Senate Health Bill Provides Enormous Help To Poor

Everyone seems to be trashing the Senate's health reform bill. That's fine, dissent is good, but I don't think we should let it blind us to the positives, such as the enormous good the bill will do for the poor and middle class. (Via Jonathan Cohn at TNR.)

This bill would mean Medicaid coverage for an additional 15 million people a year, all of them living below or just above the poverty line. For a sense of scale, that's more than double the entire population now covered by the state Children's Health Insurance Program.

This bill would also subsidize coverage in the exchanges for (roughly) another 15 million people a year, the majority of whom would also qualify as low-income by any reasonable standard.

"Do the math," he says, and we'll see that this bill is "arguably, the single most progressive initiative in a generation."

And if you don't believe Cohn, he asks you to consider what his colleague Harold Pollack at the Huffington Post had to say [emphasis mine]:

Fully implemented, the bill would provide about $200 billion per year down the income scale in subsidies to poor, near-poor, and working Americans.

$200 billion is a big number. It exceeds the combined total of federal spending on Food Stamps and all nutrition assistance programs, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Head Start, TANF cash payments to single mothers and their children, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the National Institutes of Health.

That money won't be allocated to wars or tax cuts for the rich, it's going to help the poor and middle class.

Trash the bill if you want, but don't let yourself lose sight of the good it will do.


(Cross-posted at Blogging for MI.)

Obama campaign donates to schools in need

In the midst of the presidential race, President-elect Obama had the foresight to do something wonderful for poor school districts across the country. The Sto-Rox school district in southwestern Pennsylvania was one of them.

Word spread quickly last week through Sto-Rox High School when students learned that the administrative offices were filled with Barack Obama paraphernalia.

Students snapped up posters and stickers for their lockers, backpacks and bedroom walls, eager to commemorate the victory of the first African American to ascend to the nation's highest office.

The enthusiasm excited administrators, but it's not what brought tears to the eyes of Jean Schmalzreid, the district's director of federal programs and special projects. That happened when she saw school facilities workers bring in dolly after dolly piled high with thousands of dollars worth of supplies donated from Obama campaign offices in Pittsburgh.

Six computers will be dedicated to creating learning centers for struggling middle school students. An all-in-one printer, copier and fax machine will hum all day in the middle school library. And the art department received piles of markers, paint and poster board.

They were part of a program Mr. Obama's campaign, funded better than any in the history of American politics, devised in partnership with iloveschools.com, a Web site that helps connect teachers with organizations that donate school supplies.

The campaign intentionally reached out to poorer areas. In the Sto-Rox district, 65 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.

Valerie Swanson, marketing director of iloveschools, said a specific focus of the Obama campaign was to give back and donate office supplies and other materials to schools, and they began planning how to do that a few weeks ago.

"Tens of thousands of supplies have been donated in two days to various schools across the country," Swanson said.

I don't know if schools in Michigan received any supplies, but 200 campaign offices across the country have pledged donations in 12 states, including Texas, Indiana and Oregon. And, as you might imagine, districts are excited by the help because it will allow them to spend their money on other needs.

It looks like poor children finally have someone who cares about them in Washington, after being ignored for so long.


(Cross-posted at Blogging for MI.)

Thank you, President Roosevelt

I didn't want the 73rd anniversary of Social Security to pass without sharing this new DNC video. It features the grandson of Franklin Delano Roosevelt talking about his grandfather's belief that "lifting our seniors out of poverty is a reflection of our nation's core values."

We owe his grandfather our deep gratitude. Today, Social Security lifts nearly 13 million and 1.3 million children out of poverty.

John McCain? He called Social Security an "absolute disgrace" and he embraces the Bush privatization plan that would risk sending millions of people back into poverty. Obama proposes protecting Social Security by opposing privatization and a higher retirement age.

Watch the video. It's very good.

Why do Republicans hate the poor?

