Three things stand out in President Bush's proposed budget:

¶He would rather continue the tax cuts for a few rich Americans than save government programs that affect much more needy Americans.

¶By stating that spending cuts are necessary to rein in the growing deficit, he conveniently ignores that his previous two irresponsible tax cuts are the primary reason for that deficit.

¶The savings from all the proposed spending cuts barely add up to a fraction of what we will spend in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The president's budget reveals his true priorities. But we need not worry, as the budget provides plenty of instant-gratification rhetoric and clever use of the English language.

Ravishankar Palanivelu
Chicago, Feb. 8, 2005

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President Bush is proposing a tight budget in which the poor, the police and the sick will take up the burden of balancing the budget so that wealthy Americans won't have to pay fair taxes.

If Mr. Bush were a fair president, he would make sure that the burden of taxation would be shared. But of course he doesn't pretend to be fair, only moral.

I wonder about the morality of this country, both domestically and internationally, when a deficit of Mr. Bush's own making promotes a dismantling of the federal government's duty to people who don't have trust funds to see them through life.

Mr. Bush seems to want the safety net in this country to have worm holes so that he can make an unfair tax cut permanent. Perhaps the majority of people in this country want more of our goods to be made by cheap labor, want more of our legislators to be in the pay of lobbyists for multinational companies, and want to throw away the First Amendment.

This is not the United States I once knew and felt great pride in.

Phyllis Berlant Abrams
Plymouth Meeting, Pa., Feb. 8, 2005

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When I look at President Bush's budget cuts, I find exactly what I have been expecting - a set of priorities that provide for grandiose war games at the expense of the fundamental needs of our society.

I suspect that we are about to discover the real cost of our unnecessary war and the extent to which our insensitive and well-insulated leadership will go in its search for scripted adventure and personal adulation.

I have never been more concerned about the future of this country.

Frank Reardon
Olathe, Kan., Feb. 8, 2005

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To the Editor:

President Bush's proposed budget is a blatant example of his disdain for the poor and middle class. He proposes cuts in Medicare, Amtrak and programs for veterans, students, the police and others that mostly benefit the poor and middle classes.

But the president adamantly defends all the tax cuts for the rich. There is no equal sharing in this one!

None of these proposed cuts would need to be discussed if the tax cuts for the top 10 percent were rescinded. After Afghanistan and Iraq, is class warfare Mr. Bush's third war?

Frank Zaski
Franklin, Mich., Feb. 8, 2005

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A few voices among millions who are protesting Bush' dramatizations.

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