In The Ownership Society, There Are The Disowned

My Way News:

By a vote of 215-213, the House approved the legislation, which trims $1.4 billion from last year's spending for these social programs. The measure passed after House and Senate negotiators agreed to add back slightly more money sought by Republicans for rural health programs.

The House vote came amid partisan fighting over national spending priorities and after religious activists staged a Capitol Hill protest against spending cuts, which resulted in mass arrests.

Democrats opposed the health-care and education spending bill, noting it would cut $249 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, $780 million from President George W. Bush's 'No Child Left Behind' education program and would add no money to help low-income people pay winter heating bills despite skyrocketing fuel costs.

As a result, Senate Democrats, led by senators Tom Harkin of Iowa and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, said they would try to defeat this fiscal 2006 spending bill when it arrives on the Senate floor later this week.

And most of us are in the disowned group. It was support for education that led to two decades of prosperity in the U.S. Now, only the rich and privileged need apply. And cutting funds from the CDC while a pandemic looms is just unconscionable.