James 5:1-6
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.
When Governor Corbett has defended his previous budgets, the debate he has framed is that we all need to share the sacrifice. When he laid off tens of thousands of teachers, forced municipalities to raise property taxes to cover education budget cuts, kicked tens of thousands off of the General Fund, cut the budgets for the intellectually disabled, kicked over 80,000 children off of CHIP and much more, the Governor subjected the poorest and most underrepresented groups of our society to the curb. What have the state’s top 1% felt during the recent recession? Well if you look at the graph that the Budget and Policy Center released this week, the answer is nothing. For more on this horrific tragedy, please read Dan Denvir’s article in the City Paper.
