Backed by the religious right, Republican lawmakers are now officially giving hell to the average American.
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By Joe Conason
March 11, 2005 | Watching the behavior of Republican politicians during the past several days, we are learning the true meaning of "compassionate conservatism." Not the public-relations version promoted by George W. Bush and his party propaganda apparatus, but the core philosophy enunciated by the deep thinkers of the religious right.
With legislative maneuvering designed to punish and deprive the least fortunate among us -- working people at the lower end of the American economy and their children -- the Republicans don't seem to be upholding the caring Christian ideals often proclaimed by the President. They're pushing down wages, snatching away tax credits and food stamps, slashing Medicaid and children's health insurance, and removing bankruptcy protections from families that suffer medical catastrophes. But they're extending tax cuts on dividends and capital gains, and making sure that those bankruptcy laws still protect the richest deadbeats.
In short, they are stealing bread from the mouths of the poor and stuffing cake into the maws of the wealthy.
The bankruptcy "reform" currently pending in the Senate, for instance, would compound the misery of Americans already ruined by enormous medical expenses, which is what drives most filers to seek legal protection. The sponsors of this punitive act, which will further inflate the profits of credit-card companies, rejected every amendment to discourage deceptive and extortionate lending practices, as well as every amendment to soften the impact on destitute veterans and others whose misfortune might ordinarily stir feelings of compassion.
Yet while the sponsors claimed that their only purpose was to stop "abuse" of bankruptcy laws, their bill will still allow every grifter to lawyer up and sequester his pelf in an "asset protection trust," an investment vehicle that limits legal liability, often by using offshore bank accounts. The clever rich will thus be exempt from the same laws that will be used from now on to denude poorer people. (At least a dozen Democrats also have signed their disgraced names onto this billion-dollar gift certificate for the credit industry.)
Those poorer people won't be seeing any increase in their pitiful wages any time soon, either, thanks to the Senate Republicans. Voting almost uniformly along party lines, the majority killed what would have been the first increase in the federal minimum wage since 1998. A recent poll showed that more than four out of five Americans favor this measure, evidently because they cherish the quaint notion that people who work for a living should be able to feed and shelter their children.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2005/03/11/compassionate/index.html