Article: Congress's Budget is hypocritical, immoral, and irresponsible

When the United States Congress is meeting past, say 9:00 PM, on any given night, the American people would do well to take some hard boiled advice from the late Bette Davis:

"Fasten your seatbelt; it's going to be a bumpy ride."

The radical Republican leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 the other evening at about 5:00 AM in the morning to the catcalls, howls, and jeers from their Democratic and moderate Republican counterparts.

This legislation is hypocritical, immoral, and irresponsible. According to the Associated Press: "The broader budget bill would slice almost $50 billion from the deficit by the end of the decade by curbing rapidly growing benefit programs..." And it does so while at the same time providing tax relief to the wealthiest Americans: millionaires and billionaires.

The question is simple: why should the American people cut subsistence programs to provide a modicum of relief to poor and working families while providing what amounts to welfare for the wealthy?

No wonder. In addition to hiking their own salaries by $3, 100., the people's body was busy putting coal in the stockings of America's middle and working classes while diverting public tax revenue to subsidize welfare----tax cuts----for millionaires and billionaires.

Among the other hatchet jobs are the following:

1.cuts Medicaid which provides medical care and treatment for the disabled, poor and indigent

2. cuts food stamps which provides monies for poor and low income Americans to purchase food

3. cuts student assistance programs designed to provide relief to middle and working class American students by providing educational aid to students so they can improve their socio-economic status over the log run; college tuition, besides health care costs, is probably the one family budget item that has increased geometrically over the past five years, and in some large measure due to inadequate public financing of our nation's schools, colleges, and universities

4. authorization to sell 20 million acres of public land including range preservations, public parks, and protected forests

Constance Lavender is a freelance e-journalist from Galloway, New Jersey Contracted HIV in the 1980s, Widowed in the 1990s, Now your Humble Servant in the 21st Century. Interested in Communications Technology in the Age of Information & Knowledge, Ms. Lavender is a Correspondent who believes A Free Country Is Premised On A Free Press.

In the best spirit of Benj. Franklin and Silence Dogood, I have committed myself to constantly responding to the spin of mainstream journalism and corporate news