Velma Berger – 2/28/05

This page was last updated on March 2, 2005.

Continuing to go backward; Velma Berger; Beaver County Times; February 28, 2005.

Below is a detailed critique of the letter.

“I just finished reading an article in The Times listing the programs President Bush wants to make cuts in.”

[RWC] Nowhere in her letter does Ms. Berger acknowledge the mentioned programs do not address federal government responsibilities under the U.S. Constitution.  For example, show me in the Constitution where it makes education a federal government responsibility.

“It is no surprise that a large number affect the poor and the middle class.”

[RWC] Duh!  In any case, why should the middle class need to rely on government handouts?  Aren’t so-called “social welfare” programs supposed to be targeted at the “poor?”

The bottom line is Ms. Berger wants to engage in class warfare.

“Just to mention a few on his list are: Medicaid, the health insurance for the poor and disabled, the student loan program and a large number of other educational projects.”

[RWC] I don’t know where Ms. Berger gets her information, but the 2006 budget shows an increase for Medicaid/SCHIP.

“And, now this is the clincher, cuts in veterans’ medical benefits.

“This president when interviewed on television by Tim Russert said, ‘I am a war president.’  Now, he wants cuts in veterans’ health care.”

[RWC] Again, I don’t know where Ms. Berger gets her information, but the budget appropriation for veteran benefits has gone up in all five budgets President Bush has presented.

·        VA funding is now higher than at any point in the past ten years, and it’s going up twice as fast under President Bush as under President Clinton.¹

·        Funding for veterans in the first four Bush budgets increased 37.6%.  If President Bush gets what he proposed for the 2006 budget, the total increase will be 40.6%.  That’s 40.6% in five years compared to 31.6% during Clinton’s eight years.

·        The number of veterans receiving health benefits went up 25 percent under President Bush’s budgets through 2004.¹  No, it’s not because of the Iraq War.

“As for the student loan program, it gives all students the opportunity to attend a college of their choice.  After graduation, they are responsible for repayment of the loan at a low rate of interest.”

[RWC] Again Ms. Berger’s info appears to be wrong.  The 2006 budget for Pell Grants (student loan program) shows an increase, as it has since at least 2001.

That said, why should taxpayers subsidize a person’s college education?  Does Ms. Berger really believe it’s right for the government to take one person’s hard-earned wages and give them to another person?  Ms. Berger also fails to note the loan default rate.

“Before this program began in the 1960s, many young people were unable to further their education following high school due to finances.  The privileged went on to college and the rest went to work.”

[RWC] This is BS, pure and simple.  My parents came from families that were economically privileged by no stretch of the imagination.  None of their parents were high school graduates and my grandfathers worked as laborers in coal mines and steel mills and on railroads.  Even so, my father graduated from college and my mother graduated from secretarial school, during the Great Depression no less.  Don’t tell me only the rich can go to college without a government handout.

“It seems we are on a backward trend with many of the programs we have come to depend on being cut away.”

[RWC] Without knowing it, Ms. Berger described the problem when she mentioned “the programs we have come to depend on.”  Ms. Berger described an addiction to government programs.  We can’t be free when we’re addicts.

“I continue to ask the same old question, ‘Are we better off than we were four years ago?’”

[RWC] Yes.

© 2004-2005 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.