Congressional Morons and Class War
Don’t these elected representatives of the people realize that Americans will not allow their children to go hungry? Don’t they realize that we folks who are now holding on by our fingernails to housing, sustenance, heating, and the other accoutrements of civilization in spite of grinding poverty will rob, steal, murder, and do whatever it takes to feed and protect our children?
Are these Congressional Morons so removed from reality that they perceive the will and determination of Americans to be like that of some odd third-world country? Americans—the poor, as well as the current crop of rich politicians—have a sense of entitlement that transcends any fear of the consequences of crime.
We are facing class warfare once the reality of what these Republican lawmakers have done to assistance programs for the poor comes into play in our neighborhoods. The people on the receiving end of crime which is a natural consequence of these budget cuts are the people who live comfortable lives of privilege in any American middle-class neighborhood.
The children who will suffer are the children of the American middle-class as well as the children of the poor: “rich kids” are the natural targets of the under-privileged—hungry not just for the things of privilege, but hungry for food, for nourishment.
These so-called ‘Republican lawmakers’ don’t realize that America is America because of the strength and unwillingness of the lowliest American citizen to concede defeat when faced with overwhelming odds.
Move to the country. Buy whatever you need to protect your family. Hunker down. If these budget cuts become reality, the bumbling, stumbling, stupid, Republican Party has bought us a class war.
__________________________________________________________________________________
December 6, 2005
Editorial
Profiles in Pusillanimity
Q. When is a self-proclaimed moderate Republican lawmaker just another malleable vote?
A. When House G.O.P. leaders hold a budget-cutting showdown open after midnight for extended arm-twisting on the eve of their long holiday break.
Back home on that Thanksgiving break, spineless lawmakers were unlikely to share with their well-fed constituents the shameful result: for the lack of just two votes from the majority's vaunted "moderate" coalition, more than 200,000 poor Americans each face the loss of food stamps worth $140 a month in nourishment.
For weeks before the vote, coalition members won national praise and hometown headlines as they held their leaders at bay, vowing unity and demanding that the poor not be punished just as another tax-cut package for the affluent was being greased for passage.
Then they buckled, after winning only cosmetic changes in what remains a truly draconian package to slash beyond food stamps to Medicaid, child care and other safety-net programs for the poor.
A dozen supposedly moderate lawmakers turned tail as aptly named floor whips tested the rebels' steel. They feared embarrassing the G.O.P. in its shabby attempts to make the debt- and deficit-crazed Congress seem fiscally responsible.
The vote was an appalling display of budget theatrics over responsible lawmaking. A number of the midnight retreaters apparently forgot that they had previously co-sponsored something called the Hunger-Free Communities Act of 2005.
More of this sham can be expected as Congress returns and the majority Republicans resume fighting among themselves while the Democrats hold fast against safety-net cuts.
The moderates will stage new public "revolts," then fall in line to create more conservative victories in the final secret deal-making between the two houses.
It doesn't have to be this way.
Poverty has risen across the past four years to 37 million and counting, by the government's own measure, while the number of homeless children in public schools is at 600,000 and up.
In 2004, some 38 million Americans - including nearly one in five children - lived in households that found it difficult to afford food, 6 million more than in 1999.
These are the numbers that should be driving the nation's lawmakers, not the cynical desire to carry rebellion only to the brink of victory, followed by still another last-minute cave-in by the misnamed moderates.
· Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
___________________________________________________________________
December 6, 2005
Editorial
Separate and Inequitable
When the Republicans won control over both houses of Congress in 1994, they declared war on the federally financed program that assists poor people with civil legal problems. While they stopped short of abolishing the program, they imposed deep budget cuts and pernicious restrictions designed to handcuff and muzzle lawyers for the poor.
In 2001, a 5-to-4 Supreme Court majority struck down one of those restrictions, an attempt to bar lawyers for the poor from challenging welfare laws. Now there is hope that another far-reaching limitation, the "separate facilities" rule, may be headed for extinction.
This rule applies to poverty-law programs that receive federal money and wish to use funds from private charities and local and state governments to pursue class-action lawsuits and other types of cases barred by Congress. To do so, they must maintain a physically separate office, a prohibitively expensive undertaking.
But a federal district court has ruled, correctly, that there is "no legitimate justification" for the duplication of costs and has declared the separate-facilities rule an unconstitutional restriction of free speech. The federal Legal Services Corporation appealed that ruling, which is before a three-judge federal appeals panel in Manhattan.
In arguments last month, Burt Neuborne of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law said the rule hobbled the representation of poor clients. He noted that the Bush administration did not require religious groups that receive federal funds to offer secular services, like counseling, to maintain a costly separate operation for that work.
