Nowhere was this clearer than on education and the nation’s healthcare crisis—two areas where the President’s message lacked substance and vision, McElroy says.

President Bush did propose “to train 70,000 high school teachers to lead advance placement courses in math and science, to bring 30,000 math and science professionals to teach in classrooms, and give early help to students who struggle with math” but gave no specifics beyond that. There was only one reference in the State of the Union to the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal government centerpiece law for K-12 education. “We’ve made a good start in the early grades with the No Child Left Behind Act, which is raising standards and lifting test scores across our country,” President Bush told the nation.

“Before the No Child Left Behind Act can be described as a success, the administration will have to do more than approve a few tweaks of flexibility for selected states,” McElroy responds. “There are very serious problems with the law that need to be addressed, including misidentifying many schools that are making real progress but labeled as failing federal standards.”

And NCLB funding continues to be a broken promise, McElroy says. “Schools are being deprived of the resources promised when NCLB was enacted to give students and teachers the tools to help raise achievement.”

The AFT president agrees that public schools, particularly those serving large numbers of disadvantaged students, need more highly qualified math and science teachers. But with no details on how President Bush’s initiative would be paid for, McElroy cautions that “whatever action Congress takes must be more than paying lip service. It must provide a meaningful difference to the schools and students who need it most.”

The State of the Union message was even less ambitious in the healthcare arena. President Bush offered no specific new proposals, choosing instead to highlight plans to expand cost-saving electronic records in healthcare, to strengthen health savings accounts and to curb medical lawsuits. President Bush’s address did nothing to allay fears about healthcare, McElroy says, particularly at a time when recent polls show 90 percent of Americans believe the nation’s healthcare system needs fundamental change.

“Proposals such as tax breaks for individual medical spending and for health savings accounts are not the prescription needed to cure this situation,” the AFT president stresses. “The tradeoff for working people— who might receive a small tax break but then have to purchase health insurance in a very expensive market while their employers begin to free themselves of any responsibility in this area—is unacceptable. The capacity of low-income workers to contribute to these funds is uncertain and may lead to more uncompensated care, which will ultimately increase healthcare costs for all Americans.”

And the president also failed to explain how he would fix some of his “solutions,” such as the new Medicare prescription drug plan that so many seniors have found to be a Byzantine maze of incomprehensible options.

“We need a president who leads us in taking on the challenges facing disadvantaged students, the elderly and working families, instead of making small-scale proposals that do little to address the problems facing our nation,” McElroy says.

The final hurdle was cleared on Feb. 1 when the budget plan passed by a 216 to 214 vote in the House of Representatives. The bill was opposed by all Democrats and 13 moderate Republicans. (As we went to press, there was a question of whether a clerk’s error might have compromised the constitutionality of the vote. The resolution of this issue remains in doubt.) The Senate approved the bill in late 2005, with Vice President Richard Cheney casting the tie-breaking vote.

The budget deal approved by Congress “punishes low- and middle-income college students, poor children, the elderly and the disabled, yet provides handouts to the healthcare industry and another round of tax cuts that will bloat the already out-of-control deficit,” AFT president Edward J. McElroy says.

The law slashes more than $39 billion in domestic programs, with some of the most devastating cuts reserved for college students and low-income Americans needing healthcare.

Almost $12 billion was axed from student loans—the largest cut in the history of these programs. Student loans represent the biggest cut contained in the law, and 70 percent of the reduction stems from higher interest rates for higher education borrowers, both Stafford loans for students and PLUS loans for their parents. The new law will result in an average increase of $5,800 in the interest students pay on loans.

The measure also reduces Medicaid by $10.5 billion over five years—a bigger cut than that approved originally by the House and Senate. As a result, low-income Americans who rely on Medicaid will see higher copayments and reduced assistance for prescription drugs.

The law also means higher premiums for seniors who rely on Medicare. But the package rewards HMOs participating in the Medicare program with a reimbursement formula change that amounts to a $22 billion giveaway to the industry.

The GOP congressional majority and the Bush administration champion the budget package as a new step in restraint and fiscal responsibility. It is a hollow argument for many critics, who note that the budget ax was falling at the same time Congress was putting the finishing touches on a $60 billion package of tax cuts that would primarily benefit wealthy Americans.

“The sad truth is all of this is to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest people in our country,” says House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Feedback in action
Although passage of the law was a  setback for working Americans, the final vote did reveal a growing number of moderate Republicans who are listening to their constituents rather than party leaders. One of the moderates who crossed the aisle to vote with Democrats was Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.). He  cited feedback from AFT members back home, along with children’s advocacy groups, other labor unions, seniors and healthcare providers, as a major reason for switching an earlier “yes” vote on the budget proposal to a “no” vote.

The union’s Activists for Congressional Education (ACE) program held dozens of meetings with congressional representatives. The union used new technologies to reach more than 14,000 AFT “e-activists” and request they contact their representative to voice opposition to the bill. And these efforts were followed up with face-to-face meetings with representatives on Capitol Hill.