GOP embraces "Off-sets"

Thanks to political wrangling that I have no patience to go into, the House GOP is embracing the idea of "off-sets" to the current budget to make up for the costs of recovery post-Katrina.

"Beginning this week, the House GOP lawmakers will take steps to cut as much as $50 billion from the fiscal 2006 budget for health care for the poor, food stamps and farm supports, as well as considering across-the-board cuts in other programs. Only last month, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) and other GOP leaders quashed demands within their party for budget cuts to pay for the soaring cost of hurricane relief."

In other words, to assist the survivors of the hurricane, largely poor and mostly black, the House GOP is willing to cut the benefit to other poor people throughout the nation. Bet you didn't see that coming, did you? Being assholes in general, the House GOP sees no problem in preserving many of the corporate subsidies, tax cuts and pork spending in the most recent budget. This gives Democrats something else to attack them on in 2006, but everybody knows that poor people don't vote and can't afford lobbyists, so who the hell cares, right?