OPINION: The Devil Is In the Budget’s Details

Budgets are swarming around Capitol Hill like hornets. Annual Budgets, Interim budgets, Departmental Budgets, Special Budgets for Temporary Problems or Wars all use numbers so large that no one but a few like Warren Buffet or Bill Gates can identify. We read headlines – “Ryan’s budget cuts $6 Trillion in 10 years,” or “Parties agree on $33 Billion in cuts.” The saying used to go “ a billion here and a billion there, after a while we are talking about real money.” Now-a-days we say ‘ A trillion….”

We used to comb budgets and find “a bridge to nowhere” or “an extra battleship” for evidence of pork-barrel politics or an election payback. But like Professor Hill used to sing, “There is trouble, right here in River City,” and it’s found not in a pool hall but in the details of the Budget yet to be determined. The average American cannot identify with Trillions and Billions, but he/she can identify with a park closure, a plant closed, dirty drinking water, or teacher let go. Contained in the cuts that amount to “mere rounding errors” in the overall U.S. Budget is our Nation’s health. The Republicans are right we are at a crossroads one that requires a setting of priorities. On one hand is Wall Street and ever expanding War Machine, and other hand is public education, the environment, jobs, parks, and national transportation. Yes, we must get a handle on our nation’s debt, but there are ways to do so without putting at risk the health of a nation.

Tom and Casey Milne, experts on national health care have issued a series of warnings about our nation’s overall health. They point out that our nation’s health care is more than just the cost of medical care. That there is a disturbing trend going on where our ranking in the world regarding overall health care is rapidly declining despite an ever increasing spending on medical care. They say “ that factors such as education, income, personal behavior, and environmental issues are actually of greater importance collectively to how healthy a population is than the importance of access to medical care.  Medical care is certainly important and it does save lives.  But when a country spends as much as we do (approaching 18% of GNP yearly) and gets the outcomes we do (average ranking among first and second world countries in the world is about 35th), one has to think that outcomes can be improved if we just place more focus on education, housing, nutrition and the other health predictors.”

Unless we exorcise the “devil”  from proposed budgets such as the neglect of our nation’s educational and environmental protection systems in favor of tanks and Wall Street, the health of our nation is at risk of becoming as if we were a third world country rather than “the envy of the world.” The adage goes “what good does it do to have all the wealth in the world, if you don’t have your health.” Congress needs to ask itself the same question before it votes on any budget.

Tom and Casey Milne can be found by logging on to www.milneassociatesllc.com. Webb Hubbell is a regular contributor to www.talkradionews.com. Webb Hubbell is also found at www.webbhubbell.com.