"Fuzzy and Blue" is a song that Grover and Cookie Monster sing on Sesame Street. Like Grover and Cookie, I care about children, I am BLUE, i.e., I am a DEMOCRAT, and I believe that we need to respect, encourage and foster the well being and prosperity of all creatures, regardless of wealth status, education, race, religion, or sexual orientation.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Poor get Poorer & School Vouchers Hurt Poor Kids
ChristianScienceMonitor: With all the attention being paid to hurricane victims, America's poor have been wondering when anyone might get around to helping them, too. In moving to help the hurricane victims, Congress finds itself in a budget scramble that is likely to trim the very programs that are crucial to the 37 million Americans who subsist at or below the poverty level. The latest statistics are sobering. After much progress in the booming 90s (the dropping of 9 million from welfare rolls after welfare reform & social program funding coming from Clinton's tax hikes on the wealthiest top 2%) - poverty has returned in great force. Starting in '01, the share of Americans in poverty has increased each yr. In '04 alone, their ranks grew by 1 million. In all, some 12.7% live below the poverty line: defined as $15,067 for a family of 3. Well, it seems as least some in this nation realize that the Bush & Co assault on the poor/ mid class hurts our entire nation. Peter Rogness is bishop of the St Paul Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Please read his op/ed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune called: "Making our deficit bigger, poor poorer and rich richer." And to accompany this assessment on the assault on the poor/ mid class is this op/ed by Rob Levine called: "Case for vouchers ignores many facts". Levine examines why his 6 objections to giving poor kids the choice to attend private schools are "principled" objections based on facts, not fiction, and they are facts that pro-vouchers choose to ignore.
Shakespear's Sister is up in arms about the democratic Congressial sloganeers settling on "Together We Can Do Better" for 2006 elections. What a piss-poor and lame excuse for an election slogan. Below are a few quick improvements;
ReplyDelete* Lets Fix This Fucking Mess
* Stop the War on the Poor
* Health Care is a Human Right
* Bring Our Troops Home Now
"Stop the War on the Poor" instead of NCLB makes sense. I've been pissed since Rich Little's little joke at Bush's inaugural - "The war-on-poverty is over and the poor people lost." And how the GOPs in attendance howled in laughter. You are so right, vouchers are part of the GOP War on Public Schools, which is part of their War on the Poor.
Earl, I am getting really sick of the Democrats. First they spend years of mental masturbation deciding that "messaging" was the success of the criminal party. Then they orchestrate their own message and come out with lame-ass slogans like "culture of corruption" and "together we can do better." Actually, together, they are doing worse. They took Howard Dean, who I thought was a train wreck years ago, and softened him into the "culture of corruption" and "hide-the-salami" spokesman. Big mistake. Hire Dean to be Dean or find someone else. I cannot even say "culture of corruption" without getting it all screwed up. Why not "GOP, the party of Indictments?" Or "the party of criminal investigations?" They are not a culture, they are a political party. Jeez.
ReplyDeleteI was raised by 2 hardcore Democrats who inspired me to be fiercely pro-union, pro-living wage, pro-privacy, pro-equality, and pro-worker/ pro-student. I am left wondering what the hell has happened to the Dems of today and why are these still not their issues and their driving forces? Perhaps the only real culture of corruption exists in DC and happens to all politicians. I believe RFK Jr said it best when he said: "Republicans are 95% corrupt but Democrats are 75% corrupt." Amen brother Robert... amen.
ReplyDelete