Destroying the American Dream

Destroying the American Dream - by Stephen Lendman

Corporate greed and profits over people priorities launched nationwide Occupy Wall Street protests in hundreds of US cities for change.

Mindless of growing public rage, political Washington keeps cutting vital social benefits needing increases during hard times.

With real unemployment approaching 23%, earlier cuts affected:

• Pell Grants help for college tuitions;

• federal wages;

• the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) to help impoverished families have heat in winter;

• the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP);

• community healthcare centers;

• nonprofit health insurance cooperatives;

• HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and other disease prevention programs;

• WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) grants to states for supplemental foods, healthcare, and nutrition education for low-income families;

• Head Start, providing comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income families with children;

• the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (targeted earlier with more coming), providing food stamps for poor households;

• community development block grants for housing, overall reducing HUD's budget by $1.1 billion;

• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) first-responder funding;

• energy efficiency and renewable energy programs;

• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) clean/safe water and other projects;

• National Institutes of Health (NIH) medical research;

• the National Park Service;

• vital infrastructure and transportation needs; and

• other non-defense discretionary spending.

New cuts will sustain Wall Street, militarism, favoritism, waste, fraud, and other rewards for Washington's usual special interests. They'll benefit at the expense of ordinary people losing out.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/12/21/18703160.php