Liberal Hopes Ebb in Post-Storm Poverty Debate - New York Times
suspending all the swooning and mooning over EofDM, let's take a short break to think about what's going on in this post-apocalyptic storm time: our administration, over-extended because of the war(s) waged abroad, bad tax policies and other economic miscues, now sees fit to slash even further funding for those programs that poor people (the people we hadn't really thought about until now) who need it to survive.
here's a partial list of programs on the chopping block:
Medicaid: the last-resort health insurance program for the very poor
Medicare: the health care safety net for the elderly and the disabled
Agriculture programs (that include food stamps)
Student loans
Tightening requirements for the Earned Income Tax Credit
Housing assistance
Education and training programs
Safe and Drug-free schools programs
School lunches for poor children
Minority Business Development Agency
AIDS research
disproportionately, these programs affect women and their families (which include elderly parents, extended families, children).
conservatives say that the latest storms have shown how these programs don't 'work'. they say that now is the perfect time to get rid of them. debatable. is it the programs don't work or that these programs are only as strong as the infrastructure that supports them?
regardless, if these programs are whittled even further, then what are the odds the growing population of desperately poor will be helped?
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