Republicans' "Operation Offset" Shows Their True Colors

The Republican proposal to fund the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast has been released and it's one of the more telling documents they've produced since the Contract With America. In a nutshell, the proposal is to eliminate major environmental programs and social programs for the poor, which they claim will raise $500 billion over ten years. They cut alternative energy subsidies and mass transit, but say nothing about the pork in the energy bill or subsidies to corporations in the transportation bill. Included in the proposal are the briliant plans of eliminating federal loans to graduate students and closing down the NSF's National Math and Science Program. They'd also like to cut $7.5 billion from the US comittment to fund global AIDS relief. Etc. etc. etc. The gory details are available from the Republican Study Committee's web page (.pdf).

At this point there's no denying the "vision" of the 100 conservative Republican members who signed the proposal: Katrina's costs are to be borne by the poor, the environment, the elderly, and even AIDS victims in Africa. Nowhere in the document will you see any call to sacrifice from the wealthy, no hint of cutting the billions earmarked for pork projects in the energy and transportation bills, no sense that they even begin to understand the potential social and environmental costs of their proposal. It betrays the fundamental orientation of the Republican leadership-- they are out for themselves and will spare no opportunity to take from those in need to provide for their friends. Bush may be an emperor with no clothes, but the conservative Republicans behind Operation Offset are even more clearly leaders with no morals, limited ethics, and certainly no sense of shame.

A much more rational proposal to offset the costs of hurricane recovery has been advanced by the Center for American Progress (.pdf). Their proposal saves $174 billion over five years by reducing the pork and corporate subsidies that have bloated appropriations bills in recent years. So the choice is clear: Republicans want to "offset" the costs of hurricane recovery by shifting them to the poor, elderly, and the environment. Progressives want to roll back tax cuts for the weathly and reduce wasteful spending on pork to pay for Katrina and Rita. It seems a simple choice...