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 From The Desk Of
Ron Walters
Columnist Page
Friday, February 11, 2005; Page 20
Bush Budget Bashes Blacks
I don't know if you caught it, but when President George Bush was leaving the joint session of the Congress, following his State of the Union Speech the other night, he leaned over to Congressman Bobby Rush of Chicago on his way out and said: "I listened to you all at the meeting [I had with the CBC recently] and I included some of your thoughts in the speech." To this, the new Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Mel Watt of North Carolina said, "There was nothing in that speech that even pretends to address the Congressional Black Caucus agenda."
The feelings of the CBC Chair were confirmed by the release of Bush's new federal budget proposals on February 7 that cut or eliminated altogether 150 programs concentrated in the social side of the domestic budget where the CBC lives. The budget proposals of any president are important because, although they are proposals and are seldom passed into law as they are, they give us a serious look at what the top elected officials in the country intends to do with the national economic resources to satisfy pressing problems.
An analysis of this budget by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities suggests that its impact on programs involving the poor, veterans, child care, education and health could be harsh. Child advocates including the March of Dimes and the American Academy of Pediatrics said that, "the budget frays the safety net for millions of children from low-income working families." If this was not enough, the U. S. Conference of Mayors blasted the administration's budget proposals as taking resources from those who need low-cost housing and from housing programs for poor neighborhoods and slashing aid to cities by one-third.
Things don't just happen this way, especially at the level of the presidency. The slow economy, on top of huge tax cuts enacted by the first Bush administration, together with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan have helped to create enormous pressure on the federal treasury, and Bush has chosen to take it out on the domestic budget. The pressure puts Bush and his colleagues in a position that appears innocent as to the causes and to go on a cutting binge that, if enacted into law by the Congress, could cripple those who need government most for some time to come.
The reasons for the cuts don't make sense as an accidental mistake of policy making. Why would the education president eliminate or consolidate funding for 48 education programs, take $1.9 billion from vocational education, take $2.2 million from a program to educate youth about the Underground Railroad, propose cutting $3.5 million from Tribal colleges serving 77 tribes in 15 states, take $312 million from Upward Bound and $437.4 million from Safe and Drug Free schools and Communities and cripple No Child Left Behind by taking $94.5 million away in grants to create smaller learning environments within large schools?
Why would the health care president cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control by 9%, cut funds for the fight against obesity by 6.5%, cut training for health professionals by 64%, and cut doctors for children's hospitals by 33%, and totally eliminate the block grant of $131 million for preventive health services to address urgent health problems? Many of these programs directly target health care priorities of concern to the Black community. Otherwise, spending for HIV/AIDS was proposed to increase, as well as Community Health Centers and Bush's pet program of sexual abstinence. Another increase would bring the latter to $192 million, an increase of 50% since 2005. (But it would also fund most of the cut in Upward Bound.)
George Bush says that the cuts in these programs or their outright elimination was justified by the evaluation of his cabinet officials that they were no longer needed since they were not being effective. Well millions of people who need education can testify to the contrary that programs like vocational education and Upward Bound were effective; and millions of those who need the health services proposed to be cut from the federal budget can also bear witness that such things as preventive health care services are important to shielding them from more serious problems. On the other hand, it is profoundly true from the research available that abstinence programs, while morally justifiable, are also practically ineffective.
Well, I often get questions from journalists about why it is that Black people don't vote for Republicans. They are often well-meaning questions, voiced with even painful expressions of confusion. Next time I get one, I think I'll just give them a copy of the cuts in the federal budget proposed by President George Bush on February 7, 2005.
Dr. Ron Walters is Distinguished Leadership Scholar, Director of the African American Leadership Institute and Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. His latest book is: White Nationalism, Black Interests, by Wayne University Press. |
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