Bipartisan Budget Heist
The occasional pre-election outburst of partisan politics may still be heard in the halls of the U.S. Congress. But recent weeks have revealed a virtual unanimity among Democrats and Republicans in regard to prioritizing unprecedented and massive cuts in national social programs that have existed for decades.
By Jeff Mackler
THE FEBRUARY 6, WASHINGTON, D.C. meeting of the National Governors' Association announced a series of unanimous recommendations designed to resolve the ongoing Congressional budget impasse over the nation's welfare, Medicaid (health aid for the poor and disabled), and related social programs.
This periodic meeting of the nation's 50 state governors is a national forum where key financial and political issues involving the impact of federal policies on state governments are discussed and debated. Central leaders of both capitalist parties, from President (and Democratic Party Presidential candidate) Bill Clinton to Senate Majority Speaker (and leading THE U Republican Party Presidential FOR ALL DEBTS, 1 THIS NOTE IS candidate) Robert Dole, в. 2 B were active participants.
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Prior to this meeting Congress had 2 failed to come up with final formulas to codify into legislation the massive cuts in virtually all social services that both parties insist are necessary to balance the U.S. budget within their already agreed to sevenyear timeframe.
The unanimous vote was headlined in newspapers across the country. The February 7 New York Times reported "In a speech to the governors this morning, Mr. Clinton said their idea of preserving a federal guarantee of medical benefits for needy people, and of broad new flexibility for states to administer such programs, had 'contributed immeasurably' to resolving disputes between the White House and Congress." The President had similar praise for the governors' proposals for overhauling welfare.
Republican presidential candidate Dole, also praised the governors as "honest brokers." He promised: "We're prepared to act and we believe the President will be prepared to act too." Clinton informed the media that his Presidential opponent had demonstrated "a genuine spirit of cooperation." House Speaker Newt Gingrich promised immediate congressional hearings on the governors' proposals. His spokesman Tony Blankley, described the Speaker as "ecstatic" at the governors' efforts.
A same-day editorial in the NY Times, however, entitled, "No Salvation
3302NO2A between turning the health insurance program over to the states to run, as the Republican Party wants, and preserving the existing entitlement that poor families have to medical coverage. But the entitlement has shriveled. The governors' plan would guarantee undefined medical benefits to a diminished number of recipients."
Presently, families receiving Federal welfare assistance automatically qualify for Medicaid. Under the governors' plan, states would not have to cover adults or children over age 12, no matter how poor. The governors' recommen-dation allows states to reduce hospital and other benefits, making the current
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DOLLAI From The Governors" revealed that the bipartisan agreement represented yet another grave assault on working people and the poor.
The NY Times observed: "The nation's governors voted overwhelmingly at their conference yesterday for reforms on welfare and Medicaid that are harsher toward the poor in key respects than anything Congress has passed or that the Republicans privately negotiated with President Clinton in their ill-fated budget talks.
"What they did not achieve," the Times continues, "is a proposal that would guarantee a central security for the impoverished." On Medicaid, the governors' plan would, according to the Times account, "split the difference low the states to cut Medicaid spending by $200 billion over seven years.
The Times noted: "The governors' welfare proposal rips away the Federal guarantee of additional money for states experiencing rising welfare rolls, as the President unwisely invited the Republicans to do. It puts a five-year cap on benefits even for adults who can find no job. The proposal would also allow states to make huge cuts - up to 30% - in the money they spend on welfare. The Federal Government would have little ability to forces states to treat their poor residents fairly."
And finally, "The governors' would make unacceptable cuts in food stamps and, borrowing the worst planks from the [Republican] Congressional plan, would allow states to opt out of the Federal food Jeff Mackler is National Secretary of the US group Socialist Action.
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B 38699764 F 838699764F 2 stamp program and cut off childless adults after four months who cannot find work."
This Clinton-praised governors' plan would "guarantee" that the states maintain their welfare efforts at 75% of current levels, as opposed to the 80% that Clinton previously suggested was the minimum reduction he would accept.