Just when I think Republicans can't stoop any lower, I come across something like this from the National Low Income Housing Coalition that makes my blood run cold. [My emphasis]

WASHINGTON, DC - Responding to pressure from Ranking Member Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee appears to be on the verge of diverting funds designated for a housing trust fund for housing for the poorest Americans to pay for Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd’s (D-CT) new program to refinance homeowners facing foreclosure.

In his bill “The Federal Housing Finance Regulatory Reform Act of 2008,” Chairman Dodd proposes to allow the Federal Housing Administration to insure refinanced mortgages of homeowners who face foreclosure. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this new program creates a potential liability for the federal government of $1.7 billion.

Reports are that Senator Shelby will only agree to the new FHA program if it is paid for by non-taxpayer funds. Senator Dodd’s bill also creates a housing trust fund with resources from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to build or preserve rental housing for extremely low and very low income people. Senator Shelby wants those funds to be used to pay for the new FHA program instead.

“After the $30 billion taxpayer guaranteed bail out of Bear Sterns and the $25 billion Senate-passed taxpayer funded bail out for homebuilders, for Committee Republicans to insist that the taxpayers should not pay $1.7 billion to prevent homeowners from losing their homes, has to be called what it is - hypocrisy,” said Sheila Crowley, President of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

In a letter today to Chairman Dodd, the National Housing Trust Fund Campaign urged him to “identify other resources to pay for the new FHA program besides the only ones in this broad housing package that are dedicated to serving the poorest families in our country.”

I can think of two sources off the top of my head: They could roll back the tax cuts on the richest Americans or ask those billionaire fund managers to pay the same tax rates on wages the rest of us do.

The Republicans continued attacks against our most vulnerable citizens is cruel and immoral, and I honestly can't understand why they continue to do so much for the rich at the expense of those with the least. I'm dumbfounded by their mean-spiritedness.

h/t Dean Baker

Cross-posted here.

Bush's Legacy: Debt

I read this, The Dubious Priorities Of The President’s FY 2009 Budget, and this...

The President’s budget would provide more tax cuts heavily skewed to the most well-off while cutting vital services for low- and moderate-income Americans, generating large deficits, and increasing the strain on states already confronting budget problems as a result of the economic downturn. The budget reflects misguided priorities that would leave the American people more vulnerable in a number of ways.

And I thought, "thank heaven Bush's term is almost over and the next president can start fixing the damage he's done." Then I read Robert Reich's column, Financing the Common Good, and found myself getting nervous.

A new Democratic president will face many of the same challenges Bill Clinton faced at the start of his administration -- but all made worse by George W. Bush. Clinton, recall, inherited a fiscal straightjacket. At the start of 1993, the federal budget deficit was running $300 billion a year as far as the eye could see. Prior Republican administrations had sought to "starve the beast," going deep into the red by spending heavily on defense while at the same time cutting taxes.

Yes, I remember those years, and I see the similarities between the economy then versus today, but it can be fixed. Right?

A new Democratic president coming into office in 2009 will face a national debt much larger than it was in 1993. Despite the $5 trillion 10-year budget surplus that ended the Clinton years, the federal debt at the end of the Bush years will be almost $4 trillion larger than it was then. It will have grown about 70 percent during Bush's reign. If you assume 5 percent interest, the Bush debt burden will require the government to pay its creditors -- prominent among them, the Japanese and Chinese -- $200 billion a year, forever. That will use up a lot of tax revenue even before any of the nation's problems are addressed. In this way, George W. and company have done Reagan one better. They've not only starved the beast through tax cuts for the rich and increased defense spending; they've just about dismembered it. [emphasis mine]

To all the people who voted for Bush, I hope you're happy. You got your short-term monetary gain at the expense of my grandchildren and their grandchildren into perpetuity.

