Ever since Sept. 11, Americans have been living in fear of another terrorist attack. From the pretty-colored alert that flashes across the bottom of television screens coast-to-coast to the war in Iraq, we have been saturated with the idea that the United States is the good guy in a crusade to stop the fanatical bad guys from attacking us again. We lost civil liberties under the USA Patriot Act and saw horrible images of gruesome interrogation tactics to help our leaders hunt those bad guys down, yet still we are afraid.
But never fear, fellow Americans! As part of his continuing quest to save the beacon of greatness that is the United States, President Bush has allocated even more money to fight terrorism and prosecute the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in his latest budget.
Of course, this money comes at the expense of social programs to help the least fortunate among us and environmental protections to keep the air we breathe and the water we drink clean. Upon closer look, the president's proposed budget will allow Americans to do some of the very things that we fear from the terrorists.
While the president would like to allocate more money to the Department of Energy to combat attacks on industrial sites, he also wants to drastically cut funding from environmental agencies that regulate the pollution produced by many of those same sites. The Environmental Protection Agency is facing the single largest cut of any organization. The Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which underwrites projects to promote clean water, is receiving barely one-third of the funding it got only four years ago.
It is as if President Bush wants to allow American industry to do what will become harder for the terrorists. While it seems that nobody will be bombing a toxic waste-producing site any time soon, such sites will be able to produce toxic waste with less fear of being regulated, and the organizations whose job is to clean up the toxins won't have enough money to do so. As Linda Eichmiller, a spokesperson for the Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrator, bluntly told The New York Times: \We have a fund that is not adequate to meet [our] needs.""
Furthermore, while Bush wants to spend more pursuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers who have already served would get the short end of the stick under his plan. More than one million veterans who get health coverage through the Department of Veterans Affairs will see a new $250 enrollment fee next year and co-payments for prescription drugs that are more than twice as high as they had been previously.
So, in addition to having to serve longer tours of duty, the honorable men and women in the military will have a harder time paying for their health care when they get back. Meanwhile, the president want to spend more money on the wars we are already involved in, indicating that he has no plans to pull out any time soon. Anyone want to join the Army?
Meanwhile, because he wants to spend so much on foreign engagements, cuts in services like those mentioned above, as well as in integral departments such as the Department of Education and important social programs such as Medicaid, will not do much to reduce the record national deficit the United States in currently facing. Instead of financing the national debt, which is nearing epic proportions, Bush will use the money he saves on services to pay for foreign engagements and irresponsible tax cuts.
Bush's budget has been criticized by liberals because it would cut social services and by conservatives because of its failure to address the deficit. But he wants to push it through Congress anyway, despite the fact that it lacks any sense of fiscal responsibility whatsoever.
Congress should not approve this budget without making major changes. Once again, Bush has demonstrated that he wants to be like Ronald Reagan in his domestic policies by cutting government spending programs while spending almost limitlessly to project American military might. Regardless of whether you agree with either set of priorities, it simply isn't for the United States to pursue both together unless it throws away all monetary constraints-something Bush is more than willing to preside over.
If this budget passes through Congress, the United States will be engaged overseas, in debt and unable to protect its least fortunate citizens. Even if spending oodles of money does pay off in a decisive victory in the war on terror-something that is unlikely at best-we will be faced with major money issues here at home. Perhaps there is something to fear after all.
Sam Berns is a senior majoring in political science and religious studies.
