November 3, 2005, Hill Bill Spills and Drills
That would be a bill that passed the senate on a more or less party line vote and purports to simultaneously cut medicare and medicaid funding as well as farm subsidies, while also permitting oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, budget cuts estimated to run around $30 billion over the next few years, or $6 billion next year, or in any event, maybe 2% of the federal budget deficit, although coupled with the latest round of tax cuts for the rich ($70 billion), the measure will actually make the deficit still worse!
The alleged fiscal conservative party, through "starve the beast" tax cuts for the upper middle class, rich (and let's not forget the super-rich), has... managed to increase federal spending dramatically year in, year out since they obtained total control of government, while managing to increase the amount of paper obliging us to pay principal and interest and held by our Chinese and Japanese friends... by trillions of dollars.
There's a simple answer of course (hint: reimpose the tax rates in place on January 20, 2001, which, rather than counter-stimulative, were, in fact, in place during the most impressive in dollar terms expansion in American history, i.e., the Clinton years.) And the only way we'll get there is to vote out the party of plutocracy and war-profiteering, commencing in one year with the all important mid-terms.
We'll see: given the seeming implosion of the Bush Administration (stanched temporarily by Alito TM ... take for those nasty headaches... see your spin-doctor and ask about Alito TM today), this script may write itself. But these days, never underestimate Democrats ability to miss an opportunity.