A Failure to Communicate
by Alan Guebert

In the 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke, prison captain Strother Martin reprimands Paul Newman, a rebellious new member of the chain gang named Luke, with one of Hollywood’s best ever-lines. “What we have here,” croaks Martin to a smirking Newman, “is a failure to communicate.”

The line is ironic because there was no failure to communicate; Newman knew exactly what Martin wanted, conformity. The movie’s drama centered on whether rebel Newman would follow the rules. (he didn’t, and it cost him dearly.)

Shift the scene from 1967 Hollywood to 2003 Follywood, Washington, D.C., a rule-making city where talk is king and the failure to communicate is queen.

Presently, Congress is holding hearings on the Bush Administration’s request for an additional $87 billion to fund military and rebuilding operations in Iraq. If congress agrees to the supplemental spending, the U.S. cost of both Iraq and Afghanistan will total $120 billion in Fiscal Year 2004.

But that’s not the true cost. Because of current and anticipated federal budget deficits, every dollar of additional debt tacked on to the 2004 budget will cost about $3.60 by the time it is repaid.

That means the $87 billion supplemental the White House now wants actually will cost you and your taxpaying grandchildren $313 billion and the 2004 tab for Iraq and Afghanistan will total $432 billion.

For you and me, big numbers like that are hard to hide. But not so in Washington where failure to communicate is an art: The White House does not include the $87 billion in either its 2004 budget or its out-year budget deficit projections.

If it did, according to the non-partisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the White House’s 2008 budget deficit estimate of $226 billion would balloon to $360 billion. By 2013, says the Center, the budget deficit will climb to a staggering $650 billion.

Where will this money come from?

One very fat target is federal farm programs. Presently, USDA’s Economic Research Service estimates 2003 direct payments to farmers will total $19.5 billion, up $8 billion from 2002.

Some in Congress already anticipate a challenge to the 2002 Farm Bill’s funding. In an August speech to sugar producers, Charles Stenholm, D-TX, ranking minority member of the House Ag Committee, chillingly remarked the fast-growing federal deficits are creating “a perfect storm” that endangers the nation. And that was before the latest $87 billion budget-buster.

Because of the, Stenholm noted, Congress will be forced to trim all federal farm and nutrition programs by one percent in the coming 2004 budget fight. And, he added, that it is “laughable” to think the trimming can occur without re-opening the 2002 Farm Bill.

Stenholm didn’t say it, but many in Washington think it’s laughable to believe federal farm and nutrition cuts could be limited to 1 percent if the 2002 Farm Bill is re-opened next year.

Farm programs and Iraq aren’t the only—or even the main—forces behind the endlessly exploding deficits. In 2004 alone, tax cuts enacted by Congress since 2001 at the request of the White House will cost $275 billion, or three times more than the just asked-for Iraq supplement and 14 times the total of direct farm payment in 2003.

Moreover, according to the Congressional Budget Office, two-thirds of those tax cuts, or $185 billion in 2004, will flow to upper bracket taxpayers, businesses and stock dividend recipients.

Additionally, about $85 of that $185 billion will be pocketed by taxpayers whose average income is $1 million or more per year.

Let’s see, $85 billion in tax cuts to the richest one percent of American in 2004 while you, I our children and our children’s children will foot the bill for the $87 billion President Bush wants for Iraq in 2004.

Congress and Bush have no failure to communicate on that simple math; both see it clearly. What remains to be seen as if the White House and the Republican-led Congress will conform to common sense and fiscal rules.

I would and you might because the consequences are so massive. Then again, Newman didn’t.

© 2003 ag comm