CONGRESSIONAL HURRICANE RELIEF COMES AT EXPENSE OF THE POOR

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CONGRESSIONAL HURRICANE RELIEF COMES AT EXPENSE OF THE POOR By Cynthia Tucker
Sat Oct 15, 8:08 PM ET


Suddenly, congressional leaders have rediscovered fiscal restraint. After squandering a $2 trillion surplus and creating a tsunami of red ink, Republicans have come to see the benefits of simple arithmetic.

Oddly, their budget epiphany occurred only after they were asked to help the desperate victims of Hurricane Katrina. With Gulf Coast residents who have lost houses, jobs and even loved ones requesting assistance, the GOP wants to halt federal spending. They are threatening a bait-and-switch: They will provide assistance to Katrina's victims (much of it through handouts to business), but they will make up for it by cutting Medicare, food stamps and other programs designed to boost the most vulnerable Americans.

Congress didn't get fiscal religion when it passed a Medicare drug benefit that will cost $720 billion in its first 10 years, a massive boondoggle that will do far more for the pharmaceutical industry than it will for elderly patients. They have barely batted an eye at the bill for the war in Iraq, running about $5 billion a month.

They didn't care about spending when they passed a pork-laden energy bill, which, among other things, gives the oil industry billions in tax breaks and subsidies -- classic corporate welfare. They didn't mind deficits when they passed an obnoxious transportation bill that includes $230 million for a bridge to connect a remote Alaskan airport to a town of 13,000 and another $300 million for an Alaskan highway that goes nowhere.

But poor Americans are fair game. If you thought that the devastation wrought by the fierce winds of this hurricane season might produce an outpouring of help for those who are barely getting by, think again. The "compassionate conservatism" on which President Bush campaigned is a sound bite, not a policy or a plan or even an inclination to help the have-nots.


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1. OMG...

the rethugs are evil soul-less, greedy, amoral rich elitist pigs???? Next thing I know, someone will tell me that Saddam didn't plan 9/11, and bush isn't a real cowboy!:sarcasm: :rofl: