This was originally an editorial opinion about the Bush Administration budget published here in 2006. But tell me, isn't the Obama Adminstration budget exactly the same?

::::::::

The Knacker

The lot
of most
of mankind
throughout all of history
has been abject poverty.
Not the artificial kind
designed by advertising
instigated by insufficient quantities
of de rigueur commodities,
but from the reality
of the eternal, relentless
mortifications
of the flesh --
   disease
  starvation
  and exposure
to the elements.
 
Subtraction from
healthcare, food aid
and home heating assistance
in the Killing Floor U.S. Budget
showcases the depraved indifference
of the wealthy and corporations
who have purchased tax cuts and subsidies
with pounds of flesh incised from the poor
prior to knocking them to their knees
 
for slaughter
in the economic abattoir
by means of the eternal, relentless
mortifications
of the flesh --
   disease
  starvation
  and exposure
to the elements
 
   from which The New Deal
  and Labor Unions
   temporarily
  delivered us.
 
Demons of Greed and Depravity
  currently control
  corporations
Congress
   courts
even
  Christianity
 
inciting each me in We The People
to abandon solidarity
for a chance to gaze down in exquisite contempt
on the mass of struggling humanity.
 
But since this small, exclusive Fraternity of the Few
has not enough room for most of the many,
this simply insures their self-destruction
and their ongoing submission to tyranny
 
fettered by the eternal, relentless
mortifications
of the flesh --
  disease
starvation
and exposure
   to the elements.
 
"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." 
--  Frederick Douglass

Authors Bio:
Vi's works appear widely both in print and online. She conducts Poetry Workshops and gives readings in Central New York. Her latest chapbook is "Sine Qua Non Antiques (an Arcanum of History, Geography and Treachery).