Talk about being callous and turning your back on your fellow Americans.

House Speaker John Boehner (pictured above) was downright mean to federal workers who stand to lose their jobs in the Republican effort to slash the deficit at all costs.

Republicans are pushing a measure to slash $62 billion form the budget by the end of the year. That includes job cuts for federal workers. Here's Boehner's response to Americans who might lose their jobs during the worst recession since the Great Depression:

"In the last two years, under President Obama, the federal government has added 200,000 new federal jobs," Boehner told reporters.

"If some of those jobs are lost, so be it. We're broke," Boehner added.

That marks a complete turnaround from when Boehner challenged Obama asking: "Where are the jobs?" in the last election.

I bet Boehner isn't broke. He has nice congressional perks, benefits and a fat pension waiting for him when he retires. I still don't hear members of congress in either party talking about reducing their own budget. Isn't that a drag on a country that's broke?

And this country is far from broke. We still have the leading economy in the world. Do we need to reduce our trillion dollar deficit? Yes. Was it Republican policies regarding tax cuts and wars that helped take us from the black into the red? Yes.

Political organizer and author Robert Creamer writes:



The problem isn't that America is "broke." The problem is that economic growth is not being shared with most Americans. The problem is that the very rich are wealthier than ever and everyone else is falling behind. Not only does that mean that the massive store of wealth that we create today is not widely shared. It also means that -- taken together -- we have less wealth as a nation because so many Americans who could be creating goods and services are unemployed, creating nothing. Of course the implication of the "America is broke" mantra is that we have to make massive cuts in programs and services that benefit the middle class and poor because we "can't afford them" -- us being broke and all.

Creamer has some good ideas for those who are serious about reducing the budget.

For example, it is entirely possible to raise the same amount that Boehner has proposed cutting in the 2011 (this year's) federal budget simply by adding a few new tax brackets to the tax code for those who make more than a million dollars. You bump the tax rate up at a million dollars, at ten million, at fifty million -- and a billion. You don't even have to raise them that much. Right now people who make5 billion per year -- America's economic royalty -- pay taxes at the same rate as upper middle class professionals who make360,000 -- where the current highest tax rate of 35% kicks in. Often, because of tax loopholes -- or because they're hedge fund managers -- they actually pay less. The reason why this approach works so well is that all the new income is going to that tiny percentage of the population. To fix the deficit, you have to go where the money is.

Waste should be cut everywhere it is found but not at the expense of American lives. I was taught that money should never be the most important thing in one's life.

It's a lesson that Boehner has yet to learn.

Wikipedia: Always... is the debut album of the Dutch band The Gathering. »