take me to mars

Our president's war on the poor continues.

See this Washington Post article.

Repubs will likely claim, to protect the Administration's interests, that the HUD programs are being farmed out to other Fed offices: labor and commerce depts, for example. I do not think those depts are going to receive the money that funded the HUD programs. HUD will be virtually eliminated. A few of the programs re-assigned under the proposal: Community Development Block Grant; Youthbuild USA, highschool dropout outreach (so much for leaving NO child behind); Empowerment Zones and Renewal Community.

Take Youthbuild USA, which is being moved to the Dept of Labor. According to the Office of Management and Budget, its annual budget is/was $62 million. Will the Bush admin allocate an amount of at least that amount to be use solely for this important program? What do you think?

Most shameful: the Rural Housing and Economic Development program will simply be eliminated. If you aren't upper middle-class to wealthy living in the sprawling 'burbs, you aren't part of this president's ideal society. And he was elected (i know, i know) by the middle-class. Fools.

Chapter 10 in Marx's Kapital is called "Co-Operation." Marx admired the way capital worked, especially the concept of co-operation. Without it capitalism cannot work. Marx was writing about the relationship between employers and employees at factories, of course, the fact that we willingly sell our labor for less than it is worth and that the employer, in return, maintains the jobs and the profitability, etc. In a post-manufacturing economy, which we are headed towards, co-operation becomes more importantly a relationship between citizen and government. Employers could care less about their employees and no longer attempt to cooperate. In a relationship constructed out of cooperation between citizen and government, citizens should be the employers and the government is the employee.

Read Ludwig von Mises on the Sovereignty of the Consumer in his work on the market; apply his idealistic notions of the power consumers have to the real power (real politik) that our government officials use. I don't think I am stretching it at all. (For all you readers of economic theory, I disagree with Mises wholeheartedly. I think Wal-Mart is proof that business owners need not care about consumers. And Mises claims that labor is not significant to worry about.)

anway...what gets me most about the Post article is that some in the senate think Bush will use the HUD cuts to find a way to fund a Mars Mission and permanent tax cuts.