Budget Cuts Add Up to Fiscal Treason : Republicans would make us second-rate on every front.

Are the congressional Republicans in cahoots with the Japanese and West Europeans, plotting to subvert the U.S. role in a new world order? Not to get too conspiratorial, but how else can you explain the dismantling of federal government when we are locked in a life-and-death struggle with foreign governments over the control of world markets?

Who else but an agent of Japan or France would want to decimate federal support of basic science, which gave us our world leader position in controlling the atom, medical breakthroughs, the exploration of space and unraveling the mysteries of life? Who but a foreign agent would seek to eliminate our departments of Commerce, Energy and Education?

These congressional subversives have tricked us into thinking that we are overtaxed and our government is too large while cleverly concealing the fact that our tax base as a percentage of gross domestic product is lower than those of competitor nations. And compared to them, our government does less to educate us, subsidize the working poor, provide us with universal health care and stimulate investment.

As an example, within the next decade you will be able to travel between any two cities in France in less than two hours on high-speed bullet trains, thanks to government planning and investment. Europe and Japan are already served by efficient networks of public transportation which form a key part of their dynamic infrastructures. Government-coordinated economic strategy, begun 20 years ago, produced the European Airbus, which now accounts for one-third of commercial air transport sales worldwide. Faced with these challenges from our capitalist rivals, the Republicans in Congress inexplicably plan to kill off Amtrak and other already enfeebled programs for mass transit.

All of our competitors have a strong national focus on education, investing much in the work force of the future. By contrast, the House Republican budget would eliminate the Department of Education, cut $30 billion from education aid, increase the interest on student loans, kill Pell grants, eliminate programs to improve curricula and wipe out job training.

The Senate Republicans cut programs for improving math and reading skills for 2 million kids and hacked another $1 billion from anti-drug and anti-violence programs. Funds for Head Start, the best program we have for dealing with our permanent underclass, are to be trimmed 26% in real dollars. The program to encourage private funders of technology in the schools, the Christa McAuliffe Fellowships, which provides $2 million in grants for teacher sabbaticals and innovative classroom programs, as well as the Goals 2000 program to improve education standards, will be wiped out in the same spirit of shooting ourselves in the foot.

The biggest anticipated cuts are in Medicaid and Medicare, which should instead be expanded to cover those now uninsured. Sure, there are savings to be had in medical costs, but the Republicans shot down all such proposals in the last Congress. Why not learn from the Europeans about the efficiencies of universal health coverage? Why eliminate the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, which is actively involved in controlling health costs? And why continue to starve for funds the Centers for Disease Control, which, despite their ramshackle buildings and skeleton staff, are our front-line defense against the escalating threat of invasions of ever more alarming disease?

Why hobble the Agency for International Development, which is now active in controlling the Ebola virus and in other ways advances U.S. security abroad? Why spend $40 billion on defense science while eliminating civilian scientific research? How stupid to slash the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which runs weather satellites, tracks tornadoes and aids air travel safety and other activities crucial to our physical security.

Why threaten funds for joint peacekeeping efforts? Aren’t they more cost-efficient than preparing to fight two major wars with our resources alone? Why not emulate our capitalist competitors and bring our defense budget to levels comparable to theirs now that the Cold War is over?

In this emerging world, security is best defined as that which contributes to a healthy and well-educated citizenry capable of participating in the modern international economy. For all the patriotic blather that emanates from the Republicans, they are determined to drastically weaken the once proud U.S. government, even silencing the 42-language Voice of America, and replace it with a fragmented states’ rights parody of the Continental Congress. That might have been all right for going up against King George, but it won’t do in a fight for our economic lives with a united Europe and an ever-aggressive Japan.