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Thursday, January 04, 2007
More on Bush's WSJ Pre-State of the Union Op-Ed
Yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, ($) President Bush sketched out some broad themes and a few bold claims for the final two years of his presidency. Many in the media have commented on Bush's call to cut earmarks in half this year, but I wanted to highlight a small part of the op-ed that has been overlooked. Bush wrote:
Because revenues have grown and we've done a better job of holding the line on domestic spending, we met our goal of cutting the deficit in half three years ahead of schedule. By continuing these policies, we can balance the federal budget by 2012 while funding our priorities and making the tax cuts permanent. (emphasis added)
I'll ignore for the moment Bush's continued misleading claims about cutting the deficit in half and how really insignificant that will be in the long run. I'm more concerned that Bush believes we have funded and will continued to be able to fully fund our most crucial priorities. The president is still under the false impression we can tackle difficult challenges without anyone having to sacrifice.
In December, Time Magazine ran an article entitled "The Next Crime Wave" that detailed a rise in violent crime in mid-sized U.S. cities - like Milwaukee - for the first time in ten years. From that article:
Most municipalities count on grants from the Justice Department's State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance and Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services, or COPS, program to help pay for officers on their force. But $1.9 billion, or 45%, of that funding has disappeared since the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks, as federal resources are increasingly directed toward homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Midsize cities, which depend more heavily on federal funds than larger ones do, have nearly 25% fewer officers than they did in 2001, and the White House's budget proposal for next year would sweep away an additional $1.5 billion.
In Milwaukee, COPS universal hiring funds dropped from more than $1 million in 2002 to zero last year. That has left more than 200 police vacancies out of a force less than 2,000 strong.
The article goes on to provide evidence the increase in crime may be due to an increasing number of parolees from prisons who are on the streets with little or no resources to support their transition.
Bush has tried to eliminate the COPS program each year he has been in office and while Congress has preserved the program, it has gone underfunded year after year. The problem is not isolated to crime and policing. The State Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides health care to low-income children, is facing shortfalls in 2007 that threaten the health care of over 600,000 kids. There are many other examples. And all those shortfalls and unfunded priorities are to help pay for making tax giveaways for extremely wealthy Americans permanent.
Despite the altered tone of Bush's article in the WSJ, the substance is little changed: he still believes America can have its cake and eat it too.
Posted by Adam Hughes
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