Poverty threatens our domestic tranquillity

The LA Times is running a series of editorials on the values and issues they feel will shape the 2008 election, i.e. the environment, liberty and justice, etc. Today, they focused on our country's domestic tranquillity, which they believe is being tested by new challenges, chief among them persistent poverty and the fraying of our connective infrastructure. It's pretty good stuff, especially the part about poverty. Here's an excerpt:

If tranquillity is best assured by "a more equal distribution" of the nation's wealth, we have much to fear. Our schools are faltering; our healthcare system leaves millions without access to doctors. Many are homeless or face the loss of homes. Some seethe at illegal immigrants who compete with Americans for jobs. In our America, 60 million people survive on $7 a day.

As we contemplate the coming election, we seek a president who understands that the unchecked spread of poverty is not a natural condition but rather a failure of government, and that action is required. Democrat John Edwards has been the most ardent anti-poverty crusader in the campaign; his ideas include strengthening labor laws, stimulating job creation and distributing housing vouchers for poor families that could be used anywhere, not just in government housing. The latter proposal alone would vastly expand shelter for those in need. The rest of the Democratic field offers little in the way of ingenuity, opting instead for the obvious observation that money spent in Iraq could better help America's poor.

On the Republican side, lack of specificity is matched by conspicuous indifference. When the GOP candidates were invited to debate poverty at Morgan State University in September, not one of the then-front-runners attended; present were Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, Ron Paul and Alan Keyes. Now a leading contender, Huckabee frames fighting poverty as a "pro-life" position; more constructively, he also addresses issues such as prison reform. Other Republicans have done meaningful anti-poverty work -- John McCain in housing and Mitt Romney in healthcare.

Although these candidates present ideas that might contribute at the margins, none goes far enough. Here are some ideas we'd like to hear them discuss:

President Bush came to office on a promise of "compassionate conservatism," but in housing, as in so many other areas, he's proved far more conservative than compassionate. His administration has sought, for instance, to cut Section 8 housing vouchers by 850,000; his successor should not only replenish the voucher program but add to it. There is no poverty worse than homelessness.

The next president should support and pay for early childhood programs such as Head Start; he or she also should endorse tax breaks for college students and their parents. Low-income students would benefit if community college tuition, in particular, were tax-deductible. And here's a proposal we would welcome: federal assistance for states educating the majority of the nation's illegal immigrants. Education can lift a poor person into prosperity; the government owes its people this chance to raise themselves.

Free trade is an engine of growth and jobs and thus opportunity. Yet open markets bring dislocation, and for the worker whose plant moves to Mexico, it is cold comfort that jobs are being created abroad. For Democrats especially, this last issue is a trying one. President Clinton was a champion of free trade and a supporter of NAFTA -- this page supported it then and still does. Today's candidates, however, are less enthusiastic. Edwards blames the pact for sending 1 million jobs abroad. Sen. Barack Obama calls for it to be "renegotiated." Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton says it should be "fixed." Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich veers into absurdity by proposing to scrap NAFTA and withdraw from the World Trade Organization.

Our goal should not be to abandon free trade but rather to make it work -- for the economy and also for the poor.

These are good ideas that I'd like to hear discussed too, but will it change anything? The candidates will say whatever they think will get them votes. Bush is a prime example of that. People really believed he would be "compassionate." I guess the best we can do is vote our conscience and hope the next president really does care about poverty and inequality. That pretty much rules out all Republicans.

Economic growth still bypassing most Americans

Here's the headline and spin from today's Census Bureau announcement:

U.S. poverty rate declines significantly

The nation's poverty rate dropped last year, the first significant decline since President Bush took office.

Here's the reality-based breakdown from the CBPP:

Today’s figures also show that while the overall poverty rate declined slightly (from 12.6 percent to 12.3 percent) between 2005 and 2006, the decline was largely concentrated among the elderly. The poverty rates for children and for working age adults remained statistically unchanged as compared to 2005, and well above their levels in 2001, when the last recession hit bottom.

