and most importantly, not enough ppl care about it.
SA, I will discuss the problem, but don't give me the "cuts" bit. Nothing
ever, ever gets cut in the budget. Only the rate of increase, which
Congress loves to talk about as cuts, whether they are for it or against it.
So please spare me. Mismanagement, yeah there is plenty. Always will
be. But money thrown about the programs have solved nothing and wont.
^^^, yea not putting money into a program won't hurt or effect the poor.
Prove to me that you are Gtown and say that "Homeless ppl don't get government assistance" as well and that "cutting these programs won't effect them".
What in the are you talking about. Homeless don't get government^^^, yea not putting money into a program won't hurt or effect the poor.
Prove to me that you are Gtown and say that "Homeless ppl don't get government assistance" as well and that "cutting these programs won't effect them".
assistance? They do. And you are the one that say's it is mismanaged.
And you work with the homeless. man, you ought to know from
personal experience how it could be improved. don't blame me for anything,
I just pay taxes. And programs have not been cut. Show me the
dollar figures where they have been cut.
^^^ Gtown proposes they be cut. I'm saying that won't help. Gtown saysthat homeless ppl do NOT recieve government assistance at all and also that homeless ppl would NOT be effected at all by these cuts that he wants so badly. I was just wondering if you were gonna go down Gtowns road of ignorance.
I know they can and some do get the assistance, tell that 2 your boy Gtown.
Never mind. Look at other post of mine on the same subject. No cuts
are made in any federal budget. Only rates of growth. That is a fact.
Like it or not. And all the money in the world will not help most of the
homeless. They need to be in supervised ins utions, not coddled but
people like you. They are sick people, not homeless. Unfortunately,
many families wont accept their responsibilities to take care of their
own.
Many won't, but all shouldn't suffer because of it.
That Was a Short War on Poverty
washingtonpost.com
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, October 14, 2005; Page A19
It has long been said that Americans have short attention spans, but this is ridiculous: Our bold, urgent, far-reaching, post-Katrina war on poverty lasted maybe a month.
Credit for our ability to reach rapid closure on the poverty issue goes first to a group of congressional conservatives who seized the post-Katrina initiative before advocates of poverty reduction could get their plans off the ground.
As soon as President Bush announced his first spending package for reconstructing New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, the Republican Study Committee and other conservatives switched the subject from poverty reduction to how Katrina reconstruction plans might increase the deficit that their own tax-cutting policies helped create.
Unwilling to freeze any of the tax cuts, these conservatives proposed cutting other spending to offset Katrina costs. The headlines focused on the seemingly easy calls on pork-barrel spending. But some of their biggest cuts were in health care programs, including Medicaid, and other spending for the poor.
Thus, the budget Congress is now considering would cut spending by $35 billion and cut taxes by $70 billion. Excuse me, but doesn't this increase the deficit by a net of $35 billion?
Don't worry, said Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, one of the leading House conservatives. Cutting taxes for the rich is the best antipoverty program. "I'm mindful of what a pipe fitter once said to President Reagan," Pence said, according to the New York Times. " 'I've never been hired by a poor man.' A growing economy is in the interest of every working American, regardless of their income."
In other words, the conservatives have moved the conversation to ideas that go back to Calvin Coolidge's low-tax economics from the 1920s. And they say liberals are the folks with the "old" ideas?
If it didn't matter, I'd be inclined to salute the agenda-setting genius of the right wing. But since we need a national conversation on poverty, it's worth considering that conservatives were successful in pushing it back in part because of weaknesses on the liberal side.
Right out of the box, conservatives started blaming the persistent poverty unearthed by Katrina on the failure of "liberal programs." If there was a liberal retort, it didn't get much coverage in the supposedly liberal media.
It's conservatives, after all, who spent almost a decade touting the genius of the 1996 welfare reform and claiming that because so many people had been driven off the welfare rolls, poverty was no longer a problem.
Yes, welfare reform worked better than some of us expected in the 1990s. But Katrina underscored the limits of welfare reform by showing how many people had been left behind. It also brought home the failure of conservative economics. The Clinton economy -- bolstered by balanced budgets, tax increases on the rich and the expansion of innovative programs such as the earned-income tax credit and health coverage for the poor -- cut the number of poor people by 7.7 million between 1993 and 2000. Between 2001 and 2004, on the other hand, the number of those in poverty rose by 4.1 million.
