CWA 1180 - Political Action

Billions to kill people, nothing to help them live
by Linda Jenkins
April 2003

It doesn't make sense that we are fighting a war in Iraq when the real fight for working people is right here at home. People are focused on the war, and anyone who questions our role there, the needless loss of life and the economic cost risks being labeled unpatriotic. But as the war goes on the federal treasury is going deeper into debt and we are ignoring very serious problems here in the U.S.

The U.S. economy has taken a major downturn. The numbers of Americans living in poverty has increased, income for middle-class households has decreased and unemployment has increased over the past two years as the economy has lost more than 2 million private sector jobs. State budgets are facing a fiscal year 2004 budget shortfall between $70 billion and $85 billion. In their 2003 budgets, 26 states were forced to make cuts in Medicaid, education, transportation, aid to local governments and human services. The impact of these cuts were sharply felt by working families.

To help close a $2.5 billion budget gap, Oregon has been forced to shorten the school year by five weeks, increase class size for students, lay off state troopers and eliminate prescription drugs for low-income people. And in New York, healthcare, education, transportation and law enforcement—as well as thousands of state jobs—are all facing the budget ax as the state tries to grapple with an expected $11.5 billion budget gap.

Yet Bush's proposed budget provides no funds to help the states address their financial crises. What it does include is nearly $700 billion in tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit wealthy Americans. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Bush plan gives those with incomes of $1 million and more an average tax cut of $90,000 while middle-class Americans would receive an average of only $256.

Bush has also gone to Congress for $75 billion to fight the war—while domestic needs are being neglected. We are spending billions for war when we need money for jobs, schools, and healthcare. Taxpayers in New York will pay $5.1 billion for funding the $75 billion request for war in Iraq. For the same amount of money we could provide 762,900 housing vouchers or 600,324 Head Start places for children.

Working families are paying the human cost of this war, too: It is their children who fight and die in Iraq and it is their children who suffer here at home. Every dollar spent on the war and tax cuts for the rich is a dollar that robs us of resources that could extend health care coverage to the uninsured, strengthen Social Security and Medicare, provide a comprehensive and affordable prescription drug benefit, rebuild roads, highways and bridges and bolster education.

With so much in jeopardy here for working families we have to speak out. We need to be dealing with the problems we have here, instead of spending billions of dollars on a war that is killing innocent Iraqi children while U.S. children are living in poverty and can't get the education and healthcare they need.

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