Tax cuts harming American society
COMMENTARY
Josh Deitz

Now that the war has finally begun, the need for domestic responsibility is greater than ever. We have entered a conflict that may not be long, but will be extremely costly.

Forsaking many of our traditional allies means forsaking their money as well. A large part of the first Gulf War was paid for by our allies. This time around, instead of being paid back by our allies, we have had to pay them to cooperate at all.

This is not the time to be distracted. With the news media focused almost exclusively on the war, it is easy to lose sight of the problems on the home front. We are facing massive budget cuts at every level. Texas alone faces an estimated $9 billion shortfall. This is not the time for tax cuts. Eliminating $9 billion from the state budget is impossible to achieve without completely dismantling the social network that the state has maintained.

This problem is faced across the nation. Oregon provided the starkest reminder of the tough times at home. The state almost had to cut an entire month from the public school year. The crisis was only averted when the state’s teachers put their students ahead of themselves and agreed to work without pay for the amount of time needed to offset the budget gap.

This situation is mirrored to various degrees across the country. For a nation as wealthy as the United States, this is ridiculous. There is enough wealth in our country to avoid any of these problems. We could have the greatest schools in the world, public health care, a national job-training program, amazing police forces and an almost impenetrable national security network.

And yet, for our nation to truly be a city on a hill, we must be willing to spend money. We must be willing to pay taxes. We must be willing to contribute in order to build our nation up. Being a citizen means more than voting, it means accepting a greater responsibility.

Any American who has the gall to support the war in Iraq and then refuse to pay for it should be condemned far more than any war protester.

We tend to recognize our nation as the “greatest on earth.” If we are to live up to that moniker, we must be willing to pay for it. Bush’s tax cuts and the recession left Texas with a $9 billion shortfall. The current tax cuts he has proposed will do far more damage on an even greater scale.

We spend more money just paying the interest on the national debt than we do on most government programs. Increasing the debt will only pass this burden on to our generation and the next.

Don’t kid yourselves. These tax cuts will be long gone by the time we enter our prime earning years. We will not only be paying for the massive Medicare and Social Security bills of the babyboomers, we will be paying for their debt as well.

If America is to be safe and secure, we must begin investing in the future. That means striking the proposed tax cuts and it means repealing the previous round. We must put our money into our schools, into our security and into our future — not into our pockets.

Josh Deitz is a junior political science major from Atlanta.