On Medicare for the elderly, the Democrats and Republicans have the same massive cuts in mind. A December issue of The Nation magazine [left, pro-Democrat -Ed] aptly observed: "Mediscare is good politics, but the Republican Medicare plan is similar to that proposed by the President, and trashed by Republicans themselves last year. The spending differences over seven years derive primarily from varying estimates on the rate of inflation." The current debate in Congress is over how to "save" $270 b. in Medicare costs by a combination of cuts and increased premiums. AVERTING A THIRD GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
In early February, in the "new" spirit of bipartisanship, Clinton signed into law a Republican-sponsored proposal to avert a third federal shutdown. A "temporary spending measure" was approved that extended government functioning, albeit at a reduced rate, for another seven weeks. But the bill also cut several programs by as much as 25% below last year's levels." (NYT, January 27). It eliminated 10 programs outright and cut others like the Clinton-supported national service program. Federal aid to family planning programs overseas was slashed. The right to abortion at overseas federal medical facilities was eliminated. It has already been eliminated in federal facilities within the U.S.
Under this bill, $3.1 b. was cut in a single year in funds for education, with the largest portion a $1.1 b. annual reduction in Title I aid to school districts with poor children. This represented a 17% reduction compared to last year's spending.
Embarrassed liberals in both parties maneuvered to maintain their credibility among their constituents.
Bemoaning the fate of education, politicians, expert in the game of public deception, ran to the media to protect what they perceived as their own political backsides. Vermont's Republican governor James Jeffords complained that "Layoff
26 International Viewpoint April 1996 notices will have to be sent out in March." Detroit mayor Dennis Archer announced that 419 teachers would have to be sent layoff notices. Kennedy protested that Boston schools would have to institute cuts amounting to 15% of their budget. THE DEBT LIMIT PLOY
The most recent bipartisan maneuvers to transfer additional billions from working people to the ruling rich concerned the debate over the new March 1 deadline on raising the nation's $4.9 trillion debt limit to avoid a government default to U.S. and international creditors.
The U.S. debt reached this statutory limit on November 15. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, however, was permitted to use monies in pension fund accounts to prevent the Government from defaulting on bond interest and other obligations. But now that the threat to default on the debt, never seriously considered by either ruling class party, has been effectively utilized to justify additional billions in budget cuts, a bipartisan effort is underway to increase the statutory debt limit. An initial bill submitted by New York Senator Patrick Moynihan proposes to increase the limit to $5.4 trillion.
Look at the mathematics! Moynihan's proposal means permitting the government to borrow an additional $500 billion to pay off debts to capitalist creditors. The interest on the U.S. debt, the largest in the world, currently amounts to some 27% of the entire annual $1.5 trillion U.S. budget. Payment of this interest is sacrosanct. Default is unthinkable, unless and until, of course, the degeneration of the economic foundations of U.S. capitalism makes payment literally impossible. Today, however, the mere hint of a possible technical default caused leading investment banking institutions to threaten to devalue key bonds held by the ruling class.
The elimination of the interest on the debt paid annually to the billionaire rich who own U.S. and world financial institutions would more than balance the entire U.S. budget, whose deficit last year amounted to $190 billion. But this is not what the ruling class politicians have in mind when they refer to "deficit reduction."
The January 25 New York Times illustrated quite clearly how the debt issue was manipulated to serve capitalist ends. "Congressional Republicans said today that they would abandon the national debt as a weapon against President Clinton," the paper wrote, "if he would support modest budget and tax cuts as a 'downpayment' on a balanced budget."
In a speech made prior to Clinton's January 23 State of the Union address,
Newt Gingrich proposed that these particular tit-for-tat "modest budget cuts" be limited. "They would" according to Gingrich, "incorporate only elements that Mr. Clinton was ready to accept."
Clinton in his State of the Union address was more than obliging. He urged immediate enactment of the cuts that the Republicans and his administration had in common. Chairman of the House Budget Committee, John Kasich estimated the new agreement could achieve "a total of $50 billion to $80 b. in [additional] deficit reduction." Kasich added that the cuts were "not controversial." Translation: they would impact the working class not the ruling class.
