President Bush is proposing the most anti-working family budget in recent history.

His centerpiece is a tax cut that is far too big and dangerously tilted to the wealthy. It would devour the entire surplus and make it impossible to seize the opportunity we have to improve our children’s schools, strengthen health care for our families and secure dignified retirements for our older citizens.

And on top of this historic shift of resources to the wealthy, he is laying the foundation to privatize Social Security, putting our nation’s most important family protection program at risk.

Hard work and sound discipline put America on the track to economic growth that generated the surplus. Now the surplus provides an opportunity to address staggering gaps in education and health care and to strengthen and protect Social Security and Medicare.

Nearly a third of our public schools are in desperate disrepair, and half our schools lack basic wiring needed for classroom computers. Nearly 43 million Americans, including more than 10 million children, lack health insurance coverage. More than a third of our senior citizens—14.7 million people—lack any kind of outpatient prescription drug coverage, and that number is expected to grow as the cost of prescription drugs increases.

We have the opportunity to fix these problems, and still have room for a fair, responsible tax cut. But we must put first things first. The president has it backwards: he would have us squander this historic opportunity on excessive and lopsided tax cuts that eat up the surplus and leave nothing to meet today’s needs or build a stronger foundation for tomorrow.

Under the administration’s proposal nearly half of the tax cut would go to the nation’s richest 1 percent. While the top 1 percent of households would receive an average of about $46,000 a year in tax breaks, the bottom 20 percent receive only $42. A third of America’s children live in low-income families who would receive nothing under the Bush plan.

The administration proposal puts Medicare at risk by raiding the Medicare Trust Fund—in fact, the whole of the plan, based on 10-year economic projections, is far too risky.

The budget surplus belongs to all of America’s working people. Working families won’t accept this give-away for the rich which jeopardizes our schools, family health care and our older citizens’ retirement security.

In communities around the country our unions, civic organizations, civil rights advocates, educators, retirees and others will mobilize to ensure our nation’s top priorities get priority claim on the surplus.