Selma, thanks for pointing out Krugman's article warning about zealots loose in government. DeLay is but one of the Taliban in suits that many people don't want to recognize as such.
It seems that Krugman has gotten more strident in his tone lately, and that makes some of us uncomfortable, but perhaps the intensity needs to exist so that the comatose will start to pay attention. We should at least know where we are being led, and not be "sheeple". I am no fan of DeLay, having lived in his district in Texas. He could easily become our generation's Huey Long or George McCarthy - not bright enough to know the dangers but ambitious and committed enough to be dangerous. Here is another piece commenting on the difference between walking the talk and paying lip service to it, democratically-speaking of course. Since this piece was written, DeLay inserted the House version of it's better late than never provision to the working poor into a mega tax cut bill, and if it passes, would not be available until 2004, unlike the rebates going out this next month. - KWC Faith-Based Talk -- Where's the Action? By E. J. Dionne Jr., WP, Tuesday, June 10, 2003; Page A21 "Government has an important role" and "will never be replaced by charities." That's what an influential politician said at Notre Dame two years ago. "Government must be active enough to fund services for the poor -- and humble enough to let good people in local communities provide those services." It was another one of those excellent speeches President Bush gives about compassionate conservatism. He is always eloquent in describing the exceptional work of those in churches, synagogues and mosques who devote their lives to the neediest among us. There's only one catch: When push comes to shove, the priorities of his administration are always somewhere else. Yes, Bush still talks about his faith-based initiative. But when the big money is divvied up, almost all of it goes to tax cuts, mostly for the wealthiest Americans. In the recent $350 billion tax bill, Bush and Congress couldn't find $3.5 billion to expand the federal government's child tax credit to families earning between $10,500 and $26,625 a year. The expansion would have been worth an average of $150 per child, and as much as $400 for some children. But the provision got dropped. Helping these families required, as the president might put it, a little-bitty reduction in the huge tax cuts going to the richest Americans. Can't have that. The Senate last week tried to make up for this social policy foolishness, and Bush shrewdly sent a signal through his spokesman yesterday that he wanted to sign the Senate bill. But you still wonder if it will be tied to more tax cuts for the rich, and the larger question remains: How can he square his fine talk about the poor with the priorities of his budgets? A group of religious leaders -- 30 at last count -- sent a letter to the president yesterday asking exactly that question. The signers, led by the Rev. Jim Wallis, note that many in their ranks "have supported your faith-based initiative from the beginning of the administration" and "the proposals of your administration to strengthen marriage and family as effective antipoverty measures." But after noting the president's kind words about the "good people" in community groups that help the poor, the signers offered these sobering thoughts: "Mr. President, 'the good people' who provide such services are feeling overwhelmed by increasing need and diminished resources. And many are feeling betrayed. The lack of consistent, coherent and integrated domestic policy that benefits low-income people makes our continued support for your faith-based initiative increasingly untenable. Mr. President, the poor are suffering, and without serious changes in the policies of your administration, they will suffer more." Wallis is the convener and president of the Washington-based Call to Renewal, an association of religious groups concerned about poverty. He sees a disconnect when government "is cutting resources to the poor while cutting taxes on the rich" and then asks faith-based groups to pick up the slack. "You're asking us to substitute for good public policy," he says. "You're asking us to make bricks without straw." Candor requires saying that this debate is important to me personally. I've edited a couple of books on faith-based charity. I respect the people in the administration who have worked on faith-based issues and count some of them as friends. I have always thought that liberals should be open to properly conceived faith-based approaches, partly because so many religious groups -- Lutheran Services, African American churches, Catholic Charities and the Jewish federations, among others -- have long joined with government to lift up the poor. I have also been critical of simple-minded attacks on Bush as a religious fanatic. On the contrary, it's Bush's religious side that seems to draw him at least to the right words about poverty. Yet it's precisely because I don't want the faith-based approach to be a cover for the wholesale abandonment of government's responsibilities that I share the dismay of the religious leaders who wrote to Bush. Millions of working people are poor -- and lack health insurance and adequate child care -- even though they do all the things that society and our religious traditions say they should. Religious groups will never have the money to transform the material conditions of these families. But relatively modest government outlays could make their lives much better. There is a religious mandate for such an approach. "Jewish prophets and Catholic teaching both speak of God's special concern for the poor. This is perhaps the most radical teaching of faith, that the value of life is not contingent on wealth or strength or skill, that value is a reflection of God's image." Those thoughtful words are George W. Bush's. Is it too much to ask him to explain how his policies live up to that vision? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37340-2003Jun9.html I'm not sure this is directly related to futurework but I thought it important enough that it is related to everything. Selma 'Some Crazy Guy' June 13, 2003 By PAUL KRUGMAN Last year I tried to illustrate just how far to the right America's ruling party has moved by quoting some of Representative Tom DeLay's past remarks. I got some puzzling responses. "Who cares what some crazy guy in Congress says?" wrote one liberal economist, chiding me for being alarmist. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/13/opinion/13KRUG.html?ex=1056503049&ei=1&en= 52c263991fe6b0c8 _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
