TWO FROM WORKING FOR CHANGE

One of those busy nights again. So check out these two essays from Working For Change.

tax cuts at all costs

Never again would the Republican Party compromise and "relive the agony of a budget agreement" that involved tax increases. That is definitely "behind us."

Ever since Bush 41's defeat in 1992, Republicans -- especially Bush 43 -- committed themselves to the proposition that they will never, ever cross the tax-cutting Republican right. Taxes will be cut in good times and in bad. They will not be raised, no matter how much the government decides to spend. If preserving Republican unity requires throwing the entire cost of the war in Iraq onto the next generation, go for it. Does the Pentagon need big spending increases? Fine, but don't even think about paying for them with new taxes.

Tax cutting is now the idol of the Republican shrine.

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Class is a harder line to cross than color

Undoubtedly, though, King would also be struck by the failure of his followers to carry on the campaign he started shortly before he died. Class is a harder line to cross these days than color.

Perhaps a nation with a short attention span just lost patience. Or perhaps that crusade never gained currency because the problems were more complex than we imagined, lacking the good vs. evil story line of the civil rights movement. Whatever risks lay before the civil rights soldiers, whatever obstacles they faced, their cause was simple enough.

Not so with the complexities of educational failure, drug dependency or falling marriage rates, all of which contribute to sink people into poverty and keep them there. A March on Washington wouldn't stop music producers from pumping out lyrics that glamorize thug culture, nor would pickets stop teenage girls from having children they can't take care of.

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