Friday, March 27, 2015

GOP Budget: Screw the Poor, Fund More War

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

The United States House of Representatives and Senate have now each drafted versions of their proposed budgets - or what they see as business plans for America's future.  The two documents, both essentially written by the Republican majorities in each chamber, will be fit together into one plan by a conference committee after Congress returns from yet another holiday.  The end result will be awful - because both of the preliminary documents already agree on so much that is awful.

Here is how a writer at Dailykos described the mirror-image  "lowlights" of the House and Senate budgets:

"The lowlights of the (Senate) budget mesh with what the House did: Turning Medicare into a voucher program; slashing Medicaid and food stamps, and turning them into block grant programs that will be far easier to dismantle at the state level; and providing big tax cuts for the rich. Along with Obamacare repeal, it would roll back the administration's carbon emissions rules for power plants. But war? They're ready for more of it, adding $38 billion to an off-budget war funding account."
Once again big business and America's richest swine have geared up to steal our future through the purchase of a few dozen sleazy politicians.   America's corporate masters operate in a world of bottom lines and profits where the health of the masses is unimportant, or at least no concern of theirs, and where the education of the masses is something to be feared and controlled.  Their minions, the thieves and swindlers elected to Congress, aren't concerned with how the folks back home manage to make ends meet.  If the poor bastards need more money, let them work more shifts.  But they are concerned with themselves, and they work diligently at lowering taxes for the rich and pouring money into programs that will ultimately benefit defense contractors and trickle back into their own pockets.

Congress no longer represents the people of the United States, at least not the people who do the work and struggle to consume the goods that prop up capitalism.  Congress represents themselves and their owners - and no one else.

This latest heresy against America will eventually be circumcised with a presidential veto pen - but what happens when Sheldon Adelson, and Charles and David Koch, and all of the other vultures in the Garden, manage to buy the presidency as well?   We all may need that safety net that the Republicans are so gleefully shredding, and we may need it sooner rather than later.

Wake up America.  Social Security is a good thing, and so are Medicare and Medicaid.  The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) has provided health insurance coverage to over ten million Americans, and programs like Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provide medical and nutritional assistance to the tiniest and most vulnerable among us.    And while the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) falls short of eliminating hunger in America, it does help those in need put some food on their tables.

War, on the other hand, often does nothing more than kill innocents and feed the hogs who own the plants that make the weapons of war.  It's good for the war industry, and bad for people.

Perhaps the most appalling aspect of this budget, future-of-America business, is the sanctimoniousness of the bastards who are trying to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.  Many of these shameless con-artists are standing on their Bibles to rise above us as they preach the gospel of wealth.  They need to bend down, crack open those Good Books, and open their minds to the concept of loving their neighbors and helping others.

If some of those people were more charitable and genuinely concerned with the plight of their neighbors, government programs to help the poor might become unnecessary.

Helping those in need - it's what Jesus would do.

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