If there was one thing Americans had a right to expect from Congress, it was a federal pla

n to help the elderly pay for prescription drugs. It is a promise that has been made again and again—in particularly high decibels during the last presidential election. The House and Senate have passed bills, and although both are flawed, this page has urged Congress to finish work on them as a first step toward fulfilling this longstanding commitment.

Unfortunately, things have changed. The government cannot afford the program now. That is the fault of President Bush and the Republican majorities in the House and Senate. They broke the bank with their enormous tax cuts. The country is facing the largest budget deficit in history, and there is no realistic plan for getting it under control. The limited version of a prescription drug benefit now being considered in Congress would cost about $400 billion over 10 years.

Older Americans had a right to expect that help, but they do not have a right to demand it, not when it would be financed by borrowing, with the bills to be paid by their grandchildren.

Mr. Bush, a specialist in pain avoidance, told people that they could have the programs they wanted— prescription drugs for the elderly, better schools for children—along with modest tax cuts for the middle class and whoppers for the wealthy. When 9/11 occurred, the president simply added the war on terror, and then the war on Saddam Hussein, to the list. For all his talk about fiscal conservatism, Mr. Bush has never vetoed a spending bill, even the obscene $180 billion farm subsidy program. To pay for it all, he simply increased the deficit.

Deficits in and of themselves are not necessarily a problem, but the current one is frightening for two reasons. One is its size: projected at well above $500 billion for next year, and approaching 5 percent of the gross domestic product. The other is its permanence. Cutting taxes temporarily to fight the recession made sense, but the Bush tax cuts are meant to be permanent—even though Congress gave most of them a phony 11-year expiration date in an attempt to mask their effect.

Dropping the proposal is, of course, just what a large chunk of the Republican Party was hoping for all along. For those Republicans, deficits are a useful tool to beat back popular entitlement programs—a "starve the beast" strategy, in the words of Ronald Reagan' s budget director. Democrats in Congress, meanwhile, rail against the deficit, but they are still pushing for the prescription drug plan. Like the tax-cutters, they are simply building up to some sort of financial Armageddon like soaring interest rates or a collapsing dollar— and hoping that blame will fall on the other party.

Our answer is different. The people have to decide whether they want tax cuts or programs like the prescription drug plan. It's tree that the tax-cut radicals will win this round. But then we will have an election.

Which of the following statements is NOT true about paying for the prescription drugs？

A．It is a federal plan that older Americans have expected for long.

B．The plan was mentioned over and over in the last presidential election.

C．The Democrats are opposed to the program.

D．The government has promised to fulfill the program.