Lonely in the Middle
by Lou Dobbs
USNews.com 5/2/05 (on internet at least by Tuesday, April 26)
Compassionate conservatism has been the catchphrase of George W. Bush since the presidential campaign of 2000, but those two words must now ring hollow to the more than 100 million Americans who make up our middle class. There is nothing conservative about our rising record budget and trade deficits. There is nothing compassionate about the president's idea of Social Security reform, the rollback of coverage for ever more costly healthcare for working Americans, or the most recent assault on the middle class: the new bankruptcy reform bill that Bush signed into law last week.
It's ironic that Congress approved the bankruptcy bill to impose fiscal discipline on the middle class when the federal government last year ran up a $412 billion budget deficit and a $617 billion trade deficit. President Bush's temerity in signing this legislation was the ultimate hypocrisy in a town already very well credentialed. Add to that hypocrisy the House of Representatives' vote to permanently repeal the estate tax for the wealthy, as Congress further rent the middle class's social safety net.
Compassionate conservatism? The new bankruptcy law was virtually written by the credit card companies and banks, making it far more difficult for American families to erase their debt. The credit card firms are not exactly struggling. Their profits, in fact, have risen steadily over the past decade. [...] Read the rest at: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/050502/2dobbs.htm or http://tinyurl.com/cvdlj
© Virginia Metze
USNews.com 5/2/05 (on internet at least by Tuesday, April 26)
Compassionate conservatism has been the catchphrase of George W. Bush since the presidential campaign of 2000, but those two words must now ring hollow to the more than 100 million Americans who make up our middle class. There is nothing conservative about our rising record budget and trade deficits. There is nothing compassionate about the president's idea of Social Security reform, the rollback of coverage for ever more costly healthcare for working Americans, or the most recent assault on the middle class: the new bankruptcy reform bill that Bush signed into law last week.
It's ironic that Congress approved the bankruptcy bill to impose fiscal discipline on the middle class when the federal government last year ran up a $412 billion budget deficit and a $617 billion trade deficit. President Bush's temerity in signing this legislation was the ultimate hypocrisy in a town already very well credentialed. Add to that hypocrisy the House of Representatives' vote to permanently repeal the estate tax for the wealthy, as Congress further rent the middle class's social safety net.
Compassionate conservatism? The new bankruptcy law was virtually written by the credit card companies and banks, making it far more difficult for American families to erase their debt. The credit card firms are not exactly struggling. Their profits, in fact, have risen steadily over the past decade. [...] Read the rest at: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/050502/2dobbs.htm or http://tinyurl.com/cvdlj
© Virginia Metze
Starmail - 28. Apr, 22:29
