Quote of the Week: "Random acts of cruelty to powerless people.”

Yesterday I listened to NPR's "Fresh Air." The discussion topic is about economic policy and how we pay for Katrina, between host Terry Gross, Paul Krugman, columnist for The New York Times and professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton (liberal) and Stuart Butler, vice president of the Heritage Foundation, focusing on domestic and economic policy (conservative).

Both agree that the highway bill should be cancelled, and even Bulter says that we should talk about raising taxes. They agree on a lot of areas, but say that these conversations and debates are not going on in congress. It's an interesting and very good listen.

Interesting questions were raised, such as:
When, are we going to reach that "very ugly moment" when the bond market says that it doesn't make sense to continue to float our debt? Are we headed for an "Argentina scenario?" Are we setting ourselves up to be dictated to by China, who even now, owns massive amounts of our debt?

The best quote of the week IMHO came from Paul Krugman about the president proposing cutting food stamps he called it, “random acts of cruelty to powerless people.”

He also said that it takes chutzpa of a political opposition, after saying for 25 years that government doesn't work and is part of the problem, to then once in power take a highly praised and fully functioning agency, dismantle and gut it and then when the agency is needed then say "see I told you government doesn't work."

I think I've said similarly the same thing.

Dentene what's your take?

See also the AP article:
The bill by (Sen. Saxby) Chambliss (R-Ga) would cut food programs for the poor by $574 million and conservation programs and farm payments by more than $1 billion each.

The budget-cutting plan faces opposition from Democrats and others.

"This proposal is an unconscionable slap in the face at America's poor," said Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, the senior Democrat on the committee.