april03newsletter

Our nation is facing many challenges. Our President has engaged us in a war with Iraq that—on top of the terrible human costs of war—will cost untold billions of dollars. The $5.6 trillion budget surplus projected less than two years ago has been obliterated. As the baby boom generation ages, we will have millions of new Medicare and Social Security enrollees.

These are daunting challenges, yet what is the single biggest priority in the Administration’s budget? Tax breaks for those with upper incomes. More than $1.4 trillion in tax cuts (75% of which go to taxpayers earning more than $100,000) are included in the Administration’s budget. Every dollar in tax cuts is another dollar added to the budget deficit—a debt our children will be forced to pay.

I voted against this budget which passed the House of Representatives by the slim margin of 215-212. A budget is a statement of priorities. From my estimation, this one gets it all wrong.

If enacted, this budget lays the groundwork for the President’s plan to privatize Medicare and

I commend Union City for being the first community in the 13th Congressional District to pass a resolution condemning the Patriot Act and its abuse of civil liberties. In doing so, Union City has taken an important stand against this misguided law that threatens to tear the fabric of our society by creating a culture of suspicion. Many other cities in our community have taken similar, important steps condemning racism and intolerance and they are to be commended as well.

In the wake of September 11th, the Bush Administration pushed

through Congress the hastily crafted Patriot Act, which I opposed. The law includes a score of Constitutional abuses. The Justice Department has used its expanded “antiterrorism” powers under the act to monitor Arabs and Muslims in the United States. This has included enlisting the help of local law enforcement to conduct interviews of Arab and Muslim Americans and requiring others from various nations in the Middle East to register and continually report their status to the government. The Patriot Act even allows the FBI to freely engage in surveillance of religious

and political groups in the United States—including enlisting the help of local authorities to track what certain people are reading at libraries.

This singling out of an entire community is dangerously reminiscent of the way the government dealt with Japanese Americans during World War II. One Republican congressman even recently suggested that it might be a good idea to place Arab Americans in internment camps for their own protection. This type of intolerance is wrong and has no place

derly.

It fails President Bush’s rhetoric to “leave no child behind” by under-funding education so that millions of children will be forced to stay behind.

This budget does nothing to help those who have lost their jobs due to the weakening economy, such as an extension of unemployment benefits. There is also nothing provided to improve access to health care for the more than 41 million Americans without health insurance.

The President has presented a budget to Congress that ignores pressing needs here at home, turns a blind eye to the tremendous costs that will be posed by the war with Iraq, and asks for sacrifice only from those who can least afford it. Never before in our history has an administration pushed for increased tax breaks in a time of war and it shouldn’t be happening now.

The Administration’s budget guarantees huge deficits for decades to come and unprecedented cuts to domestic priorities as the President irresponsibly insists we can have it all. I’ll continue my work see to it that we invest in

How to reach PETE STARK

WASHINGTON OFFICE
(202) 225-5065
DISTRICT OFFICE
South of Union City (510) 494-1388
North of Hayward (510) 247-1388
Internet mail address:
petemaildirect@stark.house.gov
Web address:
http://www.house.gov/stark/

in our democratic society. It threatens the bonds we share as Americans by unjustly placing one group of Americans under suspicion, wrongly making them vulnerable to reprisal and distrust because of their ethnicity, culture or religion.

These uncertain times must not give rise to this type of racial profiling and the blatant abuse of our civil liberties under the guise of anti-terrorism. Yet, now there is word that the Bush Administration plans to have legislation introduced to further expand unchecked government powers granted under the Patriot Act. In February, the Justice Department leaked a draft of a bill dubbed “Patriot Act II.” This legislation would seriously undermine even more basic Constitutional protections. I will strongly oppose it!

The Patriot Act II would allow the government to withhold the release of information on those Americans detained on the sus