New York Times
President Bush's proposed $2.1 trillion budget embraces the word "security" at every turn. It provides more spending for military security and domestic security and more tax cuts for "economic security." But the budget undermines the security of the nation's social safety net and the government's ability to carry out some of its basic responsibilities over the next two decades. It jeopardizes the future of Social Security and Medicare, whose trust funds would be siphoned away to underwrite outmoded military projects and tax reductions favoring the rich. The budget embodies a divisive agenda for which Mr. Bush has no mandate, in spite of his popularity. ...
The Bush budget is a road map toward a different kind of American society, in which the government no longer taxes the rich to aid the poor, and in fact does very little but protect the nation from foreign enemies. If the budget is adopted as proposed, over the next decade the increasing cost of the tax cuts will drain the treasury while the rapidly escalating price tag of unnecessary military projects will make up a larger and larger piece of what is left.
Virtually everyone supports spending as much money as it takes to fight the war on terrorism at home and abroad. But national security does not require new corporate tax write-offs or contracting for a new fighter plane designed primarily for cold- war-era dogfights. Mr. Bush is using the anti-terrorism campaign to disguise an ideological agenda that has nothing to do with domestic defense or battling terrorism abroad. The budget discontinues the tradition of making 10-year projections into the future, possibly because the administration does not want the American people to see where the road is heading. ...
The budget now goes to Congress, where it needs to be rethought and stripped of its gimmicks disguising the true cost of what it wants to do.
Columbus Dispatch
Leaders of North Korea, Iran and Iraq were alarmed last week when President Bush singled them out in his State of the Union speech as the "axis of evil'' for their support of terrorism or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Also upset were a number of U.S. allies, who fear that the United States will attempt to push the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition into military action against these states.
Bush left his precise intentions vague, but his meaning was clear: After Sept. 11, the United States no longer has the luxury of ignoring or downplaying threats.
If 19 men armed with box cutters can kill 3,000 people in a single morning of hellish work, states that support such operations or that menace the United States with chemical, nuclear or biological weapons cannot expect the United States to sit still. ...
As of Jan. 29, the night of the speech, those who make statements or moves hostile to the United States are on notice that those actions will be viewed with deadly seriousness. Those who doubt the president's meaning should note the smoke rising above the former strongholds of the former rulers of Afghanistan.
Bush's declaration is not warmongering. It is, in fact, a quite generous warning to any who still may think that they can threaten the United States without consequences.
It put them on notice that the 3,000 people killed on Sept. 11 upped the ante for the entire world. Those who want to still may threaten the United States, but they now know the terrible risk of doing so.
Dallas Morning News
The kidnapping and possible murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is a chilling reminder not only of the dangers of reporting in hostile regions, but how little terrorists understand free societies.
Terrorists see the news media, particularly U.S. reporters, as agents of government. For people unaccustomed to the workings of a free press, correspondents like Mr. Pearl embody U.S. policy. In e-mail, the Pakistanis who kidnapped him accused him of being an agent -- first for the United States, then for Israel -- allegations so misplaced that it is clear the kidnappers are bent on striking out at symbols of their enemies no matter how far removed.
The kidnapping also reflects other key miscalculations -- that journalists make public policy and that the United States government cowers in the face of terrorist demands. In reality, U.S. opposition to terrorism is absolute and unflinching. Terrorist demands never will be rewarded with capitulation. ...
If Mr. Pearl has been tortured or killed, that is an affront not only to Islam, but to all those who value life and veracity. Those who try to silence truth by silencing writers and other witnesses will discover that the truth will come back to haunt them.
Los Angeles Times
Polls show Americans believe that about 15 percent of the federal budget goes for foreign aid. The actual number is less than 1 percent, a dismal figure that would remain about the same under President Bush's $2.1-trillion budget for next year.
There are numerous competing priorities for the taxpayer's money. Last September's terror means that more money must be spent on defense and homeland security. But spending more on foreign aid would increase this country's security by helping nations lift themselves out of the poverty that breeds despair and, in some cases, dangerous antipathy toward economically successful nations. ...
Today the United States is also spending money on simple but effective treatments to save infants in the Third World from dying of diarrhea. Other funds pay for tablets that villagers can drop in a well so they can drink the water without becoming sick. Yes, strings must be attached to money, and vigilance is required to ensure it pays for health or a schoolhouse and not another Rolls-Royce for the local potentate. But it can be done. It must be done.
There is a strong argument to be made that if the United States had not turned its back on Afghanistan after the Soviet Union withdrew its troops there it could have helped stop the downward spiral and constant battling of warlords that cleared the path for the dreaded Taliban. More foreign aid could have built schools, grown crops and improved health enough to steer the nation away from decades of disaster.
Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., chairman of the House committee that handles foreign aid, has said that the United States can build a school in Pakistan for $60,000 and operate it for $10,000. That would give parents an alternative to those Islamic schools that teach only the Koran and hatred of America. In the Senate, California Democrat Dianne Feinstein and several colleagues have been pushing to triple foreign aid. They need to increase the volume of their arguments to the Bush administration and the American people.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The people in Pakistan who have kidnapped Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter, are not only blind to the depravity of their behavior. They are also in thrall to a delusion, which is that seizing a journalist for a newspaper with global reach will somehow bring publicity to and create sympathy for their cause.
They got the headlines and the air time, but almost none of it has to do with the putative indignities being suffered by Pakistani suspects held in Cuba. Rather, the publicity is angry and even hostile. Which, given the fact that an innocent man has been grabbed off the street and threatened with death, is perfectly proper.
Pearl's abduction underlines a point that doesn't get much attention. Very few journalists sit behind anchor desks, traipse the sidelines of football games or spend their days interviewing presidents and rock stars. Most ply their craft in less glamorous, more anonymous ways. Some of them, especially those posted abroad in some of the world's toughest neighborhoods, face daily challenges that put them in harm's way.
Around the world, reporters are threatened and sometimes even kidnapped and killed. Last year, 37 journalists died on the job. In Afghanistan, eight have died since the war began on Oct. 7.
Covering the shadowy world of militant Islam, Pearl was engaged in this risky work when he was grabbed Jan. 23. His capture not only chills the world of journalism; it impedes the flow of essential information from a vital part of the world.
His kidnappers have said at turns that Pearl is a CIA agent or a tool of the Pakistani government or a member of some Zionist conspiracy. For several days now, they have said nothing at all, which has caused greater worry.
Daniel Pearl is none of the things the kidnappers say he is. He is a devoted reporter and husband to a terrified wife who is pregnant with their first child. We join her and his colleagues in urging his prompt and safe release.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
The one phrase from President Bush's State of the Union speech that has developed legs was his reference to Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the "axis of evil" -- three states that consort with terrorists and are determined to get their hands on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction. "The world's most dangerous regimes will not be allowed to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons," he continued, suggesting the United States is contemplating actions against all three -- a possibility that unsettled most of the world. Is Bush back to the unilateralist instincts he originally brought with him to the Oval Office?
It certainly looked that way. The comment came so out of the blue it appeared calculated to shock. Nothing had been done to prepare the American people and the world for such hard-edged rhetoric. Little has been done since to elaborate on what Bush meant and where he is headed.
In Japan and South Korea, the shock was palpable. Bush clearly hadn't briefed these allies on what he was about. The two nations have been working closely to neutralize the threat from North Korea through engagement, and they thought the Bush administration was on board with that effort. Just a month ago, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung appealed to Bush to help reduce tensions with the North -- an agenda Japan and South Korea hoped to advance when Bush travels to both countries later this month. ...
The world is more than a little unsettled by America's economic and military power just now. It is awed at the success of the U.S. war against terrorism in Afghanistan but frightened at the prospect of the United States taking unilateral action wherever and whenever it sees fit -- leaving the world to live with the consequences.
Rather than calming such fears, the president last week played to them, further raising prospects that this nation might so isolate itself in the world that it will indeed be forced to go its own way -- relying solely on its own wisdom and resources as it responds to the threats abroad in the world.
The threats are real, but the best way to deal with them is as a community of nations capable of watching each other's backs.
New York Newsday
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's impassioned plea over the weekend for a renewed Mideast peace effort and his vow to put an end to Palestinian terror groups would have been welcome a year ago in Jerusalem and Washington, had they been followed by action. Now, the words are hollow and they fall on closed ears.
His pledges -- however eloquently expressed Sunday in an op-ed in The New York Times -- are less than credible. They are the excessive protestations of a leader who is trying to convince himself and the world that he is still relevant, despite all evidence to the contrary.
How irrelevant has Arafat become to the resumption of a peace process? Enough to be bypassed in secret talks between senior Palestinian and Israeli officials trying to work out a tentative scenario to enact a cease-fire and resume peace talks. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has himself confirmed that he spoke privately with three top Palestinian figures, Abu Ala, Abu Mazen and Mohammed Rashid, all experienced negotiators. ...
Bush ought to accept Arafat's pledge to end Palestinian terror and his plea to resume peace talks at face value for now, but again demand that he produce results, not just words. At the same time, Bush should follow Sharon's lead and encourage private contacts between U.S. mediators and second-tier Palestinian officials who might some day be able to replace Arafat as credible interlocutors for peace.
Omaha World Herald
President Bush, some say, went too far in his State of the Union Address when he included Iran as part of an axis of evil along with Iraq and North Korea. Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, among others, has been encouraged by signs of moderation in Iranian government and society in recent years and considers it important to continue encouraging reform.
We respect Hagel's approach, but the president's point is difficult to dispute, considering emerging information about Iran's efforts to help Taliban forces escape the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan. Iran has been having it both ways for a good long time now - aiding terrorists and polishing its first-strike capabilities at the same time its leaders pretend to be holding open a door to better relations with the West. The time has come for its leaders to get off the fence. ...
