Tag Archives: the poor

A Nation of Malingerers: from Welfare Queens to Disabled Deadbeats

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Paul Krugman remarks on the so far unsuccessful attempts Republicans are making in trying to change their rhetoric:

The growing number of Americans receiving disability payments has, for many on the right, become a symbol of our economic and moral decay; we’re becoming a nation of malingerers. As Jared Bernstein points out, there’s a factual problem here: a large part of the rise in the disability rolls reflects simple demographics, because aging baby boomers are a lot more likely to have real ailments than those same workers did when they were in their 20s and 30s. [...]

And let’s not forget our military veterans — fighting and getting wounded in the Bush Wars. They have also added to the disability rolls. Krugman continues:

What strikes me, however, isn’t just the way the right is trying to turn a reasonable development into some kind of outrage; it’s the political tone-deafness.

I mean, when Reagan ranted about welfare queens driving Cadillacs, he was inventing a fake problem — but his rant resonated with angry white voters, who understood perfectly well who Reagan was targeting. But Americans on disability as moochers? That isn’t, as far as I can tell, an especially nonwhite group — and it’s a group that is surely as likely to elicit sympathy as disdain. There’s just no way it can serve the kind of political purpose the old welfare-kicking rhetoric used to perform.

The same goes, more broadly, for the whole nation of takers thing. First of all, a lot of the “taking” involves Social Security and Medicare. And even the growth in means-tested programs is largely accounted for by the Earned Income Tax Credit — which requires and rewards work — and the expansion of Medicaid/CHIP to cover more children. Again, not the greatest of political targets.

Meanwhile, John Boehner jiggles a shiny thing at the GOP voting-base (which is filled to capacity with “malingerers”), to divert attention away from his party’s budget priorities:

In a special message to the annual anti-abortion protest March for Life, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) vowed that ending abortion would be one of the top priorities of Republicans this year.

“Defending life, of course, is about much more than voting the right way or saying the right things,” he said. “It’s about promoting a culture of life. It’s about understanding that abortion is a defining human rights issue of our time. Because human life is not an economic or political commodity, and no government on Earth has the right to treat it as such.”

“With all that’s at stake, it is becoming more and more important for us to share this truth with our young people, to encourage them to lock arms, speak out for life, and help make abortion a relic of the past,” Boehner continued. “Let that be one of our most fundamental goals this year.”

REALLY! Making abortion a relic is a “top priority” for Republicans this year? If that were true, Republicans would be funding Planned Parenthood and be supportive of educating young people on contraception – they’d be providing young people with free contraception, which has proved to be the best and most successful way to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies and abortions.

According to the GOP, life is sacred until it separates from the womb — it then joins the ranks of the makers or the takers.

Here’s something for the tax-paying ‘Mericans to keep in mind when sequestration hits in 32 days:


via seriouslyamerica

How conservatives think

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Source: end-the-republican-mafia

“The economy continues to conform to textbook Keynesianism. We still need more aggregate demand, and the Republican idea that tax cuts for the rich will save us becomes more ridiculous by the day. People will long remember Mitt Romney’s politically tone-deaf attack on half the nation’s population for being losers, leeches, and moochers because he accurately articulated the right-wing worldview. At least a few conservatives now recognize that Republicans suffer for epistemic closure. They were genuinely shocked at Romney’s loss because they ignored every poll not produced by a right-wing pollster such as Rasmussen or approved by right-wing pundits such as the perpetually wrong Dick Morris. Living in the Fox News cocoon, most Republicans had no clue that they were losing or that their ideas were both stupid and politically unpopular.” — Revenge of the Reality-Based Community

Only Romania beats the U.S. in the rate of childhood poverty

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At least we’re not the worst — we’re only second to worst. But we can start some wars, can’t we? ‘Merica!

U.S. Has Second-Highest Rate Of Childhood Poverty In Developed World, Only Romania Is Worse

Iceland has the lowest rate of relative childhood poverty in the developed world at 4.7 percent, closely followed by Finland (5.3 percent), Cyprus (6.1 percent), the Netherlands (6.1 percent ), Slovenia (6.3 percent) and Denmark (6.5 percent). Another eight countries — including France and Germany — have relative poverty rates between 7 percent and 10 percent, while a third group, including Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, post rates between 10 percent and 15 percent.

