Published February 20, 2005 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
It was looking bad for liberals. The White House turned out to be right about how well Iraqi elections would turn out (though we’re still faced with serious security problems in our favorite occupied nation-state). Then newly-appointed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brokered a potential Israeli-Palestinian peace deal before her staff had even learned each others names.
Could it be? Could the scary network of neo-conservatives operating behind closed doors be RIGHT about everything? I was one quaking progressive, believe you me.
Fortunately, as they usually do, when provided complete control of the federal government, the conservatives in the White House showed their true colors. Again eschewing the opportunity to unite a divided nation, President Bush’s proposed budget, release just a couple weeks ago, indicates an agenda devoted solely to keeping taxes lower for the richest people and making sure people in the lowest tax brackets have a harder time moving up in society.
Some would say I am invoking class warfare here. My only response is that if you don’t want class warfare, stop starting it.
I could spew a long list of proposed cuts that will cause harm to everyday Americans. I could complain that the president does not include expenses for our ongoing foreign occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though we all know these things will go on for several years and cost many more billions. I could explain how, despite the cuts, the president is creating record deficits that some future generation will have to fix to avoid bankrupting the country. I don’t have time or the space – though I encourage you to check it out.
I will, however, focus about one area that the White House wants axed that will greatly impact people here on the Iron Range.
The president’s budget severely trims job training funds for dislocated workers and funds to train young people for future employment – to the tune of more than half a billion dollars. This comes just a year after a state of the union address and an entire half year of campaign promises indicated he would support programs to train workers. In other words, this specific proposed cut represents a complete lie.
The president justifies the lie by saying the training programs don’t work, but he couldn’t be more wrong. Do you know anyone who went back to school after Blandin Paper, LTV or EVTAC shut down and got different jobs? I sure do. Retraining didn’t work for everyone, but it worked for a hell of a lot of people who would have otherwise had to flee to big cities for substandard work and higher living expenses.
Bush says the youth job training programs don’t work because students aren’t passing his standardized tests. What he doesn’t know is that many of these students face challenges difficult to register on a test – such as bad family situations, abject poverty, learning disabilities, and past legal troubles. Many of these students have been brought up to think that their lives don’t matter, so why should they try.
What’s more important for these young people? Passing a test, or teaching them that if they work hard they can earn money and be part of society. You can’t do well in school unless you have a work ethic, and that’s what these programs teach. I could detail hundreds of examples from communities all across northern Minnesota.
Now, in the interest of disclosure, I once worked for an agency that used funds like these to train young people and remain involved in advisory boards that oversee these programs. However, my opinions on this issue do not exist to protect the hides of service providers, but because I’ve seen first hand how well programs like this can work in getting low-income and at-risk youth into the workforce and off federal and state assistance.
America does best when everyone has an equal opportunity to work hard and achieve something. With the costs of higher education and other challenges facing impoverished cities and regions, such as crime and bad economies, it has become harder for many Americans to achieve upward mobility.
The president’s budget shows that, once again, promises made to unite the nation and serve everyone were made only to gain votes from lower or middle class people, not to actually help them. I hope Congress sees through this particular broken promise.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.