The cruelty and selfishness of the Republican Party knows no bounds. Not content with having almost literally fiddled while New Orleans drowned, the president now plans to make poor people across America pay for the cost of rebuilding.
The administration's proposals would have the $200 billion in reconstruction costs financed by cuts to food stamps and Medicaid:
And with federal costs for rebuilding the Gulf Coast estimated at up to $200 billion, Congressional Republican leaders are pushing for spending cuts, with programs like Medicaid and food stamps especially vulnerable.
"We've had a stunning reversal in just a few weeks," said Robert Greenstein, director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal advocacy group in Washington. "We've gone from a situation in which we might have a long-overdue debate on deep poverty to the possibility, perhaps even the likelihood, that low-income people will be asked to bear the costs. I would find it unimaginable if it wasn't actually happening."
Would these greedy, vindictive thugs consider even a temporary tax on the wealthiest Americans to pay for the reconstructions - a measure polls show has wider support then spending cuts? Don't make me laugh:
Indeed, even as he was calling for deep spending cuts last week, Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, who leads the conservative caucus, called tax reductions for the prosperous a key to fighting poverty...
War Is Peace.
Freedom Is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
Now we can add a fourth: Greed is Generosity.
They cut taxes for millionaires while hundreds of thousands of jobs disappeared. They borrowed money from China to fund a pointless, illegal war while letting terrorists go free. They do nothing as millions of people are gouged by higher and higher gas prices to line the pockets of Saudi terrorists. They break the laws of our country, robbing our children's futures to fatten their wallets.
They are looters, people who would take away food and medicine from a family who has lost their home and their livelihood to Katrina. Shame on us all for having elected this band of rogues. And deeper shame on us if we permit them to ever win re-election.