Even more disturbing was this data:

The percentage of Americans who lack health insurance stood at 15.8 percent in 2006, up from 15.3 percent in 2005. The number of people who are uninsured rose by 2.2 million in 2006, to 47 million, the highest level on record (with comparable data going back to 1999).

I don't call those significant achievements by any stretch of the imagination and, as the EPI points out, once again it's the households at the top who gained the most:

Between 2000 and 2006, the average income of the lowest fifth is down 4.5%, the middle fifth is down 2.5%, and only the top fifth is up, by 1%. Similarly, today’s report revealed that the share of income going to the top fifth of households was 50.5%, the highest share on record going back to 1967. The middle-income share was 14.5%, the lowest on record. The bottom income share has been 3.4% since 2003, also an historic low.

Although the decline in poverty rates for the elderly was welcome news, living standards have not recovered to their levels in 2000 when poverty was 11.3% compared to 12.3% in 2006. That's an increase in the poverty rolls of 4.9 million persons, including 1.2 million children. Same for median household income. In 2006 it was $48,201, about $1,000 dollars (minus 2%) below its 2000 level.

No wonder consumer sentiment continues to fall. As Robert Greenstein, executive director of the CBPP notes:

“Five years into an economic recovery, the country has yet to make progress in reducing poverty, raising the typical working-age family’s income, or stemming the rise in the ranks of the uninsured, compared even to where we were in the last recession. The new figures on median income and poverty are the latest evidence that the economic growth of the past few years has been very uneven, with the gains being concentrated among those who already are the most well off. Too many middle- and low-income families are not sharing in the gains.”

All I can say is, the Bush administration should be ashamed.

It's time to redefine compassion

I have to give credit where credit's due. The person responsible for "compassionate conservatism" was a marketing genius. He/she managed to paint Republicans as people who really care about the needs and concerns of average Americans. The public knows otherwise now and sees the hypocrisy behind the words, but I wonder if the person responsible for that term ever felt any remorse?

Moving along, Mother Jones has a rather lengthy list of the ways all that compassion dings the poor and middle class. You can read the whole thing for yourself, but here's a sample.

1 in 4 U.S. jobs pay less than a poverty-level income.

During the 1980s, 13% of Americans age 40 to 50 spent at least one year below the poverty line; by the 1990s, 36% did.

Bush’s tax cuts (extended until 2010) save those earning between $20,000 and $30,000 an average of $10 a year, while those earning $1 million are saved $42,700.

Bush has proposed cutting housing programs for low-income people with disabilities by 50%.

83% of those earning $75,000 or more work for companies that offer insurance, versus 24% of those who earn less than $25,000.

2 in 5 elderly live on less than $18,000 a year, including Social Security benefits.

Since 1983, college tuition has risen 115%. The maximum Pell Grant for low- and moderate-income college students has risen only 19%.

Credit card late fees are 194% higher than in 1994.

And the item I found absolutely horrifying was this one:

Last fall, Minnesota firefighters let an elderly man’s mobile home burn down because he hadn’t paid a $25 “fire fee.”

Why is that allowed to happen in a country as rich as ours? Is that how a "compassionate" country treats their elderly?

Reading through that list again, I find myself shaking my head and asking is that how a "compassionate" country treats their poor, their uninsured, their students, and the people who work hard to provide for their families?

It's time for the Democrats to step up and redefine "compassion." The Republicans have corrupted and twisted the term to exclude the majority of us. They don't even respect our troops serving our country, as witnessed by their unwillingness to give them more time at home with their families between tours of duty. In fact, they don't even respect our troops after they serve. The Bush administration said it will resist restoring full educational benefits for returning veterans.

Some compassion, eh? You have to be a corporate crony if you expect to get any compassion from the Bush bunch.