There are only two countries where more than 20 percent of children were found to be living in relative poverty: Romania and the United States.

[...] In November, the U.S. Census reported that children who live in poverty during their developmental years are more likely than their peers to have cognitive and behavioral difficulties, are less likely to complete a high school education, and statistically will experience more years of unemployment as an adult.

(via: recall-all-republicans-2012)

Let’s not forget how many children raised in poverty also roll straight into our country’s ever-expanding prison system, a system which is now conveniently being hired out as a cheap labor source to corporations, the “makers.”

One day in the future, other people’s children are going to be in charge of and / or have the ability to affect your life in countless ways. What kind of people do you want them to be? What are we building here?

Related: 

Video: Paul Ryan discussing America’s Makers and Takers

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“Right now, about 60 percent of the American people get more benefits, in dollar value, from the federal government than they pay back in taxes. So we’re going to a majority of takers vs. makers in America.” — Paul Ryan

Watch a collection of rarely seen video of Paul Ryan, explaining his Ayn Randian view that “many citizens are just takers, parasites who leech off productive citizens, the makers.”


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Mother Jones: “Ryan has also warned about President Barack Obama creating “more of a permanent class of government dependents”—language that echoes Romney’s take on the “47 percent who are with [Obama], who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.”

“As you can see in this series of charts, “government dependents” aren’t who you necessarily think they are. Many people who don’t pay federal income taxes are superrich or well off. Another 60 percent of Americans who don’t pay income tax are working; they just don’t make enough money to owe taxes. Most of the rest are retired folks, students, and members of the military serving in combat zones.”

Related: 

Romney supporter on the poor: “Give all the kids up for adoption and execute the parents”

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Christopher D. Cook was in Virginia and decided to duck inside a Romney campaign office ”for a quick dose of Romneyland.” He was met by a “silver-haired stocky gentleman” with a firm handshake, one of only three seniors manning the entire place. Here’s a small part of the conversation they had:

“No. No more help, enough is enough. People have to pick themselves up, take some responsibility. Why should we be paying for people’s mistakes and bad choices? All these illegitimate families just adding to the population, making all these bad decisions, then asking us to pay for it? It’s time to cut them off.”

I ask for some clarification: what do you mean, just starve them out? What if people can’t find work? Let them starve?

“Look, there’s always something you can do. You telling me people can’t make a choice for a better life? We have to help all of them? No. I’ll tell you what really need to do with these illegitimate families on welfare—give all the kids up for adoption and execute the parents.”

I stare at him and blink in a glaze of shock.

Just to be sure I heard him right, I ask him to repeat it, twice. Read more…

[h/t: seriouslyamerica]

Remember: these people voted in 2010 and they’ll be the first in line in November.

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The non-wealthy Republican voting base: when facts don’t register

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“One of the great wonders of the conservative movement is how effectively they’ve constructed this inverted narrative in which the rich are victims, and the poor are perpetrators. They’ve managed to convince tens of millions of decent Americans—many of them poor—to ignore any evidence that contradicts this worldview. You can jump up and down and scream, ‘Hey, the Americans who don’t pay income tax are dirt poor, or serve in the military, or are aged!’ Or, ‘Listen, the top ten percent of our country controls 75 percent of our wealth, while the bottom half controls 1.1 percent!’ These are factual statements. But they don’t register. The reality conservatives cling to resides in their hearts. The poor wind up poor not because they lack access to opportunity—to good education and good jobs—or because they lose their jobs, or get sick, but because they’re parasites. The rich are rich not because they were born that way, not because they’ve rigged the system in their favor, or because they’re ruthless or unethical, but because they’re braver and more noble than the rest of us.” — Steve Almond (via: azspot)

The rich work hard at wanting more. And with the GOP, that hard work always pays off.

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Sally Kohn in Salon unpacks Romney’s “47 percent” crack, and what it means, specifically, to the Republican Party and their wealthy benefactors:

Now, what’s interesting is that, while complaining that poor people don’t pay enough in taxes, conservatives also complain that the wealthy pay too much.  They do this by focusing on the absolute dollar amount paid, as opposed to percentage.  So, for instance, when Warren Buffett states that he pays lower taxes than his secretary, conservatives protest.  Buffet pays far more in actual dollars, they argue.