The fact that Washington provides money for legal representation does not give it unlimited authority to control what lawyers say or do, or to restrict the use of private money so severely. The appellate court needs to make that crystal clear.
· Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Are these Congressional Morons so removed from reality that they perceive the will and determination of Americans to be like that of some odd third-world country? Americans—the poor, as well as the current crop of rich politicians—have a sense of entitlement that transcends any fear of the consequences of crime.
We are facing class warfare once the reality of what these Republican lawmakers have done to assistance programs for the poor comes into play in our neighborhoods. The people on the receiving end of crime which is a natural consequence of these budget cuts are the people who live comfortable lives of privilege in any American middle-class neighborhood.
The children who will suffer are the children of the American middle-class as well as the children of the poor: “rich kids” are the natural targets of the under-privileged—hungry not just for the things of privilege, but hungry for food, for nourishment.
These so-called ‘Republican lawmakers’ don’t realize that America is America because of the strength and unwillingness of the lowliest American citizen to concede defeat when faced with overwhelming odds.
Move to the country. Buy whatever you need to protect your family. Hunker down. If these budget cuts become reality, the bumbling, stumbling, stupid, Republican Party has bought us a class war.
__________________________________________________________________________________
December 6, 2005
Editorial
Profiles in Pusillanimity
Q. When is a self-proclaimed moderate Republican lawmaker just another malleable vote?
A. When House G.O.P. leaders hold a budget-cutting showdown open after midnight for extended arm-twisting on the eve of their long holiday break.
Back home on that Thanksgiving break, spineless lawmakers were unlikely to share with their well-fed constituents the shameful result: for the lack of just two votes from the majority's vaunted "moderate" coalition, more than 200,000 poor Americans each face the loss of food stamps worth $140 a month in nourishment.
For weeks before the vote, coalition members won national praise and hometown headlines as they held their leaders at bay, vowing unity and demanding that the poor not be punished just as another tax-cut package for the affluent was being greased for passage.
Then they buckled, after winning only cosmetic changes in what remains a truly draconian package to slash beyond food stamps to Medicaid, child care and other safety-net programs for the poor.
A dozen supposedly moderate lawmakers turned tail as aptly named floor whips tested the rebels' steel. They feared embarrassing the G.O.P. in its shabby attempts to make the debt- and deficit-crazed Congress seem fiscally responsible.
The vote was an appalling display of budget theatrics over responsible lawmaking. A number of the midnight retreaters apparently forgot that they had previously co-sponsored something called the Hunger-Free Communities Act of 2005.
More of this sham can be expected as Congress returns and the majority Republicans resume fighting among themselves while the Democrats hold fast against safety-net cuts.
The moderates will stage new public "revolts," then fall in line to create more conservative victories in the final secret deal-making between the two houses.
It doesn't have to be this way.
Poverty has risen across the past four years to 37 million and counting, by the government's own measure, while the number of homeless children in public schools is at 600,000 and up.
In 2004, some 38 million Americans - including nearly one in five children - lived in households that found it difficult to afford food, 6 million more than in 1999.
These are the numbers that should be driving the nation's lawmakers, not the cynical desire to carry rebellion only to the brink of victory, followed by still another last-minute cave-in by the misnamed moderates.
· Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
___________________________________________________________________
December 6, 2005
Editorial
Separate and Inequitable
When the Republicans won control over both houses of Congress in 1994, they declared war on the federally financed program that assists poor people with civil legal problems. While they stopped short of abolishing the program, they imposed deep budget cuts and pernicious restrictions designed to handcuff and muzzle lawyers for the poor.
In 2001, a 5-to-4 Supreme Court majority struck down one of those restrictions, an attempt to bar lawyers for the poor from challenging welfare laws. Now there is hope that another far-reaching limitation, the "separate facilities" rule, may be headed for extinction.
This rule applies to poverty-law programs that receive federal money and wish to use funds from private charities and local and state governments to pursue class-action lawsuits and other types of cases barred by Congress. To do so, they must maintain a physically separate office, a prohibitively expensive undertaking.
But a federal district court has ruled, correctly, that there is "no legitimate justification" for the duplication of costs and has declared the separate-facilities rule an unconstitutional restriction of free speech. The federal Legal Services Corporation appealed that ruling, which is before a three-judge federal appeals panel in Manhattan.
In arguments last month, Burt Neuborne of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law said the rule hobbled the representation of poor clients. He noted that the Bush administration did not require religious groups that receive federal funds to offer secular services, like counseling, to maintain a costly separate operation for that work.
The fact that Washington provides money for legal representation does not give it unlimited authority to control what lawyers say or do, or to restrict the use of private money so severely. The appellate court needs to make that crystal clear.
· Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
posted by FancyRage at 11:46 AM
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