Feeding the Rich to Starve the Poor

What a way to start the week. You know when you wake up and read that a journalist as influential as Tim Russert says “Bush Needs a Win” that we’re in real trouble. I’m all about creative writing but we’re not talking about sports commentary or fairy tales here. Last time I checked the nation’s capital was rife with scandal and some even say we’re at war and what does a noted journalist do. He writes sports commentary. Not really but I do think it’s a cheesy headline. Give me a break Tim. And by the way, why doesn’t that headline read “Russert tells all about Plame Gate”. Rumor has it that you testified before the Grand Jury. Anything you want to share with the public? You know I’m not a real journalist and I certainly don’t write very well on a good day but if I was and did I think I would feel some responsibility to my audience to tell them what I might have said to the Grand Jury in such a very important case. You know everyone else is telling Tim. Oh well, I guess some folks don’t think that’s important enough to talk about or write about. On to something a little different and closer to home.

THE REAL BLOG STARTS HERE.
Something that is very close to my heart is social welfare programs. These Programs are close to me, not because I ever took advantage of them but because poverty was close to me because I lived on the edge of it and because I have worked with many of today’s social welfare programs. I hate to shock a certain segment of our citizenry but I’m here to tell you that there are people in America; right here in the land of plenty, today, that don’t earn enough to feed their families not because they are lazy but because circumstances have never favored them. Because in this great country people can still be born into poverty and opportunity can still elude them and their families. Unfortunately our conservative friends just don’t seem to get it even after watching New Orleans go underwater before their eyes.

You know the shame of what I’m talking about here is that some years back we started, and I mean “started”, getting it right when we implemented welfare reform. We began targeting a population that needed a hand up by really giving them a hand up and not a hand out. One of the key building blocks in that hand up program was the food stamp program. Through food stamps we made sure that the working, that’s right working, poor received food even if they didn’t make enough money to buy all they may have needed to feed themselves and their children. Through this program we lessened the chances of some very poor children going to bed hungry and increased the chance of some of the poor working their way out of poverty. So now in the shadow of those successes our conservative friends in Congress and the Senate want to continue the “welfare” tax cuts to the very wealthy while cutting programs for the poor. And to add insult to injury they want to put it in the guise of helping hurricane Katrina victims.

I may become violently ill. No really, I may become ill. Why? Please tell me why you would cut something as basic as food stamps when you just witnessed the very poor being drowned and washed from their homes. Why? Please tell me why you would cut Medicaid right after you saw the very poor being injured, drowned and washed from their homes? Where exactly is the logic in this? Wait, wait now I get it. It’s because we wasted millions giving out $2,000.00 debit cards with little or no controls. It’s because we sent truck loads of very expensive ice off to never, never land instead of to where it was needed. It was because we bought thousands of travel trailers that we didn’t need because we failed to prepare ahead of time. So now we’ll arrange to starve the poor to make up the money we threw away. Are there any more bright ideas coming out of Washington? If there are I’m running as fast as I can.

Those are The Sergeant Majors thoughts on that.