Which is, of course, true — 1 percent of $1 billion is $10 million whereas 40 percent of $100,000 is only $40,000.   In absolute dollars, sure, the billionaire is paying far, far more than the middle-class family, let alone a poor family.  Yes, conservatives are right, the top 10 percent of Americans pay more than half of the nation’s total tax revenues — but that’s because the top 10 percent enjoy more than half of the nation’s income.  And that gulf of inequality is only growing.

But does anyone really think the richest of the rich should pay an effective 1 percent income tax rate while the middle class pays 40 percent?

Oh wait, right — Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan think that’s a grand idea!  Under Paul Ryan’s budget plan, which Mitt Romney endorsed, taxes for the middle class would go up while tax rates for millionaires and billionaires would be slashed to unprecedented lows.  And under this tax plan Mitt Romney, who currently pays a less-than-fair share of 15 percent would pay just 0.82% percent in taxes.

In other words, it appears Mitt Romney isn’t angry that desperately poor people don’t pay taxes — he’s jealous!

Read more…

The rich work hard at wanting more. And with the GOP, that hard work always pays off.

Who are the shiftless moochers Romney isn’t going to worry about?

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think-progress: Attention Mitt Romney: Who’s part of the 47 percent…

America’s moochers: those who get $77,000 tax deductions on dancing horses

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Or you could say those millionaires / billionaires who evade taxes with offshore bank accounts in the Caymans, Switzerland, and Bermuda are actually the ones who feel “entitled” and feel like “victims” and pay no income tax. Aren’t those people mooching off the system, off the federal government? They get all the benefits without the same financial investment that’s being made by working and middle class people.

Aevrage Household income before taxes.
chart: It’s the Inequality, Stupid | Mother Jones

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Meanwhile John Green has an excellent summary of who doesn’t pay federal income taxes and why:

How many people don’t pay federal income tax in the US?

Lots of people. The 47% stat is accurate, as long as you only count federal income taxes. (More than 85% of Americans under 65 pay either income tax, federal payroll tax, or both—and almost all Americans who own land and/or buy things pay state and local taxes.)

Who are these people?

Many elderly people who live off social security pay no income tax (social security benefits are only taxable if your total income is over $25,000 a year). Only about 25% of Americans over the age of 75 pay federal income tax, but it’s important to remember that most of them did pay federal income tax when they were working.

Also, many young adults pay no income taxes, because they are full-time students or have very low incomes. You can see a chart here that shows that about 30% of 18-year-olds pay federal income tax, while over 65% of people in their 40s do.

People living in poverty are also unlikely to pay federal income taxes. A married couple filing jointly making under $18,700 annually pays no income taxes. But it’s worth noting that in 1996, 99.5% of all nontaxable returns came from people making less than $30,000 a year. Today, that number is closer to 76%.

The fastest growing segment of Americans who pay no tax are those who earn between $75,000 and $100,000 each year. As explained here, there’s been a 12,000% increase in nontaxable returns in this income category thanks to middle income tax cuts and tax credits introduced by both George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

I would say bull to that one, though. Or, I wish — because it isn’t true in my situation. And btw, if Romney-Ryan get their way, all those tax credits and cuts would go bye-bye in order to finance the expansion of tax cuts they’d like to give the wealthy (which also happens to include themselves). More John Green:

[...] This is the case for most Americans: Romney’s comments implied that the same 47% of Americans pay no federal income taxes every year. In fact, the members of that 47% are constantly changing as people age into and out of the work force.

[...] In fact, the number of Americans who feel the government should provide health care and food to those in need is much higher than 47%. 76% of Americans (including a majority of Republicans) favor medicaid, the program that offers health care to the poor. A majority of Americans also believe medicare, the program that offers health care to the elderly, is worth its cost. And more than three quarters of Americans support the federal food stamp program that provides food to low-income and elderly people.

And here are more facts that are also relevant to Romney’s claim: Mother Jones: In light of Mitt Romney’s now-infamous statement about the “47 percent,” it’s worth taking a look at which states actually benefit the most from federal taxes.

Which states? Yep, the Mitt Romney supportin’, GOP lovin’ Red States. Why won’t they take more personal responsibility?

Stockholm Syndrome victims for Romney!

