We're The "Less Is More" Congress. You Get Less, We Get More

Man! Iraq, Katrina, Wilma, Rita, Avian flu, Scooter Libby's defense fund. How many hits can the federal budget take before it's drier than an alcoholic at a Southern Baptist's wedding?

Looks like president Bush's tax cuts for the rich are in trouble, right Republican controlled Congress?

Congress is moving toward still more tax cuts that would cost the Treasury $70 billion during the next five years. Some 97 percent of the benefits will go to households earning more than $200,000 annually.

Oh. Sorry. Guess we misunderstood.

Congressional Republicans have figured out a nifty way to begin lifting the nation out of the budget hole their borrow-and-spend spree has left us in: take from the poor and give to the rich. "Hey. What are poor people going to do with money anyway?" House leader Dennis Hastert asked. "Probably just buy drugs or something. You know how those people are."

The House would add co-pays for children covered by Medicaid, the primary health coverage for the poor, and increase the co-pays for their prescriptions. Medicaid over all would be cut by $30 billion over 10 years, with more of the cost passed on to higher medical and prescription payments. "We're proposing that only a certain percentage of poor people be allowed to become ill in a given fiscal year." said Jim Nussle, Budget Committee Chair. "It's cost containment that makes sound fiscal policy."

The House would also cut the food stamp budget by $844 million, withholding help from about 300,000, including 70,000 legal immigrants, many of them elderly. "Legal, illegal, they all look the same to me," said Congressman John Spratt another committee member.

And over 5 years, $5 billion would be taken from enforcement for child-support payments, a "saving" that would result in the loss of an estimated $7.9 billion in support for children, according to the Congressional Budget Office. "Yeah, well, we felt bad about that," said Congressman Dennis Moore, a committee member, "But then someone told us poor people don't vote and kids can't vote, so what the heck, better them than white folks, know what I'm saying?"

When asked how the house could consider these types of cuts when between 2001 and '04, the number living in poverty increased from 11.7 percent of the population to 12.7 percent. The income disparities between the well-off and the poor -- indeed, between the rich and everybody else -- have widened. A record 45.8 percent of us have no health insurance. Congressman, and budget committee member Jim Ryun said, "Those people don't live in my district."