I�d
like to think that I�ve been pretty consistent in my claims
that the poor and disadvantaged are under attack.� I�d argue
the case of the Black poor, in particular, where others
might isolate class instead of race, as the determinate
factor.� Herein, I will not only offer the empirical evidence
of my claims, but expound upon the rhyme and reasons leading
to eradication: the endgame.
With
the roaring waters calmed after averting a government shutdown,
House Republicans are celebrating recent budget cuts to
discretionary spending.� Of course, those House Republicans,
pushed by their Tea Party faction, took aim at the monstrous
federal deficit.� The Democrats, on the other hand, proposed
a spending freeze.� Neither option would have added to the
federal deficit. What�s unfortunate is that the final solution
hasn�t chipped anything significant off the block of granite,
which is the federal deficit.
What
is even more unfortunate is that the current compromise
that President Obama has reached with House Republicans
under the plan proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), crushes
the fingers of the poor who are barely hanging onto the
ledge of the economy�the very constituency that believed
in Obama�s message of hope and change.
In
this budget compromise, social safety net programs were
not spared. WIC, a program that uses federal money to subsidize
the food and nutrition needs of children from low-income
families, is cut by more than $500 million. The GOP proposal
of $61 billion in cuts�on top of the $40 billion in cuts
offered by Obama�focused only on non-security discretionary
spending (just 12% of the budget) and called for across-the-board
cuts that will curtail several programs for the poor and
adversely affect most government agencies and services offered
to the public.� Almost $1 billion is cut from a community
development fund run by the Department of Housing and Urban
Development. Cuts of Pell grants for low-income students
who need assistance to get through college, served as meat
for the butcher.� But, what was spared were tax cuts
for the rich.
While
preservation of the Bush-era tax cuts remains, cuts to nutrition
programs mean the malnourishment of a certain class of people�children.�
For the thousands of children, this budget dims their prospects
of becoming serious US competitors�in and for this country.
Not to feed them is to eliminate their potential for competition.
One�s inability to fairly compete rings a death knell in
this society.
Cuts
to housing lead to stunted, interrupted or non-existent
environmental growth, placing those without [housing] at
yet another extreme disadvantage.� No one thrives when there�s
no safe, stable and secure place to call home.� Alas, It�s
much easier to compete against an insecure, unstable and
forlorn constituency.
Cuts
to education funding for the most vulnerable have always
been a reliable determinant for eradicating one�s competition.�
When it comes to skill, experience employability and employment,
education is the key component for success.� House
Republicans have placed one more nail in the coffin of educational
opportunities with this budget compromise.� This act to
cut education funding was surely executed upon the backs
of the poor.
What�s
sad is that President Obama played a major role in shoring
up the Conservative Right�s agenda to �take their [our]
country back.�� By compromising on a budget that did not
spread the pain, poor and disadvantaged sectors of this
society will continue to suffer immensely.� Though one may
possess hope for the future, the interim is filled with
scratching from two rungs lower on the ladder (than one
may have been 10 years ago).� For this budget agenda is
�taking the country back��back to the past.� As the
budget process moves into the policy modifications phase,
it hearkens to the days of the Nixon administration.� Let
us recall the exasperation with President Lyndon Johnson�s
War on Poverty.
The
War on Poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first
introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson
during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964.
As part of the Great Society, Johnson's belief in expanding
the government's role in social welfare programs from education
to health care was a continuation of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's
New Deal, which ran from 1933 to 1935. The popularity of
a war on poverty waned after the 1960s, in particular, after
the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. President Nixon�s
policies opened the door for deregulation, growing criticism
of the welfare state, and an ideological shift that began
to whittle down federal aid to impoverished residents in
the 1980s and 1990s.� In 1996, that shift culminated in
the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of
1996�the Act that President Bill Clinton proclaimed would
"end welfare as we know it."
One
of the central fiscal promises Obama made as a Presidential
candidate was to reverse most of the Bush-era tax cuts for
the wealthiest Americans, while protecting cuts for the
poor and middle-class.� Responsible deficit cutting measures
must correspond with revenue generating policies.� The battle
rests on a single principle: either the poor live or they
die.� The budget cuts, as defined by the Ryan plan, eradicate
the poor and disadvantaged in America�and Republican ideologues
know it.
So
what we have here is a repeat of history, though the majority
of Americans who should remember invoke selective amnesia.�
Cutting aid to the poorest of our citizenry means that those
funds shall be channeled elsewhere.� And, they won�t be
channeled to cut the deficit. It appears that if tax cuts
for the wealthy put more money in the pockets of those already
well-off, and poor and working-class Americans get poorer,
then opportunities for the �have-nots�� (the latter group)
to compete become even slimmer than an already pittance
of a fair shake. Ladies and gentlemen, you�re witnessing
an endgame�to eradicate the competition.
BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Perry Redd,
is the former Executive Director of the workers rights advocacy,
Sincere Seven, and author of the on-line commentary, �The Other Side of the
Tracks.� He is the host of the internet-based talk radio
show, Socially Speaking in Washington, DC. Click here to contact Mr. Redd.
|