The New York Times
December 6, 2005

Editorial
PROFILES IN PUSILLANIMITY

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/opinion/06tue3.html

Q. When is a self-proclaimed moderate Republican lawmaker just another malleable vote?

A. When House G.O.P. leaders hold a budget-cutting showdown open after midnight for extended arm-twisting on the eve of their long holiday break.

Back home on that Thanksgiving break, spineless lawmakers were unlikely to share with their well-fed constituents the shameful result: for the lack of just two votes from the majority's vaunted "moderate" coalition, more than 200,000 poor Americans each face the loss of food stamps worth $140 a month in nourishment.

For weeks before the vote, coalition members won national praise and hometown headlines as they held their leaders at bay, vowing unity and demanding that the poor not be punished just as another tax-cut package for the affluent was being greased for passage. Then they buckled, after winning only cosmetic changes in what remains a truly draconian package to slash beyond food stamps to Medicaid, child care and other safety-net programs for the poor. A dozen supposedly moderate lawmakers turned tail as aptly named floor whips tested the rebels' steel. They feared embarrassing the G.O.P. in its shabby attempts to make the debt- and deficit-crazed Congress seem fiscally responsible. The vote was an appalling display of budget theatrics over responsible lawmaking. A number of the midnight retreaters apparently forgot that they had previously co-sponsored something called the Hunger-Free Communities Act of 2005.

More of this sham can be expected as Congress returns and the majority Republicans resume fighting among themselves while the Democrats hold fast against safety-net cuts. The moderates will stage new public "revolts," then fall in line to create more conservative victories in the final secret deal-making between the two houses.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Poverty has risen across the past four years to 37 million and counting, by the government's own measure, while the number of homeless children in public schools is at 600,000 and up. In 2004, some 38 million Americans - including nearly one in five children - lived in households that found it difficult to afford food, 6 million more than in 1999. These are the numbers that should be driving the nation's lawmakers, not the cynical desire to carry rebellion only to the brink of victory, followed by still another last-minute cave-in by the misnamed moderates.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company