The Year of Moving Forward

The Year of Moving Forward
At our 4 person wedding reception in DC

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Wrong, wrong, wrong

The budget being proposed by the Republicans is wrong. Wrong for America. Wrong for our people. Wrong for the future.

It seems all they care about is the wealthy. Yet they can't get enough of it. Republican congressman Sean Duffy can't seem to make it on his $174,000 a year salary.

I am not wealthy by American standards. Certainly not by his standard, I guess.

The Republican budget will never pass. The Senate will have nothing of it, and the President certainly would not sign it.

But it lets us know how they really feel.

At least 30,000 people are fasting as a way to bring attention to the fact that the Republican proposal will leave children hungry and veterans homeless.





On Sunday MSNBC aired A Stronger America - The Black Agenda. During the show host Ed Shultz and Rev. Al Sharpton and others reminded us several times of the disparities that people of color face in our country, and how so much has not changed in the last 40 years, since civil rights were enacted.

Princeton professor Cornell West pointed out that the budget of Paul Ryan is an escalation of intense class warfare against poor people and people of color.

Velma Hart pointed out that the budget presents a challenge to poor and working people.

While the unemployment rate in the nation is 8.8% overall, among blacks it is 15.5%. Even when unemployment dropped to around 4% during the Clinton administration, it was pointed out that unemployment for blacks was almost double that. The disparity has always existed.

The Ryan budget would cut 700,000 jobs, they said on the show. This report says the cuts to Medicaid alone will cost 2 million jobs. Republicans would love to see the unemployment rate go up during the Obama administration.

Education is another area where disparities exist. As it turns out, there is a correlation within zip codes between high incarceration rates and poor performing schools. Many factors may contribute to that, but among them is unfair sentencing leaving children without fathers at home, and a lack of equity in school funding. The Ryan budget would turn education back, reducing funding. More disparity.

I find it hard to understand how the American people put these people into office. Have you ever woke up after a drunken night and thought to yourself, "What was I thinking?"

America was drunk with anti-Obama Kool-Aid in 2010.

Now America is waking up, finally asking itself, "What was I thinking."

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