with their

enormous

> tax cuts. The country is facing the largest budget deficit in history, and

> there is no realistic plan for getting it under control. The limited

> version of a prescription drug benefit now being considered in Congress

> would cost about $400 billion over 10 years.

>

> Older Americans had a right to expect that help, but they do not have a

> right to demand it, not when it would be financed by borrowing, with the

> bills to be paid by their grandchildren.

>

> Mr. Bush, a specialist in pain avoidance, told people that they could have

> the programs they wanted prescription drugs for the elderly, better

schools

> for children along with modest tax cuts for the middle class and whoppers

> for the wealthy. When 9/11 occurred, the president simply added the war on

> terror, and then the war on Saddam Hussein, to the list. For all his talk

> about fiscal conservatism, Mr. Bush has never vetoed a spending bill, even

> the obscene $180 billion farm subsidy program. To pay for it all, he

simply

> increased the deficit.

>

> Deficits in and of themselves are not necessarily a problem, but the

> current one is frightening for two reasons. One is its size: projected at

> well above $500 billion for next year, and approaching 5 percent of the

> gross domestic product. The other is its permanence. Cutting taxes

> temporarily to fight the recession made sense, but the Bush tax cuts are

> meant to be permanent even though Congress gave most of them a phony

> 10-year expiration date in an attempt to mask their effect.

>

> Dropping the proposal is, of course, just what a large chunk of the

> Republican Party was hoping for all along. For those Republicans, deficits

> are a useful tool to beat back popular entitlement programs a " starve the

> beast " strategy, in the words of Ronald Reagan's budget director.

Democrats

> in Congress, meanwhile, rail against the deficit, but they are still

> pushing for the prescription drug plan. Like the tax-cutters, they are

> simply building up to some sort of financial Armageddon like soaring

> interest rates or a collapsing dollar and hoping that blame will fall on

> the other party.

>

> Our answer is different. The people have to decide whether they want tax

> cuts or programs like the prescription drug plan. It's true that the

> tax-cut radicals will win this round. But then we will have an election.

> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/17/opinion/17WED1.html?th

>