Or consider that a recent Census Bureau report found that the percentage of Americans getting private job-based health insurance fell from 63.6 percent in 2000 to 59.8 percent in 2004. What held down the number of Americans without insurance altogether? The proportion insured under government programs -- Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program -- rose from 10.6 percent in 2000 to 12.9 percent in 2004. A time when more Americans than ever need government-provided health insurance is when we should expand government assistance for health care, not cut it back. It's also a good time for raising the minimum wage and increasing the help the earned-income tax credit offers the working poor.
But liberals also need to seize the initiative by speaking candidly and not defensively about the social causes of poverty. These include family breakdown and the heavy concentration of very poor people in a small number of neighborhoods in our big cities. Just because some conservatives are tempted, wrongly, to blame all poverty on problems in the family doesn't mean that liberals should shy away from talking about the difficulties faced by children in fatherless homes.
I was naive enough to hope that after Katrina the left and the right might have useful things to say to each other about how to help the poorest among us. I guess we've moved on. You can lay a lot of the blame for this indifference on conservatives. But it will be a default on the part of liberals if the poor disappear again from public view without a fight.
The budget Congress is now considering would cut spending by $35 billion (food stamps for 300,000 & school lunches for 40,000 children) and cut taxes by $70 billion.This is nothing short of criminal.
Don’t worry, said Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, one of the leading House conservatives. Cutting taxes for the rich is the best antipoverty program.
Food stamp cuts would hurt poor, immigrants
Archive Recent Editions 2005 Editions Nov. 12, 2005
Author: Pepe Lozano
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 11/10/05 11:12
News Analysis
Congressional Republicans have gone on a budget-slashing rampage, working to ram through drastic cuts in food stamps and other basic social safety net programs, drawing such wide opposition even some of their own members are objecting.
The GOP cuts are widely seen as unfairly targeting the poor, disadvantaged, elderly and children. They will especially affect the nation’s fast-growing immigrant population.
The House Agriculture Committee approved a bill Oct. 28 cutting 300,000 people off the Food Stamp Program. The bill also proposes major cuts in other much-needed federal assistance programs for low-income families such as Medicaid, the Child Support Enforcement Program, the Supplemental Security Income Program (SSI) for poor people who are elderly or have serious disabilities, and the Foster Care Program.
The Senate has okayed $36 billion in budget cuts and House Republicans are trying to pass nearly $54 billion in cuts. Facing resistance from Democrats as well as some Republicans, GOP leaders are discussing options to “fine-tune” the measure to avert a defeat.
As the Republican leadership campaigns to slash federal programs for the poor, they are continuing to press extension of tax breaks for the rich. The Senate Finance Committee is expected to unveil proposals amounting to around $60 billion in tax giveaways.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, U.S. Department of Agriculture figures show that 38.2 million people live in households that were “food insecure” in 2004.
Twenty percent of the U.S. low-wage work force is composed of immigrants who work in the fields, janitorial services, childcare and other low-paid, low- or no-benefit jobs.
According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the food stamp cuts alone will terminate nearly 70,000 legal immigrants from nutritional assistance programs. Under the current program, a “legal” immigrant has to live in the United States for five years before becoming eligible to receive food stamps. The new bill would expand that waiting period to seven years.
The CBO also estimates that about 40,000 children would lose eligibility for free or reduced-priced school lunches.
In 2002 Bush signed the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act, allowing some restoration of Food and Nutrition Services aid for some immigrants. Prior to this, most immigrant families were restricted from participating. When Bush signed the 2002 measure, he called it a “compassionate bill.” Now, however, the Bush administration appears to think funding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq takes priority over such “compassion.” Interestingly, those potentially affected by the new GOP cuts include 64,000 U.S. soldiers who are immigrants.
“These are lawful residents, good enough to die for our country in Iraq but not good enough to get food stamps,” Jennifer Ng’andu, a health and social policy analyst with the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), told the Washington Post.
Observers note that congressional Republicans are using the charge of “out-of-control deficit-spending” to attack government human needs programs even as they back huge expenditures on the Iraq war and corporate handouts for Gulf coast hurricane cleanup. Many note the contradiction is complicating efforts by GOP conservatives to push their “starve the government” agenda.
NCLR and the Coalition on Human Needs are urging the public to call their congressional representatives and ask them to support full funding for the food stamp program and protection of food stamps for immigrants. Members of Congress can be reached at the Capitol Hill switchboard, (202) 224-3121.
[email protected]
Xray and Gtown, are yall against the troops? You must hate America.
