by Mario T. García
Last week, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a budget bill drafted by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., that, if enacted, would put additional pressure on the middle-class and working people. The Republican plan favors significant tax cuts for the rich and cuts for the rest of us.
I just don't understand the morality of such Republican plans. They seem to believe that greed and the accumulation of more money for the very rich will help the rest of society. They want to help the rich and elite and let the middle class and the poor fend for themselves.
Where is their Christian ethics? If their policies are correct, then why, under George W. Bush's tax cuts, did we see a further deterioration of middle- and working-class wages and a further growing disparity between rich and non-rich? It also got us into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
The hypocrisy is incredible. Republicans like Ryan consider themselves to be Christians, and yet they turn away from the Gospel message of helping others, especially the poor. They respond that the main problem is the deficit and the need to cut government spending to reduce it. Yet their huge tax cuts for the rich will only further increase the deficit, as occurred under Ronald Reagan's tax cuts and the Bush ones after 2001. What will it take for Republicans to stop just representing the rich and start thinking of the rest of American society?
