In a speech this past weekend to religious broadcasters, the Speaker of the House called the federal debt “a moral threat” to the nation.

It’s an interesting choice of words from the leader of a House majority that has been a cheerleader for the nation’s most morally objectionable policy of all – the disastrous, despicable war in Afghanistan. 

For some reason, their moral sensibilities are not offended by a military conflict that has cost us hundreds of billions of dollars and nearly 1,500 of our bravest people, without advancing national security objectives or truly diminishing the terrorist threat.

So how are my colleagues on the other side of the aisle resolving their moral dilemma?  By asking corporate special interests to give up handouts and tax breaks?  By asking the wealthiest Americans to give back more to the nation that has given them so much opportunity?

Nope.  By their moral calculations, the answer is to demand sacrifice from the very Americans who are bearing the brunt of this recession, from people and communities who depend on public investment. 

Their moral compass tells them to cut vital programs to the bone or eliminate them altogether – food safety, family planning, health research, public housing, transportation infrastructure, college aid and on and on.  There was an article in my home newspaper over the weekend about how local health clinics could be devastated by these cuts.  California alone stands to lose nearly $13 million in homeland security grants that we need to train and equip first responders.

The Republican budget cuts also, according to one study, would destroy 700,000 jobs.  But that’s not keeping the Speaker up at night.  He sees Americans out of work and instead of saying “this is a moral threat”, he says: “So be it.”

In what moral universe does it make sense to destroy jobs at home but send more Americans to die in a senseless war abroad?

Programs like COPS and Head Start, which the majority wants to slash, save lives.  The war in Afghanistan, which isn’t even on the table in this budget debate, has ended almost 1,500 American lives.

Even our surviving servicemen and women will come home with devastating physical and psychological wounds.  And yet the majority party, so enthusiastic in its support for Afghanistan spending, wants to eliminate a homeless veterans initiative.  That’s their version of morality: send young Americans halfway around the world to be chewed up and traumatized…then pull the plug on the support they need when they get home.  That’s what they call supporting the troops.

The majority could kill the proverbial two birds with one stone if they wanted.  They could just about solve their moral crisis of federal debt -- by bringing our troops home and ending the moral stain on our nation that is the Afghanistan war.

Somehow, I’m not holding my breath.  Until the Speaker and my other Republican colleagues are prepared to show some moral courage on Afghanistan, I refuse to take their moral outrage about the deficit seriously.