Woe unto you, o W.

Chuck Currie is the director of community outreach at Portland’s First Congregational United Church of Christ, and a leading homeless advocate.

Here's his post about how poverty has grown under W.

Personally, I think poor people are essential to Republican identity. In order to construct themselves as a priviledged class, they have to create an underprivileged class for contrast.

Once my friend Republican B told me he'd never buy a house on Capitol Hill. The reason? Because it's not separated geographically from the Central District, which is the part of town that decayed after white flight and the crack epidemic. It used to be called "Washington Park" and it was a desired address, but then the white people left. Republican B was pretty smug about the inevitability of the eventual decay of Capitol Hill.

Well, in the last 10 years, the CD has gentrified and revitalized. It's probably still not "cute" enough for the conservatives.