The Hands That Built America

I got into a bit of a political discussion on the weekend at the mens retreat with a George Bush supporter. I'll not get into all the details of the conversation, but I told him that regardless of his foreign involvement (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Venezuela, etc.), it's the stuff his administration is doing at home that bothers me. Elimination of services for the poor, and tax cuts for the ultra rich, while the whole time mortgaging the future. Jim Wallis, of sojourners magazine, writes this, in his weekly post. Here's a brief snippet:

The House is scheduled to begin debate tomorrow on its budget bill, which includes $54 billion in cuts. On the table are cuts of $9.5 billion in Medicaid - by requiring co-pays for pregnant women and children for the first time; $8 billion in foster care, child support enforcement, and aid to the disabled; and $844 million in the Food Stamps Program, which would prevent 300,000 people from receiving food stamps. Forty thousand children would be cut from reduced-price school lunches. Lawmakers intend to follow these with a further cut of $70 billion in taxes that will primarily benefit the top 3% of taxpayers. The message from Congress is that in response to Hurricane Katrina, we're going to cut services for the poor, cut taxes for the rich, and increase deficits for our children and grandchildren.

I'd be frustrated by this if I was an American, especially if I was a Christian American, with a president who also claimed that title. I'm short on solutions here though, so maybe I should keep my mouth shut. And for my American readers, I know Canada has it's problems too, very similar to yours. However, I heard, in person, a leader of a provincial political party say that he make $120k a year and benefited from some tax cuts a couple years ago, at the expense of the poor, and if he were in power he'd change that around. He can afford the tax. He's the one who should be paying. Anyway, there's my political rant for the week. Here's some fun links:

• Beer is good for you!! Good timing on this story. I'm bottling a batch tonight.
• Creep, by Radiohead. Cool video. I finally got that album last week.
• neXt church, Kingston. It's where I'd go if I lived there.
• Speaking of taxes and tax exemption. I'd better watch what I say.
• Literary fun.
• From twitchfilm.net, one of the coolest movie trailers ever, Japan's 'Born to Fight'.