“President Bush was in Chicago in early January to explain his economic strategy, but all it’s doing is causing working people to lose jobs,” says Gwendolyn Stewart, a retired nurse and AFSCME Chapter 31 member. “His tax cuts are based on money trickling down—it may provide a trickle for the rich, I guess, but we get the down.”

Gwendolyn Stewart, a former nurse and AFSCME retiree Chapter 31 member, says Bush economics is causing people to lose jobs.
Members of unions and the community group ACORN rallied on Capitol Hill March 24 in support of a budget that funds education, health care, homeland security and other issues key for working families.

Along with hundreds of other members of ACORN, the nation’s largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, Stewart traveled to Washington, D.C., March 24 to protest Bush’s proposed budget that will make massive cuts to working family programs while giving the wealthy huge tax breaks—at a cost of more than $950 billion over the next 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

On March 20, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 215–212 to approve a 2004 fiscal year budget resolution that mirrors the Bush administration’s budget proposal. The House version showers the rich with tax breaks as it cuts all nondefense programs including education, job training and health care. The House budget—which is not binding but serves as a blueprint for spending and tax legislation—does not take into account the cost of the war in Iraq.

(On March 24, the White House finally projected the cost of war, roughly $75 billion. "President George W. Bush did the right thing yesterday in presenting to Congress a request for funding the war and eventual reconstruction in Iraq, and Congress should take this belated request for funding into account when considering the budget and Republicans’ proposed tax breaks for the wealthy," says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.)

State budgets are facing a fiscal year 2004 budget shortfall between $70 billion and $85 billion, with the cumulative three-year gap exceeding $180 billion. Yet Bush’s proposed budget provides no funds to help states address their financial crises and only inadequate funds for infrastructure investments that can create jobs—while creating a projected 10-year deficit of $1.2 trillion, excluding Social Security Trust Fund resources, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

On March 21, the U.S. Senate voted to pare the tax cut package by $100 billion to pay for the costs of the war in Iraq. The Senate is expected to vote on its budget resolution this week, after which a conference committee will combine the budget proposals into one that will then by considered by the House and Senate, likely within the next two to three weeks.

“We had a budget surplus when Bush came into office, and now we have a deficit,” says Katie Fitzgerald, an ACORN member in Washington, D.C. “They’ve ruined the economy, and now they’re trying to fix it on the backs of poor people.”

The Bush budget and its House version shortchange working families by robbing them of resources that could extend health care coverage to the uninsured, strengthen Social Security and Medicare, provide a comprehensive and affordable prescription drug benefit, beef up homeland security, rebuild roads, highways and bridges and bolster education.

“Education is so critical, and schools in the inner cities are in horrible condition,” says Helen Coleman, a retired Electrical Workers Local 18 member in Los Angeles and ACORN member. “We have to provide money to educate young people, because they’re our future.”

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka addressed the ACORN crowd that marched and chanted before gathering near the U.S. Capitol. “I think being out here is the most patriotic thing we can do,” he said. “The men and women now fighting in Iraq are our husbands and wives, brothers and sisters. As long as they are fighting for us, they have our unqualified support, and we have an obligation to fight for them here at home.”

More

• Read AFL-CIO President John Sweeney's statement on federal funding for the war in Iraq.
• Visit the AFL-CIO website for an analysis of President Bush’s 2004 fiscal year budget proposal.
• Learn how union activists are fighting for working families at the state level.   
• ACORN is the nation’s largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families. Visit its website.
• For information on the states’ budget crises, visit the National Governors Association's website.
• The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities provides information on the Bush administration’s tax cut and budget proposals. Visit its site.
• Bush tax breaks for the rich mean severe cuts in state working family programs.