There seems to be a common misperception that while things are pretty bad, the country survived the Reagan tax cuts, and the Bush tax cuts aren’t that much worse. All that progressives need to do is continue working against any more tax cuts and advocating for adequate appropriations funding, and we'll get through it. This complacency is misplaced and dangerous. The tax cuts, the fiscal condition of the federal government and the states, and the politics are very different. Conservatives have been working on a long-term agenda of shrinking government by reducing revenue. Movement conservative Grover Norquist wants to cut spending on federal programs in half within the next generation; in his words: "kill the taxes and you kill the government."

The Bush Budget for FY 2004 proposes major funding changes, including block grants, for a number of low-income programs like Medicaid and the State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Section 8 Housing Vouchers, Unemployment Insurance, Head Start, Child Welfare and Job Training. The House has begun considering block granting Head Start and Job Training programs. This means that states would get a block of money, sometimes guaranteed for a fixed number of years, to administer programs with less federal oversight. Low-income families and children will lose any entitlement to a minimum federally set safety net that expands when more people are in need. While the safety net is slowing being eroded, block grants would speed up the process. Also, under TANF reauthorization, we expect the "superwaiver" to be revived again – this provision basically unties federal regulations, allowing state governors to waive federal rules in programs including food stamps, public housing, homelessness programs, childcare, job training and adult education.

After hijacking the child tax credit with add-ons that inflated the cost to $82 billion, House GOP leaders continue this month in their headlong rush to drain resources from government by cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy. The campaign has just moved from the outrageous to the egregious.

The 2003 tax cut package contained a number of goodies for higher income individuals -- a dividend tax cut, a capital gains tax cut, acceleration of previous reductions in upper income tax rates. However, several reports have shown that millions of taxpayers, primarily middle income and below, as well as millions of children, have been left behind.