"The Moral Question":
Robert Reich:
The Moral Question, by Robert Reich: We dodged another shut-down bullet, but only until November 18. That’s when the next temporary bill to keep the government going runs out. House Republicans want more budget cuts as their price for another stopgap spending bill.
Among other items, Republicans are demanding major cuts in a nutrition program for low-income women and children. The appropriation bill the House passed June 16 would deny benefits to more than 700,000 eligible low-income women and young children next year.
What kind of country are we living in? ... We’re in the worst economy since the Great Depression – with lower-income families and kids are bearing the worst of it – and what are Republicans doing? Cutting programs Americans desperately need to get through it.
Medicaid is also under assault. Congressional Republicans want to reduce the federal contribution to Medicaid by $771 billion over next decade and shift more costs to states and low-income Americans.
It gets worse. Most federal programs to help children and lower-income families are in the so-called “non-defense discretionary” category of the federal budget. The congressional super-committee charged with coming up with $1.5 trillion of cuts ... will almost certainly take a big whack at this category because it’s the easiest to cut. Unlike entitlements, these programs depend on yearly appropriations. ...
It gets even worse. Drastic cuts are already underway at the state and local levels. ... So far this year, 23 states have reduced education spending. ... Local family services are being cut or terminated. Tens of thousands of social workers have been laid off. Cities and counties are reducing or eliminating their contributions to Head Start...
All this would be bad enough if the economy were functioning normally. For these cuts to happen now is morally indefensible.
Yet Republicans won’t consider increasing taxes on the rich to pay for what’s needed – even though the wealthiest members of our society are richer than ever, taking home a bigger slice of total income and wealth than in seventy-five years, and paying the lowest tax rates in three decades. ...
When Republicans recently charged the President with promoting “class warfare,” he answered it was “just math.” But it’s more than math. It’s a matter of morality. Republicans have posed the deepest moral question of any society: whether we’re all in it together. Their answer is we’re not.
President Obama should proclaim, loudly and clearly, we are.
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