People for the American Way sent around this email today. See below --
The
Wall Street Journal recently exposed that President Bush and his allies in Congress are plotting to take advantage of hurricane relief measures to "achieve a broad range of conservative economic and social policies, both in the storm zone and beyond." On the table are more tax cuts for the wealthy and the suspension of desegregation measures and environmental safeguards. Following last week's waiver of wage protections for federal workers, education is now targeted by two legislative initiatives that could come up for a vote as early as today.
Over the objections of many legislators of both parties, the White House is trying to ram through $488 million in vouchers to send children to religious and other private schools and subsidize children who already attend them. Public schools are the public safety net for the majority of the displaced students in the Gulf Coast, providing not only education but also mental health, nutrition, and social services. Private schools are not equipped to care for these children. Indeed, many private schools in the affected region don't even have the capacity to enroll new students -- public schools are enrolling private school students.
As Congress is focused on providing relief for the victims, the congressional leadership is also attempting to take a swipe at Head Start by pushing through an amendment to the program's reauthorization to allow federal dollars to be used by employers who discriminate on the basis of religion.
Send a message to your senators and representative telling them that using this disaster to advance a partisan agenda is bad enough -- doing it at the expense of children in need is inexcusable.
Where all we can see is suffering and how government utterly failed its people, the repugs see this disaster as a tremendous opportunity to advance their agenda. Just as they made use of the 9/11 disaster to move their agenda forward, they're going to attempt to make use of this disaster. Please follow the link above and send a message to Congress that this is unacceptable.
Stay strong! Be generous!!