Priorities

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. was hospitalized Monday after suffering a seizure. He underwent a thorough neurological evaluation and is expected to make a full recovery. Roberts' medical workup probably included “a good M.R.I., CAT scan and EEG.” How fortunate that Roberts has federal health insurance to cover his hospitalization, tests and ongoing care.

We should all be so lucky. The U.S. is the richest country in the world, so there's no reason we shouldn't all have health care, living wages, secure retirements, etc. It all boils down to "Priorities" according to WorkingLife TV's inaugural film, a documentary filmed during the first few days of John Edwards' Road to One America poverty tour.

Who cares about people?

I read something in the State News that accurately depicts the mindset of too many politicians today - primarily Republicans. It was said by Terry Denbow, spokesman for MSU, about our lawmakers budget deal that will cut millions of dollars from higher education:

"The disinvestment action Friday was indicative of a core problem in our state," he said. "Higher education is deemed more an expense than an investment."

The cuts could result in double-digit tuition increases for thousands of college students, but that doesn't matter to state Republicans who were adamantly opposed to any tax increase. The Flint Journal calls their actions "callous political maneuvering."

I think callous pretty much hits the nail on the head. State Republicans essentially put their Grover Norquist, no-tax constituents ahead of Michigan's college students, but who cares if they have to pay more to get an education? It's more important to serve the interests of a minority of anti-tax zealots.

Investing in people isn't important to President Bush either according to the CBPP:

The President’s budget for fiscal year 2008 proposes to cut $2 billion (5 percent) from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), compared to the 2007 funding level, adjusted for inflation.[1] The deepest cuts would be made in housing for the elderly and disabled (a 29 percent cut), Community Development Block Grants (a 22 percent cut), public housing (an 8 percent cut), and Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance (a 5 percent cut) ...

The President is proposing these cuts despite evidence that growing numbers of low-income families have serious housing affordability problems. Some 15 million low-income households have rent and utility costs that are unaffordable under federal standards (i.e., costs that exceed 30 percent of their modest incomes).

Who cares if the poor, disabled or elderly can't afford to put a roof over their head? It's more important to continue to pass along tax cuts to the rich or fund this illegal war that's making millions for contractors.

To be fair, some politicians get it. Some politicians understand that we need to invest in people. Take this example from Lucas County, Ohio:

Lucas County offering needy families $200 gasoline cards/Officials hope $1.5M program will help workers keep jobs

The initiative will be announced at a press conference today at the Speedway gas station on Central Avenue and Holland-Sylvania Road in Sylvania Township. The county partnered with Speedway because they offered cards that can only be used for fuel and not other items sold inside the gas stations.

This is the second year of the gas card program.

[...] There is about $1.5 million available for the program this year, which is funded through the state Prevention, Retention, and Compliance program, a part of the federal Office of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

[...] "It really is pretty helpful, especially for some of our single families that are struggling," said Deb Ortiz-Flores, executive director of the local Job and Family Services.

She said the cost of transportation is one of the greatest employment obstacles faced by residents in Lucas County.

Getting a higher education is right up there at the top of that list too, but who cares? Not Michigan's callous politicians.

No help with your shut-off notice? Thank a Republican.

This is unwelcome news: Emergency aid for utility bills almost gone

The state's Low Income Energy Assistance Program stopped taking applications for emergency assistance this week because the fund will be depleted April 21 due to cuts from the federal government. As a result, people who have received shut-off notices from their utility companies may not get the help they need to keep their service.

Congress slashed $22.3 million in Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program funds to Michigan, Udow said. Other states suffered similar cutbacks. [...]

Gov. Jennifer Granholm and 34 other governors have appealed to President Bush to release discretionary funding that is available for the program so the state could offer energy assistance.

People down on their luck and faced with possible shut off notices can thank Bush and the Republican Party. Over the past 6 years, the administration has slashed grants and funding for Medicaid, student loans, housing, job training, community development, children’s services, and other programs that help moderate-to-low income people. These cuts substantially impact state finances and force states to decide between cutting critical programs or forking out scarce state dollars to maintain them. Here in Michigan, the Republican Party chooses to cut programs that benefit our neediest citizens.