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via: tosdoh


Reference

7 states that could decide the election: CO, FL, IA, OH, NV, NH, VA

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That is, if the Voter ID laws in other states don’t turn things around for Romney…

While Obama has a clear advantage given his incumbency, Romney does have a path to victory — though it’s a steep climb. He must win most of the seven most competitive states — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire and Virginia — in order to reach the magic number. For instance, he can lose Ohio’s 18 electoral votes and still become president if he wins the other six and hangs onto those already in his grasp. It’s difficult to see a scenario where Romney wins without a victory in Florida, which offers 29 electoral votes. — Obama-Romney race is focused on 7 states – SFGat

THE GOO-GOO SYNDROME: Paul Weyrich, father of the right-wing movement and co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority and various other groups tells his flock that he doesn’t want people to vote. Here’s the problem with fundies in politics:


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Which of the 7 states above have Voter ID laws?


via: NCSL

Mike Turzai: “Voter ID, which is gonna allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, DONE.” Watch:


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Here is how the Justice Department explains Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: “…a nationwide prohibition against voting practices and procedures, including redistricting plans and at-large election systems, poll worker hiring, and voter registration procedures, that discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in a language minority group. It prohibits not only election-related practices and procedures that are intended to be racially discriminatory, but also those that are shown to have a racially discriminatory impact.”

RNC Platform Formally Backs Voter ID Laws — The GOP platform committee adopted language on Tuesday supporting states that have passed voter ID and proof of citizenship laws. The citizenship amendment, proposed by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), would support laws that make voters prove their citizenship before they are allowed on the voter rolls.

Voter ID laws: Why do minorities lack ID to show at the polls? – Slate Magazine — Because a lot of minorities don’t have much use for them. The most common voter ID is a driver’s license, and minorities are less likely to drive… Minorities are less likely to have driver’s licenses because they are more likely to be poor and to live in urban areas. If you can’t afford a car, or if you don’t need one because you take the bus or subway, you are less likely to have a driver’s license. Students are less likely to have driver’s licenses for the same reasons (plus the fact that they can sometimes rely on student IDs, and may just have not gotten around to getting a driver’s license yet). [...] Of course, minority voters aren’t the only group likely to be disenfranchised. Seniors, for example, are also less likely to drive. Academic studies suggest that voter ID laws do probably reduce turnout, both among Democrats and Republicans, but not by more than about 2 percent.

“… What makes the voter ID law special is that they propose to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. We have empirical data proving that essentially no one is showing up to the polls and impersonating a legally registered voter. Runaway slave laws were racist and wrong, but at least there occasionally was a runaway slave!” — Bill Maher, from his Friday night monologue, via: Daily Kos 

The Real Cost of Voter Id Laws — In 2011, Republicans have advanced photo ID legislation in at least 35 states. The report concluded that if these 35 states enact a photo ID law, they collectively will spend at least $276 million, and possibly as much as $828 million, in the first four years alone. At a time when states are experiencing huge budget shortfalls, it would be an enormous waste to spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to disenfranchise voters.

“Cockblock the vote”/ “Paid for by people who want Romney to win”

‘There’s a conspiracy among those who want to steal the election,’ says Jennifer Granholm — In Texas, a gun permit is a valid voter ID, but a university ID is not. Wait, what? Jennifer Granholm says the system of catch-22s and unconstitutional fees being enacted by Republicans who claim to be fighting voter fraud is having a very real effect on real people whose votes are being suppressed. “By using this pretense of voter fraud and the weapon of voter ID laws, the Republicans are systematically snatching away people’s rights,” Granholm says.

The Startling Urban Dynamic in Pennsylvania’s Voter ID Law

Something big is happening in Philadelphia ahead of this fall’s presidential election – the first in the state since a stringent new Voter ID law was passed earlier this year – although people there concerned about it are having a maddeningly hard time putting their finger on the precise size of the problem. The city has just over 1 million registered voters. About 800,000 of them are considered “active.” […]

The Pennsylvania Department of State recently released two lists of the Pennsylvania residents whose state IDs have expired since last November (and thus can’t be used to verify their identity at the polls this fall), as well as a list of the active voters whose names don’t match up with the PennDOT database as currently having an ID. This second list is terribly sloppy (one database spells names like McCormack as “Mc Cormack,” and there’s all kinds of chaos with hyphens and apostrophes). But nonetheless, the best official data available suggests that as many as 280,000 voters in Philadelphia may need to get an ID between now and November to have their votes counted.

