unsupportable/immoral/dangerous budget cuts for poor to keep bush tax cuts

[papau]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50122-2005Jan30.html

Cutting Out the Poor

By William Raspberry
Monday, January 31, 2005; Page A21

<snip>

Before you dismiss it as partisan hyperbole, hear Edelman's specifics: The basic structure of Social Security is under attack (on the grounds that the program is in crisis, though most respected economists say it isn't). Pell Grants for college tuition are on the cutting block. So are Section 8 housing vouchers (which started under Richard Nixon) and food stamps. Programs that have offered some protection for people in the lower third of the economy are under threat of evisceration.

And the rationale for the attack is a budgetary crisis created by the gift of $1.8 trillion in tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.

Edelman thinks the needle has jumped off the dial altogether, that the people in philosophical power are determined to abrogate the contract many of us still take for granted. Nor does he believe that it is a matter of fiscal necessity. An unnecessary tax break (abetted by an optional war) created the crisis, and now the crisis justifies a radical reordering of the American system. As Edelman and Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change (CCC), put it in a recent joint statement:

"The federal budget is not just an accounting tool. It is a statement about our priorities and our values as a nation. But because of decisions this president made to benefit an elite few -- at the expense of the rest of us -- we're now facing a set of budget choices that are unsupportable, immoral and dangerous."

[indepat]

1. None of this should surprise anyone with a lick of sense, thimble of know-

ledge. Add employer-sponsored health coverage to the endangered list.

[OneBlueSky]

2. what this country needs is a massive mobilization of poor people . . .

to get them to the polls . . . if everyone making under, say, $20,000/year voted, they could swing an election . . .

[Robert Oak]

3. the thing is

If you read "What's the Matter with Kansas"

these people, who are the ones getting most screwed vote
Republican, rapid anti-abortion, anti-gay...

it's like they can't wait to run to vote to screw themselves
into the ground further.

So, to me the question is how to get these people to wake up
and smell the coffee...

right now it reminds me of the need for deprogramming "cult"
victims on the 1970's.

No reasoning seems to get through this "no gays, anti-abortion then
endorsing the robber baron agenda" mindset.