It is true that reformers are easy to find among Iran's political leadership. Unfortunately, the ultimate power is wielded not by elected leaders but by the ayatollahs and their supporters in the judiciary and Revolutionary Guard. Those fundamentalists have shown little regard for democratic principles and little understanding of 21st century realities.
Given the context of the war on terrorism, Bush could hardly afford to be ambiguous.
Washington Post
President Bush yesterday issued a budget wrapped in the American flag. Just in case Congress didn't get the message from the stars and stripes on the cover of the budget books, he flew to a military base to proclaim that lawmakers should show support for the war on terrorism by fully funding his request for a record increase in defense spending. Budget director Mitchell Daniels underscored the administration's priorities. As the budget was drawn up, he told reporters, "if there was any proposal linked to defeating terrorism or to making Americans more safe at home that had even a reasonable case for it, we agreed and rolled it into the budget." Meanwhile, other discretionary spending programs, "the rest of government," will be operating under tight limits.
No doubt Congress is eager, as it should be, to pay generously for the fight against terrorists. War is expensive, and so is the kind of global presence that the United States should maintain both to deter conflict and to participate in peacekeeping. The events of the past year have definitively laid to rest the notion, popular among some reformers, that the Pentagon could safely skip a generation of weapons and devote itself mostly to research.
But Congress should ask whether the Defense Department, under the heading of fighting terrorism, has decided that it doesn't have to make any tough choices. Do uniformed personnel need another large across-the-board pay hike, the second broad increase in two years, or could the services meet their needs with more targeted pay raises? What's happened to promises of more businesslike practices and elimination of duplication among services? To ask such questions reflects no lack of zeal for the war. Nor should the administration let Congress off the hook for its support of unnecessary bases and weapons programs, simply because now it's easier to pork up than to fight back. ...
The budget documents acknowledge the heavy Social Security and Medicare costs that will hit when the baby boom generation begins to retire in about 10 years, but the budget itself makes no provision for them. Instead, Mr. Bush clings to the unaffordable tax cuts that were his first priority last year, and in fact proposes more, meanwhile penciling in spending limits he knows Congress will reverse. The danger is that, with Mr. Bush leading the way back to deficit land, Congress will merrily follow. The tax cuts will stay, but spending discipline won't; lawmakers will restore some needed programs, and a lot of unneeded ones too. Then, both sides having avoided the hard choices, the nation will still have to face the budget burdens that loom in the next decade, with fewer resources to meet them.
Washington Times
Unveiled yesterday, the $2.13 trillion budget President Bush proposed for fiscal 2003 has two particularly striking features. The first is that this is clearly a national-security budget. The second is that the White House Office of Management and Budget has introduced the welcome concepts of management and accountability into the federal budget process.
On the national-security front, 2003 budget authority for the Department of Defense would increase by $45 billion, or 13.5 percent, to $379 billion. It represents the largest percentage increase since Ronald Reagan began reinvigorating America's armed forces in the early 1980s. Defense spending for 2007 is projected to total $451 billion. Large though these figures appear to be, defense spending during the next five years would still average only 3.4 percent of total economic output. In other words, Mr. Bush's national defense budget is clearly affordable.
Total spending for homeland security will increase next year to $38 billion, representing a virtual doubling of the pre-September 11 level. Federal funding for "first responders" -- firefighters, rescue squads, emergency medical personnel and other local workers who are the first to arrive at "ground zero" -- will increase twelvefold next year to $3.5 billion. Nearly $6 billion, or more than four times current spending, would fund improvements in the nation's public health care system in response to the increased threat of bioterrorism. ...
So, here is a simple standard: Having submitted a reasonable budget for 2003, Mr. Bush should be graded by how often he uses his veto pen and how well he exploits his astronomical political capital to enforce his spending blueprint.
Honolulu Advertiser
It is not entirely clear what has caused a falling out between the private company that provides tourism services on Midway Atoll and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has jurisdiction over the remote islets some 1,200 miles northwest of Honolulu.
But it would be a shame if that dispute ends the opportunity for people to visit this unique historical and ecological treasure.
Preservation of the natural habitat and the wildlife that thrives on Midway is the first priority of the Fish and Wildlife Service. That is as it should be.
But within that mandate, there should be a way to maintain a tourist opportunity at Midway, where visitors can see historic sites as well as enjoy a close-up exposure to a large variety of wildlife.
The company that has been operating visitor services on Midway, Midway Phoenix Corp., said it is pulling out because it cannot make money under the strict conservation rules imposed by Fish and Wildlife.
The original idea to have commercial "ecotourism" at Midway was a unique solution to a difficult problem. The income earned from the tourism would help the government defray the costs of maintaining this remote location. It ceased being an active Navy base in the mid-1990s.
If the restrictions on activity at Midway make it impossible to operate a tourism operation at a profit, then the federal government should consider subsidizing the operation. The other option is no tourism, no income and an increased burden on the taxpayer as well as a lost opportunity for generations to come.
(Compiled by United Press International.)
