If you disagree with the thrust of Paul Krugman’s column yesterday, I would love to understand why. If you agree with it, I would suggest that you email it to everyone you know and ask that they do the same. And sign up at the DNC website to become an eCaptain.
(Al Hunt had a similar piece called ‘Unshared Sacrifice’ in the April 10 Wall Street Journal. He noted that the President’s tax cut would save Citicorp CEO Sandy Weill more than $7 million a year and contrasted that with the sacrifices others will be making as a result of these devastating tax cuts. ‘The economic downturn has squeezed state budgets,’ Hunt wrote, ‘forcing many to slash basic services such as Medicaid coverage. The White House says it’s too costly for the federal government to provide short-term assistance to these hard-pressed states – although it would provide a real economic stimulus. . . . Anne Picone, a 62-year-old Wakefield, Mass., widow and retired dental assistant, has osteoporosis and high blood pressure. She takes care of her bed-ridden 85-year-old mother who’s incontinent and suffers from chronic diarrhea. . . . Almost half their monthly income goes to utility bills and property taxes . . . so Ms. Picone was devastated recently when the state said it no longer was going to pay her $275-a-month prescription drug bills. . . . Rose Spears, of Portland, Ore., is losing coverage for her diabetic insulin refills and other drugs; Brenda Haffer, a St. Louis single mother, doesn’t get child support and cannot afford health insurance, so worries about her ability to continue to support her four-year-old asthmatic daughter; and Jim Gibson, a food services cashier at the University of Montana, who has cerebral palsy, frets whether he can maintain independent living if the state strips funding for his the 14-hour-a-week personal-care assistant. . . .’ And so it goes. Truly, it is a grand time to be rich and powerful in America. For everyone else, it may be time to become an eCaptain.)
Tomorrow: More Price Grabbin’
