While many church people rally to defend an unapologetic celebration of Christmas, public officials are busy crafting public policy that will be anything but a gift for low-income Americans, millions of whom live in our inner cities.
Consider New Orleans and Uncle Sam's. . .er, Santa's current list of "gifts" for the poor in that devastated city. The Small Business Administration has processed only 1/3 of the 276,000 loan applications it has received from businesses and homeowners. The SBA has rejected 82% of those it has reviewed! Forty-seven per cent of the approvals have gone to well-t0-do neighborhoods in the city, while only 7% have gone to the poorer communities.
This dismal performance record doesn't really square with what the President said on September 15, 2005 when he spoke at historic Jackson Square.
"As all of us saw on television, there is also some deep, persistent poverty in this region as well," Mr. Bush said. "We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. so let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday, and let us rise above the legacy of inequality."
Santa's on-the-ground policy doesn't measure up to the political rhetoric that extended false hope to New Orleans residents, especially among the poor.
Or, consider the battle that rages on in the Congress as we speed toward the Christmas or Holiday break. Senator Frist called in every Senator and every vote this weekend, including Vice President Cheney who interrupted a trip to Pakistan to scurry back to the Capitol in case his tie-breaking vote were required on the Senate side. As it turned out, he cast one deciding vote on Wednesday.
The result appears clear. Billions of dollars in funding will be stripped away from programs benefiting low-income Americans, including nutrition, health care, child welfare and education initiatives. The very efforts our nation employs to extend new opportunity to working families will now be cut back even further.
Don't despair! At the same time our Congress squeezes the poor, it will provide even more billions in additional tax cuts to the rich!
Merry Christmas! God bless us every one!
It happened again on Monday of this week. And, I must say people didn't like it.
Our resource center assisted almost 400 families with food and other pressing matters. I have never seen our building more crowded.
Everyone was gracious. Everyone seemed grateful. But, not everyone was happy.
People who must depend upon charity to get by in life really don't like it. Put yourself in their shoes. You'll begin to understand.
We need more in this nation. We should be doing better by those at the bottom. What we have today is not only inadequate and short-sighted, it is simply not right.
I wish the folks who are so incensed about the Christmas-Holiday argument would turn their attention to the values of the person behind the celebration they champion. Maybe then things would change.
Merry Christmas.
So, did it officially pass? Is there nothing else we can do!?!?!
ReplyDelete(other than vote better next time... which I, a recovering Republican, intend to do)
Anonymous, due to changes made in the Senate, the process will have to go back to the U. S. House. So, you can contact your Representative TODAY to express your opposition to the cuts to programs benefiting the poor. That is your only option at this point.
ReplyDeleteDallasfan, let's just say you are right and I don't think you are. So, justify a tax cut to the top.
ReplyDeleteIt may take class war to redirect the nation.
Dallasfan, I read mine in the NYTimes. No report I have seen sums up the education reform stuff like you have it here. I really don't believe this data. NPR had it completely differently this a.m. The fact is this Congress is cutting help to the weakest to pay for a war and a tax cut. Not rocket science to see that.
ReplyDeleteDallasFan,
ReplyDeleteThat site claims: "Fact: The Deficit Reduction Act will result in increased health benefits for low-income individual and families," but then it goes on to say that benefits will only be increased for Hurricane Katrina victims, severely disabled children and their parents, elderly and disabled low-income people.
While those populations need additional support, this "Fact Sheet" does not report that these are increases to only small segments of the overall low-income population. These increases will be funded by reduced benefits to the rest (as well as increased tax breaks to the wealthy).
If you're looking for a more accurate analysis, here is something interesting from www.cppp.org:
"Congress will soon decide whether to eliminate food stamp benefits for about 255,000 low-income Americans, including about 76,000 Texans. The cuts are contained in the U.S. House of Representative's budget reconciliation bill passed on November 18. This bill would cut more than $700 million in food stamp benefits over the next six years, making Texas the hardest hit among the states, with Texans shouldering approximately 30% of the food stamp cuts. Most of the families who would lose benefits are low-wage workers with children."
The reality is that even the 41% growth would still be inadequate. A vast number of poor people still cannot access these servcies. As detailed here, "The number of American households experiencing hunger has jumped 43% over the past 5 years (1999-2004)."
As hard as it is to admit, as a Republican, it is clear to me that much of my leadership simply distorts the facts and believes that such distortions become truth by simply repeating them again and again. This is clearly the case with your data Dallasfan, as it is with Mr. Cheney's continued insistance that Iraq had clear ties to Al Queda. It is a sad time for the GOP.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Dennison
Mobile, AL