Another ploy to transfer additional billions of working class tax money to the rich, centers around the Congressional debate over a tax cut. Republicans initially proposed to grant the ruling rich and the otherwise wealthy $354 b. in tax cuts over the next seven years.
Clinton has already agreed to give these capitalist elites a more modest $130 b. over the same period. The Republicans "compromised," pairing their demands to $177 b. The difference will be negotiated in ways that the American people will never know about.
In the name of "reducing deficits," or balancing budgets," the political representatives of capital have sought to justify their policies in the name of "preserving the nation." Scapegoating working people, the poor, the elderly, immigrants and oppressed nationalities more generally, ruling class ideologues and their kept media seek to justify their anti-social policies with economic jargon designed to deflect attention from themselves as they loot the public treasury.
The elimination of corporate welfare in the form of tax breaks and outright grants annually paid out to the ruling rich in the United States, would immediately end all budget deficits, for this year and all others. Corporate welfare in America is estimated to run to $250 b. annually.
But these kinds of measures are unthinkable for the bipartisan politicians who run the U.S. Congress. Their legalized transfer of wealth from the public treasury to their pockets is designed to preserve their system against all opponents, not to meet the needs of the 95% of all Americans who have little or nothing to gain from their actions.
"There is now broad bipartisan agreement that permanent deficit spending is over," said Clinton. But he neglected to say that deficit spending to pay the interest and principal to capitalist banking institution will continue and expand.
Again referring to the deficit, Clinton stated. "I compliment the Republicans for the energy and determination they have brought to this task."
He added, "And I thank the Democrats for passing the largest deficit reduction plan in history in 1993, which has already cut the deficit in half in nearly three years." He neglected to mention that the $365 b. deficit three years ago was a product of Republican, and Democratic Party war spending and other gifts to the ruling rich designed to both police the world and line their pockets, while priming the failing Keynesian capitalist pump.
The single largest budget item, the military, was left untouched. In fact, the $263 b. mılıtary appropriations bıll $265 b. military appropriations bill approved by Congress and signed by Clinton, gave the Pentagon more than the President had originally requested.
"We are near agreement on sweeping welfare reform," continued Clinton in his address to the nation. But he neglected to state the costs in human misery.
"I challenge every state to give all parents the right to choose which public school their children attend, and let teachers form new schools with a charter they can keep only if they do a good job." The President neglected to clarify that this was a reference to a coming ruling class project designed to steal funds from public education and transfer them to private enterprise. Clinton's reference to the privatization of public education signals another assault on working people in the interests of capital.
On pensions reform, Clinton was at his ruling class and gentle best. "I challenge every business that can possibly afford it to provide pensions for their employees." Few, if any volunteers for this "challenge" are expected.
On the environment, Clinton also extended an open hand to the corporate elite: "To businesses, we are saying: If you can find a cheaper more efficient way than government regulations to meet tough pollution standards, then do it as long as you do it right." Environmental rhetoric aside, Clinton's last "temporary spending measure," for the first time in years, led a significant layer of environmental groups to protest the hidden measures contained therein to gut major portions of existing environmental legislation and funding.
But on immigration, President Clinton showed the clenched fist: "We are increasing border patrols by 50%, he said. The following week the government announced a record number of arrests of Mexican immigrants. In a single day, some 2,500 were arrested crossing the Mexican border. Scapegoating the poor will
USA * continue. Clinton took another bow for his accomplishments in the arena of federal employment: "Today," he said, the Federal workforce is 200,00 employees smaller than the day I took office. The Federal government is the smallest it has been in thirty years, and getting smaller every day. The remaining federal workforce is composed of Americans who are working harder and smarter to make sure that the quality of our services does not decline."
RULING CLASS BIPARTISANSHIP
"Centrists" like Bill Clinton, "left-wingers" like Edward Kennedy and Jesse Jackson, freshman super-conservative Republicans and their equivalents among the 'Blue Dog' Democrats, all these politicians and their parties are defenders of a declining capitalism that is compelled by