What is that term the kids are using nowadays ?........
OWNED?!!
Next.
Last edited by SA210; 12-16-2005 at 06:49 PM.
I wouldn't Ann Coulter with Yonivore's .
Ann Coulter's a woman?
That's because you'd be pulling back two bloody nubs for even trying to use my for anything, you perv.
So sensitive.
So violent.
HOUSE COMPLETES VOTE ON TAX CUTS FOR $95 BILLION
December 9, 2005, Friday
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
NEW YORK TIMES; National Desk
Late Edition - Final, Section A, Page 1, Column 1
Mr. Bush threatened to veto the final bill if it included a provision to hit major oil companies with a windfall profits tax.
The Republicans back to their agenda of running up record deficits and killing programs for the middle and working class. All in order to reward the rich:
The House passed the last and biggest part of $95 billion in tax cuts on Thursday, a move that reflected the willingness to place tax cuts above the risk of higher deficits in years to come.
Voting 234 to 197, almost purely along party lines, the House approved $56 billion in tax cuts over five years, one day after it passed other tax cuts totaling $39 billion over five years. The biggest provision would extend President Bush's 2001 tax cut for stock dividends and capital gains for two years at a cost of $20 billion.
The budget that the House passed just before Thanksgiving, would cut $51 billion over five years from programs like Medicaid, food stamps, farm subsidies and child-support enforcement.
Democrats accused the Republican majority of expanding the cuts to the very richest families while cutting programs to help the poor.
"The choice is clear, tax relief that goes to people making a million bucks or more and cutting student loans, cutting food support for people who need it and cutting child support," Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said.
By the way, are we at war? I thought someone said we were.
But for Bush and the GOP it is always Christmas for Cronies. Lumps of coal for working Americans.
Federal revenues are way up...way, way up...it's even astonishing liberal economists.
It's our spending, not our tax policy, that needs fixing.
You talk about doing, or not doing, stuff with my and I get sensitive and, yes, violent.
Xray, since there are no cuts in government programs.......Now to housing those already losing their welfare and foodstamps,
and to Gtown, for the homeless that won't be effected.....
CEOs paid to live in second homes as:
Bush administration slashes funds for public housing
By Jamie Chapman
12 May 2005
The Bush administration has announced plans for wholesale cuts in the public housing budget for the coming year. More than 150 programs are to be cut. According to a New York Times report, support for subsidized housing could be slashed by $480 million, or 14 percent of the $3.4 billion federal budget for day-to-day operations.
Amid the news of brutal cuts to housing for the poor, another report has highlighted a corporate practice of CEOs having all expenses paid on second homes as a lucrative perk, added on to multimillion-dollar compensation. In housing, as in every other essential facet of American life, social inequality is rising to unimaginable levels.
Housing advocates warn that the planned cutbacks will force local housing agencies to close buildings and fire maintenance workers. According to the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, public housing is home to more than 2 million seniors, people with disabilities, and low-income families with children.
With the Bush cuts, the housing market for this segment of the population, already tight as a drum, will become even less affordable. Homelessness will increase from the record levels it has reached in many parts of the country.
In the state of Illinois alone, 77,000 families are on waiting lists for public housing, and the numbers are expected to grow. As Julie Dworkin, policy director at the Chicago Coalition of the Homeless, put it, “There is a critical shortage of affordable housing. And many low-income residents are at great risk of becoming homeless because they can’t afford the housing they are living in.”
Besides the housing authority reductions, a grant program to construct mixed-use buildings in blighted areas is slated for elimination altogether. Over the last decade, the grants have provided $5.5 billion to replace or redevelop 100,000 units of distressed housing. Not only is the Bush administration proposing zero funding next year for the program, known as Hope VI, it is also proposing to take back the $143 million already allocated in fiscal 2005.
The new cuts are implemented amid a housing shortage that has reached crisis proportions and is getting worse. A Center for Public Policy study commissioned by the leading mortgage investment company Freddie Mac provides a measure of the crisis.
Researchers found the number of families spending 50 percent or more of their income for housing costs rose from 2.4 million in 1997 to 4.2 million in 2003. The rule of thumb for financial planners and mortgage bankers is that no more than one third of income should be spent on shelter. The percentage of homeowners and that of renters over the halfway mark both rose significantly.
The report states 85 percent of working families have to struggle to pay for housing. Fifteen percent live in conditions considered physically dilapidated. As the lead researcher for the report, Barbara Lipman, stated, “These new findings help shed light on a troubling trend across America—working a full-time job does not guarantee families a decent, affordable place to live.”
