Superb take on GOP budget insanity by Robert Creamer

Robert Creamer's op-ed on the HuffingtonPost today is scathing -- and dead-on.

Cut Head Start But Keep Subsidies for Big Oil? Earth to Boehner...Come In!

How about this:

The Republican proposal, HR1, actually proposes cuts in the Head Start program that would mean:

* 218,000 children from low income families will lose Head Start/Early Head Start services;
* 16,000 Head Start/Early Head Start classrooms will close;
* 55,000 Head Start/Early Head Start teachers and staff will lose their jobs;
* 150,000 low-income families and their children will lose assistance in paying for child care.

They say they need to make these cuts because we must "tighten our belts" to cut spending because "America is broke." But at the very same time they voted to cut Head Start, the Republicans voted to continue $4 billion worth of subsidies to Big Oil. That's right, they want to continue to hand over $4 billion of the taxpayers' money to companies like Exxon-Mobil, the most profitable company in human history.

as well as this:

Of course that's not all. The Republicans in the House voted to cut Pell Grants, that help middle class kids go to college, by 25%.

They voted to kill a program that helps low-income families weatherize their homes and permanently reduce their energy bills. Guess we just have to tighten our belts!

They voted to cut funds for employment and training service for jobless workers -- so much for "jobs, jobs, jobs."

They voted to cut funding for clean, safe drinking water by more than half, to cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by 10% and to cut funds for the Food and Drug Administration by another 10%. All the while handing out billions to the oil companies.

There's a word for this: apalling hypocrisy.

Finally:

But the Republicans not only want to give subsidies to the oil companies, their spending plan would cut our investments in clean energy that would allow us to throw off the yoke of foreign oil. H.R. 1 slashes key Department of Energy (DOE) programs that promote clean energy by about $1.7 billion -- approximately a 23 percent decrease from current levels. What's more, they have included non-budget "riders" that gut the clean air act.

The Republicans are not only endangering our economic security. They are endangering our national security by guaranteeing we are held hostage by whoever happens to control the oil fields thousands of miles from our shores.

UGGGGGH. Will common sense get into the minds of the Tea Partiers?

I doubt it.