![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Class Warfare?
Mar. 10th, 2011 08:48 pmObscenity.
That's the only word for this.
THIS is why I have a problem with the Republicans specifically. And THIS is the kind of thing that I am thinking of when I say that anyone who claims the two parties are “practically the same” is simply too damn lazy to look into the real differences between them.
What Democrats want to keep in the Federal Budget: $8.9 billion in low-income housing programs.
But we can't afford that, according to the Republicans. But what we can afford, and absolutely must not touch: $8.9 billion in subsidies for people buying a vacation home.
What else Democrats want to keep in the Federal Budget: $2.5 billion in assistance for low-income families to help pay their heating bills this winter.
Also unaffordable according to the Republicans. But what we can afford, and absolutely must not touch? How about $2.5 billion in subsidies for oil companies for exploratory drilling and other tax write-offs?
Guess which party wants to keep $11.2 billion for early childhood programs (Head Start, anyone?)
Guess which party wants to eliminate it completely? Here's a hint: it's the same party that considers $11.5 billion in tax cuts for wealthy estates to be sacrosanct.
Source: Federal Budget numbers conveniently arranged into a handy chart by a group called The Christian Left and reposted at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/09/954301/-The-Must-See-Chart-%28This-Is-What-Class-War-Looks-Like%29
Check out the rest of the chart there.
The budget isn't out of balance because we don't have the money, or because we're spending too much on “leftist giveaways” - it's because our priorities are, at best, way screwed up.
I don't just blame the Republicans, of course. A great number of Democrats gave the Republicans power through their astroturf organization the “Tea Party” because Obama hadn't done everything they wanted. These are the intellectually lazy people who keep telling me that “both parties are exactly the same.” and who stay home and don't vote because they want to “teach the Democrats a lesson.”
Thanks, guys. Fortunately, I am able to pay my mortgage, at least for a few more months, because the President DID compromise with the Republicans by allowing a couple of hundred billion dollars to go to their friends, the wealthiest 1% of Americans, in exchange for allowing a few billion going to extending unemployment benefits for another six months. If he hadn't, thousands (or tens of thousands) of people in situations similar to my own would have lost their homes. But those are just poor people, so the Republicans, and the lazy Democrats, don't care about them.
Anybody else have a problem eliminating $2 billion in assistance to the homeless so that we can give $2.3 billion to hedge fund managers?
That's the only word for this.
THIS is why I have a problem with the Republicans specifically. And THIS is the kind of thing that I am thinking of when I say that anyone who claims the two parties are “practically the same” is simply too damn lazy to look into the real differences between them.
What Democrats want to keep in the Federal Budget: $8.9 billion in low-income housing programs.
But we can't afford that, according to the Republicans. But what we can afford, and absolutely must not touch: $8.9 billion in subsidies for people buying a vacation home.
What else Democrats want to keep in the Federal Budget: $2.5 billion in assistance for low-income families to help pay their heating bills this winter.
Also unaffordable according to the Republicans. But what we can afford, and absolutely must not touch? How about $2.5 billion in subsidies for oil companies for exploratory drilling and other tax write-offs?
Guess which party wants to keep $11.2 billion for early childhood programs (Head Start, anyone?)
Guess which party wants to eliminate it completely? Here's a hint: it's the same party that considers $11.5 billion in tax cuts for wealthy estates to be sacrosanct.
Source: Federal Budget numbers conveniently arranged into a handy chart by a group called The Christian Left and reposted at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/09/954301/-The-Must-See-Chart-%28This-Is-What-Class-War-Looks-Like%29
Check out the rest of the chart there.
The budget isn't out of balance because we don't have the money, or because we're spending too much on “leftist giveaways” - it's because our priorities are, at best, way screwed up.
I don't just blame the Republicans, of course. A great number of Democrats gave the Republicans power through their astroturf organization the “Tea Party” because Obama hadn't done everything they wanted. These are the intellectually lazy people who keep telling me that “both parties are exactly the same.” and who stay home and don't vote because they want to “teach the Democrats a lesson.”
Thanks, guys. Fortunately, I am able to pay my mortgage, at least for a few more months, because the President DID compromise with the Republicans by allowing a couple of hundred billion dollars to go to their friends, the wealthiest 1% of Americans, in exchange for allowing a few billion going to extending unemployment benefits for another six months. If he hadn't, thousands (or tens of thousands) of people in situations similar to my own would have lost their homes. But those are just poor people, so the Republicans, and the lazy Democrats, don't care about them.
Anybody else have a problem eliminating $2 billion in assistance to the homeless so that we can give $2.3 billion to hedge fund managers?