While the Bush administration, backed by congressional Democrats, slashes already inadequate housing subsidies for the working class, the corporate elite of the country worry about how to maximize their companies’ subsidization of their opulent lifestyle. A report in the May 6 edition of the Wall Street Journal examines how corporate chieftains not only live in luxury unimaginable to the average American, but also write off the costs as a business expense.An examination of corporate proxy statements reveals a number of examples of all-expenses-paid corporate housing for CEOs. Time Warner’s chief executive Richard Parsons, a resident of New York City, receives $4,000 a month to pay for his second apartment in Los Angeles, no matter how infrequently he occupies it. The allowance does not cover utility and maintenance costs, for which the company additionally reimburses its CEO.
According to Time Warner’s proxy, the payments are “in lieu of reimbursing Mr. Parsons for his hotel business expenses in Los Angeles.” The perk has cost the company a total of $175,000 since the benefit was granted in January 2002.
Not to be outdone, Walt Disney provides its longtime CEO Michael Eisner a $10,000 monthly allowance to contribute toward the cost of his secondary residence in New York City. He reportedly owns a two-bedroom apartment that he inherited from his late mother located in the exclusive Hotel Pierre on Fifth Avenue.
Disney’s proxy statement justifies the subsidy by the fact that “hotel expenses would have exceeded the amount of the allowance.” A deluxe room with a king-size bed at the Pierre rents for $595 a night. Breakfast runs on average $40 a day. In a footnote no doubt meant to reassure shareholders, Disney comments that Eisner bears the full burden of any expenses “which exceed the amount of the monthly allowance.”
Faced with a very public stockholder revolt aimed to oust Eisner last year, Disney’s board of directors not only voted to let him keep his job, it awarded him a salary and bonus of $8.25 million. One report puts Eisner’s total take in salary, bonus and stock options at $1 billion since he reported to work at Disney in 1984.
Another entertainment conglomerate ,Viacom, owner of CBS, MTV, VH1, Infinity Radio and Paramount Studios, posted its proxy statement in mid-April. The release caused a stir because it revealed the amount of compensation paid to Viacom’s three top executives. It added up to a mind-numbing $160 million, stunning even within the parameters of today’s unbridled corporate greed. The amount was considered all the more remarkable considering last year’s drop of 18 percent in the company’s stock price.
Buried in the fine print of the proxy were housing allowances for Leslie Moonves and Tom Freston. They were newly promoted to division presidents, in preparation for splitting the company into two separate publicly traded en ies. In addition to more than $50 million in salary, bonus, and stock options, Moonves, based in Los Angeles, was reimbursed $105,000 for the nights he stayed in his New York City apartment rather than in a hotel. Freston, based in New York, turned in a more modest $43,100 in expenses for his business use of his home in Los Angeles in lieu of renting a hotel there. He also was credited with more than $50 million in salary, bonus and the value of stock options.
Corporate reformers are chagrined that CEO compensation packages and perks continue to escalate to stratospheric levels in spite of various post-Enron proposals to rein them in.
“It’s ridiculous to pay [executives] to stay in their own beds,” Ann Yerger, executive director of the Council of Ins utional Investors, a group representing more than 140 pension funds with assets exceeding $3 trillion, told the Wall Street Journal.
Xray says there are no government program cuts and Gtown says homeless don't get government assistance and wouldn't be effected if the programs were cut as he so dearly wants.
2 brilliant people with all the credibility in the world. We should believe everything they say from now on.
Last edited by SA210; 12-16-2005 at 09:26 PM.
Yeah, get violent when I say I won't do something with your .
Perfect.
Well, it implies you believe you have the freedom make that choice and I'm telling you that you don't.
No, it proves you are a violent person with no sense of humor.
Okay, now you have done the dimm-o-crap thingy. How much did we spend this
last budget and how much are we going to spend this budget. Don't give me the
we are cutting stuff. Okay! If I remember correctly the Gowth rate was reduced
from 7.2 percent to 7.1 percent. Sheesh, some cut in spending.
================================================== =======
Xray, since there are no cuts in government programs.......Now to housing.....
================================================== ==========
There are no actual cuts by dollars, just words. RATE OF GROUTH.
No, it proves you're infantile with a sop ric sense of humor.
I get the joke, I got it in 4th grade...ha ha.
Your violent reaction spoke for itself.I get the joke
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