'98 Budget battle - fund human needs

by Tim Wheeler

This article was reprinted from the January 10, 1998 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

President Clinton announced Jan. 5 that the federal budget deficit will be erased by 1999, three years ahead of schedule. At the same time, advocates for human needs programs demanded that the record flow of tax revenues be used to increase funding for education, health care and other vital programs.

Congress will not reconvene until Jan. 27 but the flurry of proposals from grassroots organizations indicated that battle lines are already forming. It is a Congressional election year which can increase voter leverage on lawmakers. The AFL-CIO's success in blocking fast track expansion of NAFTA last November and a year earlier pushing through Congress a minimum wage increase proves that victories can be won.

Florence Kimball, a legislative worker for the Friends Committee on National Legislation, told the World, "Our position is that the federal budget should be restructured so that there is economic justice. Reduce the spending on the military and shift it to meet human needs."

Kimball's reacted to President Clinton's proposal last Tuesday to lower the Medicare eligibility age to 55 with beneficiaries required to pay as much as $5,000 in annual premiums. "Requiring people to pay a premium will continue to exclude the people who are most in need of protection," she said. "We support health care for everyone regardless of employment, health status, age, income or citizenship status. There is national income sufficient to provide for the nation's human needs."

David Fouse, a spokesperson for the American Public Health Association, said his organization is pushing Congress to enact a "Patients Bill of Rights" to protect people from profit-driven HMOs. "Financial interests now take precedent over patient care," he said. "Physicians face gag orders on discussing treatment options with their patients. Hospital stays have been shortened. We think a 'Patients Bill of Rights' will give people some protection."

Fouse also decried the deep erosion in funding for Public Health departments across the country half of which lack computer capabilities. Public hospitals are being closed or privatized even as epidemics of drug resistant TB, HIV and other diseases spread. "We need increased spending on our public health infrastructure," he said. Another APHA goal is health insurance coverage for the five million children still unprotected. "These are wise investments that will save both money and lives," he said.

Anthony Samu, vice president of the U.S. Student Association (USSA), said students are mobilizing to demand increased funding for Pell Grants. In March, USSA will sponsor a week of grassroots student lobbying on Capitol Hill to press the demand. Since last January, he said, the Republican-majority Senate and House has stalled a vote on reauthorizing the Higher Education funding bill. "This academic year 1997-98 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Pell Grant Program," he said. "Money for higher education is being eliminated. Just when young people are beginning to get in the door to a higher education, it is being slammed shut. If you're talking about infrastructure, the best investment of all is education."

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) had other priorities in mind. He told the Cobb County, Georgia Chamber of Commerce that any budget surplus should be doled out in capital gains and estate tax cuts for the rich. He urged Congress to "monetize the Social Security Trust Fund," opening this most important safety net program to be raided by Wall Street.

The Cato Institute and Economic Security 2000 are pushing nonbinding resolutions through state legislatures in favor of privatizing social security. So far, Oregon, Colorado, Delaware and Georgia have passed such resolutions. Martha McSteen, president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare warned that it is "vitally important to seniors to be on the alert for privatization resolutions in their states and to actively oppose them at every turn." Lisa Davis, senior policy analyst for the group, warned against those who would pooh-pooh these non- binding resolutions. "They are hugely dangerous," she said. "These groups plan to push these resolutions through 30 or 40 state legislatures and then descend on Washington claiming a popular mandate to privatize social security. We need to be working now to defeat these resolutions."

President Clinton, she said, has already met three times with Cato Institute officials. The White House is floating proposals for a special session of Congress after next November's election or a bipartisan commission to "fix" Social Security which alarmists claim will go broke in 30 years, a dire prediction rejected by senior citizon groups. "President Clinton has said he is opposed to private retirement accounts as a substitute for Social Security," Davis told the World, "but we believe he is under pressure from the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation and others. That is why suddenly he is proposing quick action on Social Security. Whenever things are done quickly there is a danger they will be done badly."