The American Austerity War

The headline in last Friday’s North County Times read “House votes to spare Pentagon from cuts,” with the subhead, “Lawmakers instead trim from domestic programs.” Just before ripping the paper to pieces and tossing it into the trash compactor, I continued reading the Associated Press story: “Turning their budget knife to domestic programs to protect the Pentagon, House Republicans on Thursday approved legislation cutting food stamps, benefits for federal workers and social services programs such as day care for children and Meals on Wheels for the elderly.”

In the next paragraph, “the U.S. health care system would also be cut … deny illegal immigrants child tax credits they can currently claim … (and) spare the military from a $55 billion, 10 percent automatic budget cut next year.”

I then lit a match, burned the paper and threw the ashes into my Republican neighbor’s back yard – let him clean up the mess.

I can only assume that House Republicans and their austerity-loving constituents have gone completely insane. (Considering what’s happening in Europe these days, they’ve gone blind as well.) Where the hell were they born; what church do they go to; what school; what book did they read that convinced them that building the military-industrial complex is more important than feeding the poor and providing health care and other social services for everyone in the country?

Do guns always trump a helping hand in Republican politics?