The Budget: A Political Document
Every president’s budget is partly numbers, partly priorities and partly 
political hogwash. And what we hope is the final such budget from anti-worker 
GOP President George W. Bush, for fiscal 2009, which starts Oct. 1, contains a 
healthy dose of that last ingredient. Consider some of the schmaltzy political 
rhetoric--and what it leaves out:
The budget: “The president’s budget reaches balance in 2012, while continuing to 
invest in the nation’s safety and prosperity. Critical to continued deficit 
reduction is a growing economy, and for that reason the budget promotes an 
economic growth plan, makes tax relief permanent, and proposes other policies to 
improve the quality of education, expand access to affordable health care, 
address the rising cost of energy, and help Americans keep their homes.”
Reality: Growth plan? What growth plan? One of the few items that grows under 
Bush is the budget deficit, back up to more than $400 billion a year. Hello: 
Bush took over a government with a $250 billion surplus . He promptly ran it deep into debt to pay for his 
tax cuts an war in Iraq. One of the few items that’s grown under W is red ink.
Reality: “Critical to continued deficit reduction”--never mind that the 
deficit’s going up again--“is a growing economy.” Growing? Someone tell that to 
the Maytag worker in Galesburg or the hotel worker in San Francisco or the 
teacher in St. Louis. Growing for whom? Not for us.
Reality: “Makes tax relief permanent.” This, of course, means Bush’s tax cuts 
for the rich. The top 1% of the country now controls 22% of the wealth, aided 
and abetted by the Bush-GOP tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. The rich took our money 
and stuffed it in their pockets. But he doesn’t tell you who he’s making the tax 
relief permanent for. We’ll give you one guess.
The budget: The budget would “expand access to affordable health care,” Bush’s 
introduction says. It later explains how he wants to do so: “It proposes 
replacing the existing--and unlimited--tax exclusion for employer-sponsored insurance with a standard deduction, which levels the playing field for 
Americans who purchase health care individually rather than through their 
employers.”
Reality: The next thing you’ll hear if that scheme comes to fruition--and 
luckily it won’t this year, because the Democratic-run 110th Congress won’t even 
listen--will be the mad stampede of happy corporate feet as tens of thousands of 
employers cut costs by dumping their workers’ health care coverage. 
Bush would throw those workers onto the market, letting the insurers compete for 
them. Expanding access? Hardly. “Denying access” is a better description. 
Will Bush try to push all this through? Yes. But this year, there should be a 
big difference in the Dems’ response: Don’t wimp out, but call him on it. As 
Change to Win Chair Anna Burger says, make Bush veto bills and force the GOP to 
vote on the vetoes. 
If Bush wants to use his veto to strip workers of health care and throw them on 
the mercy of the companies, fine. If he wants to use his veto to give permanent tax cuts to the rich while denying jobless benefits to 
workers, fine. Let him do it and let the GOP take the heat. Then give them heat 
right back, in November.