“Nearly 500,000 eligible voters in 10 states with restrictive voter ID laws live in households without vehicles and reside at least 10 miles from an ID-issuing office open more than two days a week, a new Brennan Center for Justice study found. Because many of these voters may not have driver’s licenses — and nearly all live in rural areas with dwindling public transportation options — it could be significantly harder for them to get an ID and cast a ballot. The Brennan Center’s study undercuts the claim by many politicians in restrictive ID states that eligible voters can easily obtain a free ID to vote. A federal court considered this issue last week during a trial over Texas’s voter ID law, and Pennsylvania’s ID law will go before a state judge next Wednesday…. The Center’s research shows 1 in 10 eligible voters lack the necessary government-issued photo ID required by new restrictive voter ID laws, including 25 percent of African-Americans and 18 percent of Americans over 65.” — Study: 500,000 Americans Could Face Significant Challenges to Obtain Photo ID to Vote | Brennan Center for Justice

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On the GOP: “The capture of one of our great parties by fanatics is nothing to celebrate.”

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Robert Reich laments the insanity that has taken over the Republican Party (emphasis below is mine):

We’re witnessing the capture by fanatics of what was once a great and important American political party. 

The Republican Party platform committee now includes a provision calling for a constitutional amendment banning all abortions, without an exception for rape or incest. This is basically Missouri senatorial candidate Todd Akin’s position. (At least the GOP platform doesn’t assert that women’s bodies automatically reject “legitimate” rapists’ sperm.)

Paul Ryan, Romney’s selection for vice president, has co-sponsored 38 anti-abortion measures while in the House of Representatives, including several containing no exception for pregnancies caused by rape or incest. 

But the GOP’s fanaticism goes far beyond the its growing absolutism about abortion.

Ryan’s proposed budget, approved by almost all House Republicans, is also an exercise in fanaticism. It replaces Medicare with vouchers that won’t possibly keep up with rising healthcare costs — thereby shifting costs directly on to the elderly. 

That budget also harms the poor and rewards the rich, but does little or nothing to reduce the federal budget deficit. Over 60 percent of its spending cuts come out of programs for lower-income Americans. Its tax cuts for the rich reduce revenues by $4.6 trillion over the decade while saving the typical millionaire hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

The GOP’s looniness doesn’t even stop there. Republicans remain unwaivering in their support of state laws allowing or encouraging the profiling of Latinos. And unrelenting in their war against gay rights. 

It’s not just women, seniors, budget hawks, the poor, Latinos, and gays who are catching on to the Republicans’ extremism. Americans who don’t fall into one of these categories are becoming alarmed, too — as they should.*

Although the GOP lurch to the right-wing margin of America may bode well for Democrats this coming Election Day, it bodes ill for America. The capture of one of our great parties by fanatics is nothing to celebrate. A democracy needs at least two sane political parties.

*See: GOP War on the Middle Class: the RNC dumps support for the mortgage interest deduction

THIS is what voter fraud looks like

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Source: sandandglass

 
 
 
 

Source: sandandglass


via: sarahlee310

ProPublica: Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Voter ID Laws: A must-read for conservatives who absurdly claim our country suffers from widespread voter fraud, and the consequences of voter ID laws for the poor and elderly.

GOTTAVOTE.COM

Don’t negotiate with terrorists.

ATTENTION ALL NEW YORKERS: ….You can now register to vote ONLINE. No leaving the house, no trips to the DMV, no forms to mail away. It only takes a couple of minutes. Please register and help spread the word!

thesoapboxschtick: In the face of nation-wide republican efforts to suppress voting rights, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed a bill allowing New York State residents to register to vote online.

The form is available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Bengali.

Not from NY? Online voter registration is also available in these states:

  • Arizona
  • Colorado
  • Indiana
  • Kansas
  • Louisiana
  • Nevada
  • Oregon
  • Utah
  • Washington

“Today, we are knocking down longstanding barriers that have prevented many New Yorkers from participating in the democratic process, while creating a more streamlined and more efficient system that will save taxpayers’ money.” -Andrew Cuomo