Have you heard? Senate Votes to End Furloughs of Air Traffic Controllers. The House is working on it as I write this and the President is likely to sign it. Are you surprised? Only if you’ve been living in a cave your entire life.
I think we should call this the “Rich People Can’t Be Inconvenienced in the Least” act. Because that is what this is all about. It is totally okay if the poor and weak are harmed by the Sequester. Shared sacrifice, am I right?! We’ve all got to pull together and if that means that malnourished children have to march for days without shoes, that’s just the way it has to be. On the other hand, if a rich man has a pebble in his show, why, we’d better do something about it. Perhaps a few barefoot children could carry him.
The Senate cares about these flight delays because because it affects them and their wealthy friends. This is not a partisan issue! They are all in it against the rest of us. When the Sequester hit the Head Start program hard, that was just the way it had to be. And I understand this: the Sequester was a terrible piece of legislation. But now Congress has decided to make it even worse. The rich, whose lives are already, shall we understate it and say “good,” have Congress (and the President!) jumping to attention to make sure that the Sequester only hurts people whose lives already suck.
Paul Krugman’s column this morning was called, The 1 Percent’s Solution. In it he talks about how the people of the United States do not want austerity. They do not want to cut programs for the poor. They do not want to cut programs for the old. But can you guess who does want all these things? The rich, of course. And Krugman points out what we have become: a country “of the 1 percent, by the 1 percent, for the 1 percent.”
And so it goes on. Our supposedly democratic government will continue to inflict pain on the poor and weak. Why? Because they are poor and weak. At the same time they will do anything the wealthy and powerful want. Why? Because they are wealthy and powerful.
And the la-hand of the Freeeeee!
And the hoooome, of thhhhhe, braaaave!
Afterword
In case anyone is wondering, I know a lot of non-rich people travel by air. I am one of them. But that is not why Congress has sprung into action.
Well……what else should one expect from the good folks on Capitol Hill and in the White House?
There are so many current programs that don’t necessarilly need to be cut as they need to be reformed and have the corruption rooted out of them. But, alas, Congress will never do such a thing. They might find that someone among them has their hands too deeply inserted up our collective arse and making too much (of OUR) money from their "enterprise". Can’t have that now, can we?
@ThrashMikki – You’re so cynical. Of course that is why it is easy to cut programs for the poor: they don’t lobby.