These cutbacks seem a little surreal to me. The Bush administration asked for and received hundreds of billions of dollars for their war based on lies, yet Americans struggling to heat their homes face possible shut off notices. Yet, surprisingly, it's not the war in Iraq that has had the biggest effect on the Federal budget and subsequent cuts in funding. It's been Bush's tax cuts, as this chart from the EPI shows:

According to their data, ending the Iraq war would cut the deficit by almost half based on Congressional Budget Office projections for 2007, but reversing the Bush tax cuts would eliminate the budget deficit altogether.

It would also help ease the minds of millions of Americans struggling to heat their homes, educate their children, etc.

Compassionate Conservatism's Legacy

From McClatchy Newspapers: U.S. economy leaving record numbers in severe poverty

The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.

A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 - half the federal poverty line - was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year.

The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005. That's 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period. McClatchy's review also found statistically significant increases in the percentage of the population in severe poverty in 65 of 215 large U.S. counties, and similar increases in 28 states. The review also suggested that the rise in severely poor residents isn't confined to large urban counties but extends to suburban and rural areas. [emphasis added]

Meanwhile:

...[T]he share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries. That helps explain why the median household income of working-age families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years.

This is the result of years of Republican leadership and corporate lobbying. You'd think they'd be ashamed. And they call themselves moral.

Update: Related reading from Libby @ DetNews:

Yet Bush's proposed budget intends to pay for the tax cuts for the obscenely rich by slashing these programs [the ones that help support those living in poverty]. And slashing the VA budget and veteran's benefits. And slashing funding to the states for federally mandated programs. And a thousand other cuts to assistance programs. But last I heard, the repeal of the death tax which will save you nothing, but will save the Walmart heirs about 27 billion dollars, will be passing through into law soon. That is what these cuts will be funding. That's not capitalism. That's cronyism.

The rich get rich and the poor get poorer. When are people going to learn to vote in their best interests and not those of Corporate America, Inc. and the GOP?

Are Evangelicals Fixated on Homosexuality?

That's a question being posed by Tony Campolo. He also believes, "Sigmund Freud would have something to say about the ways in which we evangelicals seem to be fixated on homosexuality." Unless you live under a rock, it would be pretty hard not to notice that fact, and fixation is putting it mildly.

Campolo says he became aware of this fixation during two dozen interviews he recently did on Christian radio to promote his new book Letters to a Young Evangelical. Although his book has 21 chapters, he had to spend at least 80% of his time focusing on the few pages that dealt with homosexuality. Here's an excerpt of how those interviews went:

The primary focus of the questioning during these interviews focused on my assertions, based on my own research and a survey of literature on the subject, that nobody has come up with a conclusive explanation of what causes a homosexual orientation, and that it develops so early in the bio-physical and social development of children that it's practically impossible that it could be something that is deliberately chosen. It seemed to me that the interviewers were not willing to accept what I had to say, and wanted me to commit to one of two other options that I believe to be erroneous. The first was the suggestion that the homosexual orientation is the result of poor socialization. This is the commonly held belief among those evangelicals who head up ministries that propose to “deliver” homosexuals and make them into heterosexuals. The most cited version is that a boy overly identifies with a dominant mother, while his father is either absent from the household or is a somewhat weak personality. This theory puts already upset and confused parents of gays on unnecessary guilt trips.

The other theory often proposed in these interviews was that being homosexual is somehow the result of trauma resulting from the gay person being sexually molested as a child.

