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Budgets and Morality

The budget is still an issue. Both the state budget and the national budget.  With all of the news still dissecting the Osama bin Laden raid and what Pakistan knew and didn’t know, the focus on the budget and budget negotiations has disappeared. But the Republicans in Washington are still attacking the basics of a caring society.  Rep. Paul Ryan’s ten year plan on the budget  Women’s Health Care, Medicare for Seniors, Food stamps and Pell Grants are all on the chopping block.  The basics that have been built in to help the poorest in our society keep afloat are targeted.  The cuts in these programs would be coupled with tax cuts for the wealthy reducing their tax burden from 35% t0 25% while raising it on everyone else through a regressive national sales tax.  Corporate taxes and estate taxes would be eliminated.

Ryan’s plan is immoral.  Budgets are moral documents. They set priorities and provide a road map to the future.  When the budget is balanced on the backs of the poor however it is an outrage.  Jewish tradition teaches us over and over to care for the widow, the orphan and the stranger in our midst.  Did the Christian fundamentalists who fill the ranks of the GOP forget to read their Bible?

The plan as Paul Ryan would shape it targets those who are the weakest in society, the poor, the elderly, those already living below the poverty lines.

I can only hope that Obama’s success in capturing and executing Osama Bin Laden will give him some backbone and stature to stand up to the Republican’s and Rep. Paul Ryan as they continue to duke it out over the future of America.