Priorities

After slashing domestic programs in the FY 2006 budget, it's time to dip again into the social safety net for FY 2007:

Domestic priorities like federal aid to schools and health research are squeezed under President Bush's proposed budget for next year, but funding for the Pentagon, the war in Iraq and anti-terrorism efforts get impressive increases.

Monday's budget tome will have a price tag of more than $2.7 trillion. The departments of Education, Commerce, Interior and Energy will see their budgets, on average, frozen or cut slightly below today's already austere levels. [...]

More for Defense, more money spent overall, no change in the deficit, but less for Education and Energy. So much for American competitiveness. Even the Centers for Disease Control will face a cut. So much for fighting the potential bird flu epidemic.

And all of these cuts are an attempt to ram through new tax cuts by creating offsets, even though all that money is eaten up by Defense budgets and emergency supplemental appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan that at this point should be in the budget. Did Iraq sneak up on anybody? Did we not know we were going to be there this year? Then why is that emergency funding? It's ridiculous.

I'll be glad when this fantasyland budget-making is over sometime in early 2009.