The reasons for these beliefs were all too obvious to me. If either of these theories had validity, then it could be said that homosexuals who wanted to change could do so by making the decision to be open to the work of God in their lives and getting some good Christian counseling. When I questioned such conclusions, the interviewers usually came back at me by claiming that if I did not accept what they were saying, then I must be implying that the homosexual orientation was inborn. That, to them, was unthinkable because accordingly, this would lead to the assumption that God created homosexuals the way they are, and that we should accept them as such. Over and over, I would have to repeat that nobody knows definitively what establishes same-sex attraction in persons - and again I would have to assert that what we do know is that it is practically never the result of any conscious decision.

Sadly, as Campolo points out, evangelicals have little to offer in the way of "positive suggestions" for those who are struggling with being homosexual in a homophobic world.

This fixation not only hurts homosexuals and their families, it's also tarnishing organized religion's image. More from Campolo:

In many instances, those in this new generation are even reluctant to accept being called evangelicals. They sense that the label “evangelical” is commonly thought to be synonymous with right-wing politics and suggests a gay-bashing, anti-environmentalist, anti-feminist, and pro-war mindset. Instead, they are increasingly calling themselves Red Letter Christians. This name, of course, associates them with those verses in scripture that record the words that Jesus spoke, which in many Bibles are printed in red. That I affirm this designation and promote this new label in my book often greatly disturbs my interviewers. They quickly remind me that Jesus never mentioned homosexuality. “That’s right!” I respond. “He most likely maintained ancient Jewish laws on the matter, but condemning gays was not on His big-ten hit list, while attacking judgmental religious people was.” [emphasis added]

Jesus did talk about unconditional love, humility, forgiveness, turning the other cheek, and love for one's enemies, but the one thing Jesus talked about more than anything was helping the poor. That tells me it's time for our country to fixate on social concerns and move beyond this absorption we have with homosexuality.

37 Million Poor Hidden in the Land of Plenty

This is the result of ten years of Republican control and Republican values as reported by the British press:

"Americans have always believed that hard work will bring rewards, but vast numbers now cannot meet their bills even with two or three jobs. More than one in 10 citizens live below the poverty line, and the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening. [...]

America does have vast, wealthy suburbs, huge shopping malls and a busy middle class, but it also has vast numbers of poor, struggling to make it in a low-wage economy with minimal government help.

A shocking 37 million Americans live in poverty. That is 12.7 per cent of the population - the highest percentage in the developed world. [...]

Under President George W Bush an extra 5.4 million have slipped below the poverty line. Yet they are not a story of the unemployed or the destitute. Most have jobs. Many have two. [...]

The gap between the haves and the have-nots looms wider than ever. Faced with rising poverty rates, Bush's trillion-dollar federal budget recently raised massive amounts of defence spending for the war in Iraq and slashed billions from welfare programmes.

The Republican machine is all about winning, and dealing with poverty doesn't win elections in "compassionate" America:

During the 2004 election the only politician to address poverty directly was John Edwards, whose campaign theme was 'Two Americas'. He was derided by Republicans for doing down the country and - after John Kerry picked him as his Democratic running mate - the rhetoric softened in the heat of the campaign.

But, in fact, Edwards was right. While 45.8 million Americans lack any health insurance, the top 20 per cent of earners take over half the national income. At the same time the bottom 20 per cent took home just 3.4 per cent.

Outsiders can see the real problems, the real failings in our system, but the leadership in Washington likes to deflect attention away from their failures so they depict poor people as lazy, selfish or unmotivated.

In America, to be poor is a stigma. In a country which celebrates individuality and the goal of giving everyone an equal opportunity to make it big, those in poverty are often blamed for their own situation. Experience on the ground does little to bear that out. When people are working two jobs at a time and still failing to earn enough to feed their families, it seems impossible to call them lazy or selfish. There seems to be a failure in the system, not the poor themselves. [Emphasis mine.]

For the most part, the system IS the Republican Party, so its time to put the blame on them, where it belongs. How ironic that they call themselves the party of morals, values and religion. They don’t embrace the ideals of any religion that I know of – unless worshiping money and power obtained through corruption and deception counts.