Bruce Springsteen’s Opinions Aren’t as Bad as His Songs

The Boss is anti-poverty.

Bruce Springsteen wrote a letter to the editor of the Asbury Park Press recently, praising the paper’s coverage of how the city’s tax cuts are eating into the crucial services once provided to those in dire circumstances.

The article, “As poverty rises, NJ cuts target aid,” covers a topic happening all over the United States, as readers of Bob Herbert’s columns are likely aware.

Deficit hawks, mainly Republicans, have been circling the Capitol for some time in a desperate attempt to turn our Republican-made budget crisis into a 2012 platform for their presidential success. They’ve had shocking success, mostly by battering talking points. Having their own News Channel has helped, too. The real-world consequences of these decisions aren’t on display, since they mostly effect the voiceless bottom 99%.

In Jersey, Governor Christie is proposing budget cuts that will effect public services like welfare and food stamps. This is effectively an approval of starvation and homelessness. From a moral viewpoint, it says morality is a dead scene. Especially since, as the article, written by Michael Symons, points out, there is no parallel suffering on the part of Jersey’s millionaires.

Springsteen wrote, “The article is one of the few that highlights the contradictions between a policy of large tax cuts, on the one hand, and cuts in services to those in the most dire conditions, on the other.”

True. Sadly this is a national issue, as years of out-of-control spending, crooked bankers and lax oversight on financial institutions created suffering that will last for decades. Three years later all the culprits are nearly free of speculation while the middle class’s income shrinks and the poor continue to suffer.

Springsteen is on the right track with his opinion. But he should use his booming voice to contribute to the cause beyond Letters to the Editor. He is The Boss after all.