Political Opinion

Beautiful Colorado Springs nestled under Pike's Peak

Re: David Sirota: GOP: Recession’s Foreclosure Victims “Want a Homeless Life”

After their anti-tax zealotry left their city in the budgetary lurch, Colorado Springs Republicans have slashed their community’s social services to the bone. We’re talking big cuts to police, firefighters, park maintenance, public transportation – even turning off the city’s streetlights (except, of course, in the wealthy areas!).

If this wasn’t bad enough, the city council this week doubled down on its conservative extremism, officially opposing a congressional jobs bill that would provide roughly $43 million to the city in much-needed aid. Their rationale? They don’t want to add to the federal deficit — a seemingly principled position, until you realize the same city council has had nothing to say about a far bigger deficit culprit: the profligate defense spending that underwrites about a third of Colorado Springs.

Those who refuse help and remain homeless are largely the mentally ill. They would be homeless in a healthy economy, and they are not the majority of homeless.

I am tired of corporate fat cats lining their pockets with our tax dollars. The city finds itself without resources because right wing ideology has cut to the bone, as you say, the funds necessary to keep up with the demand from the public. It’s like a family that is barely holding on and then decides that the best course of action to improve their situation is to to cut their income and go bankrupt. Going bankrupt when you are not insolvent is a weird game.

Right wingers can’t understand that the “government” is us. We formed this union because we need a collective to do for us what we cannot do individually. When they protest the government, they protest Americans and the American way of life.

Corporations and big banks get more public welfare than the poor, by a large margin – trillions of dollars poured down rich fat cats coffers.

Denying shelter to the poor is the kind of robbery that the Sheriff of Nottingham would be proud of. Heartless puppy killers!

Bailed out banks rest on their laurels and live off the backs of the American Taxpayer.

Corporate welfare is the biggest strain on our deficit.

If I’ve learned one thing in my life it is this: common sense isn’t common. Those who throw away income to become bankrupt, as in the case of this right-wing Kool-Aid drinking mayor and city council, cutting taxes to end the police department and street lights aren’t exactly making rational decisions. They reduce their own income to become haggard and eventually bankrupt.

That last part sounds like I’m extrapolating the mayor’s comments, but unfortunately it’s exactly what he said. Check this out from the Denver Post‘s Susan Greene today, quoting The Springs’ mayor:

Thumbing his nose at federal assistance seems to abdicate his responsibilities to the Judd Hesses of his community and others who are down and out, living in tent colonies, arguably not because they want to.

“Some people want a homeless life,” counters (Mayor) Rivera, a financial adviser. “Some people, they really do.”

So there you have it: According to the conservative leader of one of the most conservative cities in America, those thrown out of their homes in this Great Recession actually want to be homeless, so we shouldn’t spend money or — gasp! — dare to raise taxes on the super-rich to generate revenue for programs to help the homeless get back on their feet.

I’d say that’s about as frank an admission about the Republican Party’s callous attitude these days as any. Give the Springs’ conservative leadership credit — at least their honest in their heartlessness and their extremism.

They refuse stimulus money and suffer. For what? Ideology?

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