Isn't Anybody Paying Attention?
While the liberal world is reveling in the daily drop in President Bush's poll numbers, the indictments of various elected and selected Republicans, and the scandals du jour of the right wing, Congress has remained in session, quietly passing bills that are destined to have a huge impact on all of us, but especially the poor. Case in point: budget cuts. The Washington Post reports on the latest phase of the GOP's thrust to cut spending.
The Senate approved sweeping deficit-reduction legislation last night that would save about $35 billion over the next five years by cutting federal spending on prescription drugs, agriculture supports and student loans, while clamping down on fraud in the Medicaid program.
The measure would also open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, a long-sought goal of the oil industry that took a major step forward after years of political struggle. A bipartisan effort to strip the drilling provision narrowly failed.
...The focus now shifts to the House, where the Budget Committee voted 21 to 16 yesterday to approve a more extensive bill saving nearly $54 billion through 2010 with cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, student loans, agriculture subsidies and child support enforcement. The House measure would allow states to impose premiums and co-payments on poor Medicaid recipients for the first time.
With so many controversial provisions, the House measure is forcing Republican leaders to scramble for support in what could be the most difficult vote of the year. Some Republican moderates are balking at cuts to anti-poverty programs, especially in light of a $70 billion tax cut that could come to a vote soon after the budget bill, more than wiping out the first bill's deficit reduction.
Under the House plan, states could raise co-payments for Medicaid recipients below the poverty line from $3 to $5 per doctor's visit or prescription, then keep raising them with the medical inflation rate. For the working poor just above the poverty line, there would be no limit to higher co-payments, although out-of-pocket health costs are not supposed to exceed 5 percent of a family's income. Health policy analysts say that protection may not amount to much as poor families will have difficulty tracking health care expenses that closely. [Emphasis added]
The problem, of course, is that the Republicans currently own both the Senate and the House. Until they can be convinced of the immorality and shamefulness of robbing the poor to give to the rich, such bills will pass. One wonders, however, if such convincing before the fact could have been accomplished if the news media had reported on the proposed cuts on the front page instead of burying the few articles that were published deep into the paper or the abbreviated news program.
It also might have helped if the Democrats had done their part in alerting their constituents as to what was afoot. Direct mailing and emailing, paid commercials, louder and more pointed chatter on the Sunday soapboxes should not be reserved just for the election season. Undoing the disaster is always harder than preventing it.
And this Congress isn't finished. Before the end of the year, it has to deal with the extension of that abomination, the Patriot Act. Hello? Is there anybody out there?
The Senate approved sweeping deficit-reduction legislation last night that would save about $35 billion over the next five years by cutting federal spending on prescription drugs, agriculture supports and student loans, while clamping down on fraud in the Medicaid program.
The measure would also open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, a long-sought goal of the oil industry that took a major step forward after years of political struggle. A bipartisan effort to strip the drilling provision narrowly failed.
...The focus now shifts to the House, where the Budget Committee voted 21 to 16 yesterday to approve a more extensive bill saving nearly $54 billion through 2010 with cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, student loans, agriculture subsidies and child support enforcement. The House measure would allow states to impose premiums and co-payments on poor Medicaid recipients for the first time.
With so many controversial provisions, the House measure is forcing Republican leaders to scramble for support in what could be the most difficult vote of the year. Some Republican moderates are balking at cuts to anti-poverty programs, especially in light of a $70 billion tax cut that could come to a vote soon after the budget bill, more than wiping out the first bill's deficit reduction.
Under the House plan, states could raise co-payments for Medicaid recipients below the poverty line from $3 to $5 per doctor's visit or prescription, then keep raising them with the medical inflation rate. For the working poor just above the poverty line, there would be no limit to higher co-payments, although out-of-pocket health costs are not supposed to exceed 5 percent of a family's income. Health policy analysts say that protection may not amount to much as poor families will have difficulty tracking health care expenses that closely. [Emphasis added]
The problem, of course, is that the Republicans currently own both the Senate and the House. Until they can be convinced of the immorality and shamefulness of robbing the poor to give to the rich, such bills will pass. One wonders, however, if such convincing before the fact could have been accomplished if the news media had reported on the proposed cuts on the front page instead of burying the few articles that were published deep into the paper or the abbreviated news program.
It also might have helped if the Democrats had done their part in alerting their constituents as to what was afoot. Direct mailing and emailing, paid commercials, louder and more pointed chatter on the Sunday soapboxes should not be reserved just for the election season. Undoing the disaster is always harder than preventing it.
And this Congress isn't finished. Before the end of the year, it has to deal with the extension of that abomination, the Patriot Act. Hello? Is there anybody out there?
posted by Diane at 4:15 AM
1 Comments:
www.hitchensweb.com
Post a Comment
<< Home