Social programs face drastic cuts

Why did Vice President Dick Cheney interrupt a trip overseas last month to rush back to Washington early?

He raced in on Dec. 21 to break a tie vote in the U.S. Senate and ensure that the brutal Budget Reconciliation Act passed. This ruthless bill will go back to the House of Representatives for a final vote and then on to the White House to be signed.

This 778 pages of legislation is an elaborate, detailed five-year plan for nearly $40 billion in devastating cutbacks across an array of essential social programs. It is a cruel blow to millions of poor and working people, including single mothers, children, the elderly and disabled. It will cause enormous harm to those who have the least and will set back gains made over decades.

Especially targeted by these modern-day robber barons—who made sure to include in this bill $70 billion in tax cuts for their multi-millionaire friends—are Medicare, Medicaid, student loan programs, childcare subsidies and public assistance.

Student aid programs—which enable children of working-class families to attend college—would be cut by a staggering $12.7 billion. Education advocate David Ward said this is “the biggest cut in the history of the federal student loan program.”

The cutbacks in Medicaid are sweeping and devastating. Health care costs will rise for the poorest families, causing many to forgo needed services; some will be too disheartened to even enroll. Some will die.

States would be allowed to charge millions of Medicaid recipients premiums and higher co-payments and limit or end coverage. They could drop those not able to pay premiums within 60 days or give on-the-spot co-payments for medications, visits to doctors or hospitals, including for emergency care. Higher co-payments will discourage the use of newer, higher-cost drugs, including for mental health, even if they’re more effective.

The budget also affects the working poor. Many who have no on-the-job health insurance turn to Medicaid for their families. This bill would reduce their ability to do so, forcing more to join the 46 million presently uninsured. At a time of employer cuts in health insurance, this will severely hurt low-income workers’ families.

Medicaid is an essential federal-state health care program that covers more than 54 million poor and working-poor families; 25 million of those covered are children. The National Women’s Law Center says Medicaid provides health insurance for 40 percent of single mothers and 3.6 million elderly women, and that 71 percent of adult beneficiaries are women. This bill would callously permit states to reduce Medicaid coverage for contraception and family planning services for poor women.

The Medicare program, which insures 42 million elderly and disabled people, will also be impacted. And poor, disabled recipients of Supplemental Social Insur ance may have to wait for up to one year for their benefits.

This bill imposes a stunning assault on public assistance recipients. It mandates harsh “workfare” requirements, continuing the precedent set 10 years ago by the cruel Welfare Reform Act promoted by then-President Bill Clinton. More single mothers will be pushed into “workfare” programs and, to add insult to injury, childcare subsidies will be decreased for them.

To no one’s surprise, however, two groupings that did not come under the budgetary ax were the pharmaceutical industry and health care companies. They come out of this with their mega-profits unscathed, while the poorest people suffer.

Many organizations representing children, women, poor people, the elderly and the ill have condemned this bill.

AIDS activists have expressed outrage at lawmakers who voted for provisions that would risk the lives of hundreds of thousands who live with HIV/AIDS. Medicaid is this country’s largest payer of HIV/AIDS care. (gaywired.com)

The Human Rights Campaign says states, not health care providers, would have the authority to decide who receives medical care under Medicaid, and they could discriminate against recipients.

David Gartner, Global AIDS Alliance policy director, warned of the bill’s ramifications. He said that an Oregon law raising Medicaid premiums and co-payments led to a recipient dropout rate of 50 percent. He signaled that “the cuts to the Medicaid program would be devastating to all people on Medicaid.” (Advocate.com)

But Congress and the White House have so far given in to the voracious appetite of the rich for massive tax reductions and social program cutbacks. They have given them whatever they asked for in “steal from the poor, give to the rich” schemes to get hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts and to carry out their wars.

It should not be forgotten that almost all the elected officials in both houses of Congress, and in both capitalist parties, voted for the war in Iraq and all the budgetary appropriations for it—-which amount to an admitted $230 billion-plus so far with no end in sight. In fact, Congress just voted another $453 billion in military spending, including $50 billion more for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

But who can stop the Bush agenda of war, racism, poverty and corporate greed? Only the power of the people—who everywhere are becoming fed up with the war, with the millionaires’ tax cuts, and with the growing assaults on their standards of living, their communities and their cities.

Their rightful anger is sowing growing opposition to the horrendous policies coming from the imperialist ruling class. This will only broaden and increase as the war goes on, the tax cuts continue, the federal government does little to help Katrina survivors, and the budgetary ax falls on more poor and working people.

There is real potential for a mass struggle by working people, in and out of unions, including immigrants and those in other oppressed communities, the poor, women, the elderly, lesbian/gay/bi/transgender people, the disabled and their organizations, advocates and supporters.

The answer to all this militarism, corporate greed and cutbacks is an independent movement, with broad mass organizing and fightback.

The Bush administration must be made to feel the outrage of the masses of people, united in struggle, banging at the gates of Congress and the White House.