Recent articles in these pages bemoaned the budget cuts to student aid. The cut per student would average about $6,000. For some poor and middle-class students, the cuts could total more than six grand. What you have not heard from all of the senators tabling in the Union is who is pushing these cuts. Take a guess.
The bills which the Student Senate is fighting were written by Republicans, passed out of committees with Republicans voting for them—Democrats voted against them—and rolled into the overall budget bill by Republicans. Republicans also have authored, and Democrats have sworn to vote against, the rest of the budget bill, which cuts food stamps, foster care help, Medicaid, school lunches, and much more. Funny things happen when you try to screw over large numbers of students, poor, elderly, and sick. Just enough moderate Republicans have stated their intention to vote against the budget bill, forcing extremist Republican leaders in the House to twice back out of bringing it up for a vote. Republicans assure us that these cuts are necessary to deal with the government’s $412 billion budget deficit.
There’s only one problem …
On top of this, Republicans want to introduce $70 billion in tax cuts—largely for the wealthy. Let’s see if we can put math and politics together to understand this:
Bush and Republicans in Congress give massive tax breaks, mainly to the wealthy, which mostly erases the budget surplus created under President Clinton. Now, they want to cut $54 billion in services to the poor and middle class, while giving away $70 billion to the rich, all with the goal of getting their budget out of the red.
Confused? So are we. Angry? You should be.
