What would Jesus cut?

Hmmm.

Florida lawmakers are slashing services to the poor with a rusty sling blade.

They do that rather than eliminate special-interest tax exemptions for corporations and wealthy residents.

Evangelical leaders such as Joel Hunter are questioning the morality of a regressive tax system that targets low-income residents, and then hits them with the deepest cuts.

It's a new twist on injecting Christian ideology into government.

And how better to press the case than with Jesus' own words:

Depart from me because I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me to drink, I was sick and you did not visit me. Whatever you neglected to do unto one of the least of these, you neglected to do unto me.

Would the "least of these" be the 8,000 terminal Medicaid patients who may be eliminated from hospice care because of budget cuts? In their final days do we deny them some small measure of comfort, even if it is nothing more than a caring face at the end?

Would the "least of these" be low-income transplant patients, whose medications are on the budget chopping block?

"People will die if we end up doing that," said state Sen. Steve Geller, D-Cooper City. "I guess maybe that will help the budget because dead people don't require services, but it is an unconscionable way of reducing the budget."

Your response?