Gray Panthers members held a lively discussion at the March general meeting, where former convenor Michael Lyon presented the Bush administration’s budget proposal for the 2008 fiscal year.

Asserting they must balance the budget by 2012, the Bush administration plans deep cuts in all discretionary spending on social programs, including Medicaid, housing, food stamps and food supplements, the Federal Emergency Relief Program (which helps seniors and others pay their heating bills), Head Start, child care and child support enforcement. Even deeper cuts are planned for the 2010 fiscal year. Both the Democratic and Republican parties appear to agree on the need to balance the budget by 2012, but it is not yet clear whether all in Congress support such deep cuts without increases in taxes. The Bush administration hopes to extend its tax cuts for high income families, which are due to expire in 2010.

It was obvious to Gray Panthers members that the solution to the astronomical budget deficit was twofold: end tax cuts for the rich and stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Suggestions for protesting these horrendous budget cuts included joining locally with other groups to oppose them and focusing in a clear and uncompromising manner on one issue: the need for single payer universal health care.

(back to April 2007 Newsletter front page)