Screw the governments, poor people too
by Marta Russell
March 14, 2003

State governors, facing the worst fiscal crisis since WWII, have asked for more federal funding to cover the cost of long-term care for low-income seniors and disabled who qualify for Medicaid and Medicare - and for homeland security to secure our still vulnerable cities, towns and ports.

Bush, however, flatly turned them down stating there is no more money for anything. Bush told them "the federal government has fiscal problems of its own and could not bail out the states." (New York Times, 2/25/03)

Bush has not, however, turned down billions to foreign client states. His denial of money to the Govs and ultimately the people who live in their states is rather hard to swallow when his administration has stepped up military assistance to allies old and new around the world. The State Department and International Affairs budget request for 2003 was $25.4 billion, up $1.4 billion from last year. While the numbers pale in comparison to the Pentagon budget that consumes over 50% of discretionary spending, assistance has increased substantially.

In its report "Coalition of the Willing or Coalition of the Coerced" the Institute for Policy Studies shows that the US used military, economic and political leverage to influence allies to support the Iraq war against the will of their people. Restrictions on military aid and arms transfers to regimes involved in human rights abuses, support for terrorism, or nuclear proliferation have already been lifted for a number of countries in exchange for their support reports the Arms Trade Resource Center.

The Pentagon now estimates the cost of the Iraq War and occupation for 6 months to cost $85 billion.

Yale Professor William D. Nordhaus, using the metaphor of war as a giant roll of the dice says, "we might say that the US could end up paying the "low" costs of around $120 billion if the dice come up favorably. If some dice come up unfavorably, the costs would lie between the low and the high cases. However, if the US has a string of bad luck or misjudgments during or after the war, the outcome, while less likely, could reach the $1.6 trillion of the upper estimate." Even this may be an underestimate, he warns under some circumstances.

It is not that a deficit in and of itself is detrimental but as the Reagan era economic advisor David Stockman later revealed, deficits could be used as a prelude to and pretext for cutting back public social services.

California's deficit is estimated at between $26 billion and $35 billion -- more than the GDP of some nations -- could we qualify as a needy client state?

For specific figures, see full article at ZNet Economy: http://www.zmag.org/