President Obama and Budget Cuts

Dear Friends,

The lead article in The New York Times (here) this morning was about the House Republicans having trouble maintaining discipline in their ranks.  They are acting like Democrats who have a difficult time maintaining party discipline.  Of course I was struck by the incredible disregard that many Republicans have for those among us who are the least able to take care of themselves.  The tea party Republicans even vote against unemployment benefits for American workers who lose their jobs as a result of trade agreements.  I can't say that this disregard for their fellow Americans surprised me.

What did surprise me were these paragraphs at the end of the article.

But Republicans have succeeded in shifting the focus to budget cutting so sufficiently that the White House will propose an array of cuts in the budget for next year that Mr. Obama sends to Capitol Hill on Monday.
Administration officials confirmed on Wednesday that the budget would propose to cut in half, to nearly $2.6 billion in fiscal year 2012, a federal program that subsidizes energy costs for low-income households.
The big reduction for the popular Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program immediately drew protests from lawmakers and antipoverty groups, as have several other cuts the administration has previewed for community service and environmental programs.

President Obama is voluntarily proposing cuts that will have draconian impacts on the poorest people in the country.  There are two really big problems with what is being proposed.  The first is that President Obama was elected by a progressive base, and he is once again poking us in the eye by cutting a program that has broad support because it is so critical to the poor.  Second, he is giving up important leverage without getting anything from the Republicans.  It should be clear to everybody that the Republican Party will cut everything but those programs that help the rich and that no matter what President Obama does they will brand him as a socialist.  I have never met a socialist that would let a fellow countryman die in the streets because he had to choose between heating his home and feeding his family. 

We should be ashamed that the richest country in the world refuses to take care of it own.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal