Congressional Republicans just don’t get it. The GOP is constantly urging Americans to support their budget cuts that are intended to eliminate our national deficit.

When faced with to their proposed cuts, which include revamping Medicare and Medicaid and cutting back on funding for education and environmental initiatives, the GOP admonish their opponents for not wanting a better America for their children.

According to the GOP, if you are not in support of their proposed cuts, you must not be in support of a balanced budget. This is a cowardly, misleading accusation, plain and simple.

No one will argue that our national budget deficit is out of control. No one will argue that national spending must be curbed. No one will argue that a balanced budget puts our nation’s financial situation in a much better position.

What Republican opponents will argue that the best way to balance the budget is to demand that the elderly, poor families and the safety of our environment be sacrificed in order to achieve a balanced budget. How can we call our future a brighter one when we have diminished the education potential of our children and allowed the ransacking of our national landscape? When families in financial dire straits are being told to “tighten up their belts” in the name of national well-being?

Not only are these demands made on the segment of America with the quietest political voice absurd, but they appear even more ludicrous when items like the defense budget are left untouched, and Republicans attempt to eliminate restrictions on corporations to protect the environment because it limits their profit potential.

Republicans are telling us we need to sacrifice for the financial well-being of the nation. We agree. Why aren’t they telling that to those who can most afford to?