ColorLines' Shani O. Hilton is reporting that members of the Congressional Black Caucus are angry with President Obama's announced budget cuts. In his press conference yesterday, Obama insisted that "just like every family in America, the government has to do two things at once: It has to live within its means and it has to invest in the future." He compared the budget to the balancing act many families must make when they decide to cut back on eating out and other luxuries in order to save for their kids' educations.
Several House Democrats, including CBC members, have disagreed. A spokesperson for Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. — who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, where the real fight with GOP deficit hawks will be engaged — criticized the president's analogy, saying, "It isn't cutting luxuries; it's cutting things that are vital."
CBC Chair Emanuel Cleaver agreed, stating, "Rebuilding our economy on the backs of the most vulnerable Americans is something that I simply can not accept," Cleaver said. "I understand that now is the time for us as a nation to sacrifice in order to protect our children from a mountain of debt; however, I am struggling to understand how this budget helps us to best achieve this critical goal."
We suppose the decision to cut community-development funding and home heating assistance, among other programs, has CBC members seeing red. They know what these proposed cuts mean for their consitutents: Blacks and Latinos, especially the elderly and poor whites (whom folks fail to acknowledge), will be the one's shivering and suffering from a vital lack of resources. A community organizer cutting community-development funding — really? Many see this as too much of a compromise. We tend to agree.
Read more at ColorLines.
In other news: Protesters Killed in Bahrain Crackdown: 4 People Dead.