For the second time, in as many years, the President and his tax-slashing allies in Congress have passed a budget that calls for massive tax cuts. Though the recent precedent-setting effort of congressional Republicans last week to pass a budget resolution by agreeing to different tax cut packages leaves much uncertainty about just how large a tax cut the country will be saddled with, a large tax giveaway seems assured. Within the next several weeks, we will learn whether this round of tax cuts will be limited to the Senate's $350 billion or be as high as the House's $550 billion, but this is just the beginning: the budget resolution actually provides for a total of $1.3 trillion in tax cuts over the next 10 years. Whatever is decided, the tax cuts will be far more than the country can afford. As a result, most of us, and future generations, will be stuck footing the bill for a huge expenditure that will do little, if anything, to stimulate the economy, lower the unemployment rate, close the ever-widening gaps in state budgets, meet the educational needs of our children, or address the shortfall in Social Security or pay for a prescription drug plan for our seniors.

For the second time, in as many years, the President and his tax-slashing allies in Congress have passed a budget that calls for massive tax cuts. Though the recent precedent-setting effort of congressional Republicans last week to pass a budget resolution by agreeing to different tax cut packages leaves much uncertainty about just how large a tax cut the country will be saddled with, a large tax giveaway seems assured. Within the next several weeks, we will learn whether this round of tax cuts will be limited to the Senate's $350 billion or be as high as the House's $550 billion, but this is just the beginning: the budget resolution actually provides for a total of $1.3 trillion in tax cuts over the next 10 years. Whatever is decided, the tax cuts will be far more than the country can afford. As a result, most of us, and future generations, will be stuck footing the bill for a huge expenditure that will do little, if anything, to stimulate the economy, lower the unemployment rate, close the ever-widening gaps in state budgets, meet the educational needs of our children, or address the shortfall in Social Security or pay for a prescription drug plan for our seniors.

For the second time, in as many years, the President and his tax-slashing allies in Congress have passed a budget that calls for massive tax cuts. Though the recent precedent-setting effort of congressional Republicans last week to pass a budget resolution by agreeing to different tax cut packages leaves much uncertainty about just how large a tax cut the country will be saddled with, a large tax giveaway seems assured. Within the next several weeks, we will learn whether this round of tax cuts will be limited to the Senate's $350 billion or be as high as the House's $550 billion, but this is just the beginning: the budget resolution actually provides for a total of $1.3 trillion in tax cuts over the next 10 years. Whatever is decided, the tax cuts will be far more than the country can afford. As a result, most of us, and future generations, will be stuck footing the bill for a huge expenditure that will do little, if anything, to stimulate the economy, lower the unemployment rate, close the ever-widening gaps in state budgets, meet the educational needs of our children, or address the shortfall in Social Security or pay for a prescription drug plan for our seniors.

If House Republicans had had their way, cuts to Veterans’ benefits, Medicaid, Food Stamps, child nutrition programs, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), TANF, and assistance for farmers would have paid part of the bill. Fortunately these programs were spared in the House-Senate compromise, but with a $400 billion deficit looming for the coming fiscal year, money to fund the tax cuts has to be found somewhere. It is inconceivable that the annual defense budget (slated to rise to more than $500 billion over the course of the next 5 years) will be scaled back in a time of ongoing war and uncertainty in the Middle East and Asia. Equally unlikely are cuts to homeland security efforts -- though states are still not getting the money they need to cover the costs of first-rate first responders and hospitals. All that remains, then, is the all-too-frequent target of spending cuts -- programs that protect and serve the needs of the poor and near-poor in this country. Such cuts are never good for the country, but are even more unwise and unfair when the economy is causing increasing hardship for low-income families. And, we should not fool ourselves, as economist Paul Krugman pointed out in a recent op-ed, the price of big tax cuts for the wealthy will ultimately hurt the middle class as well.

To pay for the tax cuts, the final budget resolution calls for $168 billion less money than that which would be necessary just to keep up with inflation in domestic discretionary spending program areas over the next 10 years (according to this Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report). A reduction of $168 billion over 10 years may seem rather small, but the real cuts are much higher when you account for population increases, the slowed economic recovery, as well as long-unmet needs for improvements in the programs. Worse, still, the budget resolution reinstates unrealistically low discretionary spending caps for five years, and any effort to override these caps will require a 60-vote "supermajority” in the Senate. These spending caps will cause more cuts in domestic discretionary spending because there is no "firewall" between defense and domestic spending. Domestic discretionary spending is almost everything that our federal government does outside of the military, Social Security and Medicare, and Veterans’ benefits. Cuts in this spending will go beyond the most vulnerable among us, and extend to reductions in funding to improve our public schools, to ensure that our food is uncontaminated and our medicines safe and effective, and to maintain parks and open spaces – you have only to look at the measures that states are implementing to balance their budgets to get a good idea of what is ahead.

Specifically, according to the Senate Budget Committee's Democratic staff, the budget resolution's proposed funding cuts to education "more than offset the total of all amendments added on the Senate floor [to fund] the No Child Left Behind Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), Pell Grants, and Impact Aid." Though the budget resolution provides for $400 billion for the implementation of a Medicare prescription drug plan over the next 10 years, and a $49.9 billion 10-year reserve fund for health insurance for the uninsured, this is about $120 billion and $38 billion less, respectively, than many in the Senate estimate is needed to adequately meet these needs.

In addition to relying on cuts in domestic discretionary spending, Congress has decided that we can pay for these tax cuts by eliminating waste and fraud. The House and Senate Budget Committee Chairs are instructed by the budget resolution to find specified levels of "savings" that can be achieved from reductions in "waste, fraud and abuse." Unfortunately, efforts at eliminating waste, fraud and abuse are often directed at low-income programs. An example is the Treasury Department’s initiative to pre-certify and delay refunds to “high-risk” Earned Income Tax Credit recipients (see related article in this issue of the Watcher). Even if these measures save money, low-income programs represent such a small percentage of federal funding that there will not be huge savings – not nearly enough to pay for the tax cuts.

The shrinking of government through funding reductions can no longer be mistaken for a mere side-effect of conservative efforts to reward wealthy constituents with tax breaks. Reducing and delimiting government is, instead, a prime motivation for the tax cutters' determination. Most Americans recognize that tax cuts are the real threat to fiscal discipline, but conservatives are working hard to make fiscal discipline synonymous with cutting government. The American people don’t want more tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy and recognize that the country can’t afford tax cuts. Congress is unabashedly flying in the face of public opinion. It will be interesting to see at election time what the results of this Congressional overreaching will be.