The estimated shortfall of $2.7 trillion could have been an $890 billion surplus but for the Bush proposals, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

How Tax Cuts Trickle Down
In a sorry effort to protect President Bush's tax-cut mania, the Republican leaders of Congress have unveiled proposals for slashing the most basic government programs for years to come. With rationalizations running from tragic to ludicrous, House budgeters envision cuts of $470 billion in "waste, fraud and abuse" in Medicare, Medicaid, education, child care and other vital programs, from transportation to health care, the environment to science research. The regressive 10-year plan, matched by an equally hypocritical Senate version, is a triumph of ideological rant over budget reality. Government now must be drastically crimped to pay for the rolling deficits resulting from Mr. Bush's triumphalist rewards for upper-bracket Americans.

The G.O.P. leaders endorse the next chunk of detaxation despite Congressional findings that two-thirds of the deficits running through the decade will be caused by the Bush tax cuts, not simply the failing economy.


The estimated shortfall of $2.7 trillion could have been an $890 billion surplus but for the Bush proposals, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The president's next $1.4 trillion cut, geared to the affluent, will average $90,000 a year for millionaires, according to the Tax Policy Center, a research group run by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute. You would think a sense of embarrassment might strike the Republicans in blessing such a boon for a fortunate minority while taking a cleaver to programs vital for most taxpayers, notably a woeful $12 billion cut in food stamps. But they seem intent on ideology trumping responsibility.

The contradictions of the Republicans' plans are legion. They intend to somehow cut Medicare by $214 billion this decade even as the president vows $400 billion in prescription help for retirees. A $93 billion Medicaid cut is blithely ordered by lawmakers who do not have enough daring to ask the president about the missing budget costs for the looming Iraq war. The cuts, the largest in history, are mean spirited in the face of the Bush Republicans' deepening embrace of deficit spending. And deficit spending, firmly blessed by the administration, will be the rule once Congress gets beyond this period of public relations budget fantasizing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/opinion/16SUN1.html