It seems our country, or at least our leaders, are determined to forget the lessons we could've learned from Katrina in the images of poverty and desperation we, as a nation, witnessed. Some would have us continue to be only vaguely aware with that side of our country.
I say we take a minute to return again to that week when we watched those who lacked the means to escape the chaos and squalor on the ground in New Orleans. Put yourself in the position of being one of the tens of millions in this country who, like those unfortunate souls left at the Superdome, are figuratively trapped in a different type of prison. Hold those thoughts in your head for a minute.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of impoverished Americans dropped every single year that President Bill Clinton was in office, from 1993 to 2000 falling almost 4 percent. That translates to roughly 12 million people in this country raised from the depths of poverty. Conversely, our current president has presided over a rising poverty rate every year since taking the reins in 2000. Last year alone, 1.1 million people slipped below the surface and became poor on Bush's watch.
So when our president stammers out that his tax cuts are working and need to be made permanent, I can't help but wonder who they're really working for. While millions are falling behind in this, the most powerful and prosperous nation in history, our president is insisting on handouts for the very wealthiest among us.
What's more, the whole "trickle-down" argument, apart from simply being poor economic logic, is getting old.
The fact of the matter is, the gulf between the very wealthy and very poor is growing ever larger, unhealthily stratifying this country into the "have-nots" and "have-lots." Such divisions engender discontent in the population, and don't bode well for us in a century where national cohesion may be the deciding factor in whether we maintain our nation's current global leadership role.
After Katrina, Republican leaders in Congress put off voting on setting Bush's tax cuts in stone. In the costly aftermath of that storm - both financially and politically - the GOP didn't want to appear to be starving national coffers, a potential political liability in the upcoming midterm elections. Instead, they waited a few months for the masses' attention spans to wander and have stealthily reintroduced the issue into congressional agenda.
But wait, there's more. Congress is also set to vote on over $50 billion in budget cuts in the upcoming weeks. Child support enforcement, student loans, health care and food stamps for the working poor are all up on the GOP's chopping block.
In other words, in a gesture of brotherly love this holiday season, Republicans are trying to make it harder for 300,000 men, women and children to put food on the table, reduce the student loans that I and millions of other citizens rely on to get our education and further weaken our already emasculated health care system. If they get their way, all these savings will be passed on, in the form of capital gains and dividends tax cuts, to our highest income brackets. For the wealthiest 1 percent of this country, it may be a very merry Christmas indeed. An average of $51,000 in taxes saved per wealthy household, and to all a good night!
Thus, after feigning enough concern for the cameras, President Bush and the Republican Party continue to ignore the needs of those sweaty, downtrodden faces that crowded our television screens a few months ago. Yet if you, like me, can't forget those harrowing days when the veil between us and them was lifted for a moment, take a minute to call or write your congressman or congresswoman, and tell them that you know what's really going on and that you're not going to stand for it.
At the very least, stay aware and informed of this deplorable charade, in the hopes that one day we have a president and a ruling majority that actually care about the least fortunate and are not content to merely pay them lip service to temporarily save their conniving hides.
Huck is an anthropology junior.
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