Abandoning Children - Texas and GOP Style

I realize that at times I sound like a broken record, but the the manner in which the Republican Party's economic policies are 180 degrees opposite of the Gospel message GOP claims to honor is breath taking. The GOP controlled budget in Texas is in many ways a mini-version of what the Congressional GOP seeks to implement and it is an indictment of a political approach that trashes the weakest and most vulnerable members of society. Paul Krugman has a column in the New York Times that takes a good look at the "Christian" and "family" values of the GOP. It is beyond disturbing how little the GOP as a party cares about investing in the nation's real future - it's children. Here are some column highlights:

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Republicans are demanding draconian spending cuts, but we don’t yet know how far they’re willing to go in a showdown with President Obama. At the state and local level, however, there’s no doubt about it: big spending cuts are coming.

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And who will bear the brunt of these cuts? America’s children. Now, politicians — and especially, in my experience, conservative politicians — always claim to be deeply concerned about the nation’s children. . . . In practice, however, when advocates of lower spending get a chance to put their ideas into practice, the burden always seems to fall disproportionately on those very children they claim to hold so dear.

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Consider, as a case in point, what’s happening in Texas, which more and more seems to be where America’s political future happens first. . . . . While low spending may sound good in the abstract, what it amounts to in practice is low spending on children, who account directly or indirectly for a large part of government outlays at the state and local level.

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And in low-tax, low-spending Texas, the kids are not all right. The high school graduation rate, at just 61.3 percent, puts Texas 43rd out of 50 in state rankings. Nationally, the state ranks fifth in child poverty; it leads in the percentage of children without health insurance. And only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average. It*’s not a pretty picture; compassion aside, you have to wonder — and many business people in Texas do — how the state can prosper in the long run with a future work force blighted by childhood poverty, poor health and lack of education. But things are about to get much worse.
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Given the already dire condition of Texas children, you might have expected the state’s leaders to focus the pain elsewhere. In particular, you might have expected high-income Texans, who pay much less in state and local taxes than the national average, to be asked to bear at least some of the burden. But you’d be wrong. Tax increases have been ruled out of consideration; the gap will be closed solely through spending cuts.

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The really striking thing about all this isn’t the cruelty — at this point you expect that — but the shortsightedness. What’s supposed to happen when today’s neglected children become tomorrow’s work force? Anyway, the next time some self-proclaimed deficit hawk tells you how much he worries about the debt we’re leaving our children, remember what’s happening in Texas, a state whose slogan right now might as well be “Lose the future.”