First, Screw All the Poor People

The Republican Congress is once again looking to stick it to poor people in order to preserve tax cuts for the wealthy and to pay for a failed Iraq policy. This time their preferred means is to take a chunk out of Medicare and Medicaid. Although it is cloaked under the rhetoric of reform and state level policy experimentation, the true motivation is to dismantle the welfare state.

While we can probably all agree that these entitlements are ripe for reform, the GOP slash and burn techniques are not the correct route. Their political motivations are transparently obvious. The White House told Congress not to touch Medicare and to focus on savings in Medicaid. Hmm.. let's see.. Medicare is a program for the elderly and Medicaid is for poor people. Senior citizens vote, poor people don't.

In addition, the bill increases co-payments for prescriptions, but cuts payments to pharmacies, thus keeping Big Pharma's profits intact. So the GOP is even willing to screw chain drug stores in order to keep Merck et al happy. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that Pharma's lobbyist/president is a former Republican congressman? Nah... that can't be it, because the GOP is all about ethics (at least that is what they keep telling us as they flagellate gays and pro-choicers in the public square).

With every passsing day, the GOP gets more repulsive. And yet, the poor and middle class rubes who watch Faux News have nary a clue about the destruction their fellow Bible-beating fag haters are doing to their paychecks, their retirement prospects and their country.