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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

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But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

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Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

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Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

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Celebrate the fucking wins.

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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Working As Intended, Folks

Working As Intended, Folks

by Zandar|  April 8, 201211:43 am| 104 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Fables Of The Reconstruction, Republican Venality, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome, Assholes, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell, Decline and Fall, Our Awesome Meritocracy, The Math Demands It

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This Easter Sunday, the NY Times has this Jason DeParle story on red states shredding welfare safety nets and the people who keep falling through them.

Faced with flat federal financing and rising need, Arizona is one of 16 states that have cut their welfare caseloads further since the start of the recession — in its case, by half. Even as it turned away the needy, Arizona spent most of its federal welfare dollars on other programs, using permissive rules to plug state budget gaps.

The poor people who were dropped from cash assistance here, mostly single mothers, talk with surprising openness about the desperate, and sometimes illegal, ways they make ends meet. They have sold food stamps, sold blood, skipped meals, shoplifted, doubled up with friends, scavenged trash bins for bottles and cans and returned to relationships with violent partners — all with children in tow.

Esmeralda Murillo, a 21-year-old mother of two, lost her welfare check, landed in a shelter and then returned to a boyfriend whose violent temper had driven her away. “You don’t know who to turn to,” she said.

Maria Thomas, 29, with four daughters, helps friends sell piles of brand-name clothes, taking pains not to ask if they are stolen. “I don’t know where they come from,” she said. “I’m just helping get rid of them.”

To keep her lights on, Rosa Pena, 24, sold the groceries she bought with food stamps and then kept her children fed with school lunches and help from neighbors. Her post-welfare credo is widely shared: “I’ll do what I have to do.”

And as any conservative can tell you, this is working 100% as intended.  If those on welfare turn to crime, then it’s clearly permissible to cut welfare even further to stop coddling these criminals, and then of course pass those savings through tax cuts on to the Almighty Job Creators, who will then certainly create more jobs and uplift these broken souls back into society.  Any time now, those jobs will be just pouring out.  Yep.

Of course without that vital last part, it becomes and endless conveyor belt to transfer wealth to the wealthy and drive the poor into other states (preferably blue ones) where they become somebody else’s problem.  Meanwhile, red states like Arizona get to claim they’ve cut welfare rolls and that the rest of America needs to follow their success.

Meanwhile, the expensive private prison conglomerates designed to incarcerate the increasingly desperate among us costing taxpayers far more per person than the welfare did in the first place is beside the point, that money’s well spent because we’re tough on crime.  Certainly the GOP is licking their chops at the latest iteration of the House GOP budget, turning safety net programs into block grants they can raid for even more tax cuts and wealth transfer.  And if the GOP gets control, guess what’s happening to these programs in the future?

Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the top House Republican on budget issues, calls the current welfare program “an unprecedented success.” Mitt Romney, who leads the race for the Republican presidential nomination, has said he would place similar restrictions on “all these federal programs.” One of his rivals, Rick Santorum, calls the welfare law a source of spiritual rejuvenation.

“It didn’t just cut the rolls, but it saved lives,” Mr. Santorum said, giving the poor “something dependency doesn’t give: hope.”

As in “hope God chose you to be rich, because otherwise you’re screwed.”  Happy Easter Hunger Games from the GOP.  Don’t worry, when you die, your suffering will be rewarded in the next life.  Oh wait, it won’t because you were poor and wasted your life so you obviously sinned, so it’s okay if we kick your face in a few more times.

Like I said, working as intended.

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Previous Post: « Sunday Morning Open Thread: All Hail the Easter Bilby!
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Reader Interactions

104Comments

  1. 1.

    Schlemizel

    April 8, 2012 at 11:48 am

    As much as I appreciate the fact that the Big Dog knew how to fight against the GOP President Clinton has to take the hit for making this easy for them to do.

    I hope to see an actual Democrat in the Oval Office in my life time but he or she will have at least 40 years of evil or half-hearted work to undo.

  2. 2.

    Elizabelle

    April 8, 2012 at 11:49 am

    The Hunger Games as metaphor for the US.

    Harry Potter, with magic and possibilities, in the UK.

    And all those good Christians, sitting on their rumps in church today, thinking on how they are exemplars of Jesus’s love in action.

    (Sigh. Got to go get ready for Mass. Only because the elderly mom loves to go. I hope I don’t hear anything about how special — and sometimes misunderstood and persecuted — us Catholics are.)

  3. 3.

    Tommy D

    April 8, 2012 at 11:50 am

    And how sweet that the NYTimes web site put the DeParle story right next to the Super-compensated CEO story.

  4. 4.

    rikyrah

    April 8, 2012 at 11:50 am

    you are absolutely on point.

    this is who they are, plain and simple.

    and, we need to point that out – over and over.

  5. 5.

    WyldPirate

    April 8, 2012 at 11:50 am

    No worries. Republican Jeebus will provide.

  6. 6.

    Gex

    April 8, 2012 at 11:55 am

    Better yet, this helps keep the women and children in the ownership of the abusive men that are by all rights their “masters.” All as God intended.

    @Elizabelle: I think of it as the day everyone uses as an excuse to be fucking assholes to gay people.

  7. 7.

    c u n d gulag

    April 8, 2012 at 11:55 am

    Completely planned!

    Neatly planned!

    And well executed.

    Now, of only we could say the same about the demise of these heartless fiends.

    I have one word for everyone:
    Guillotines.

    Happy Easter, for the believers out there!

    And have a nice Sunday, my fellow heathens.

  8. 8.

    HgMn

    April 8, 2012 at 11:59 am

    Why is this not self-correcting ?

    At this point you would think if you are either poor, black, brown or female then you would vote Democrat – I just don’t get why the republican vote is higher than 27%.
    – anybody want to guess what the republican vote share will be come November?

  9. 9.

    ppcli

    April 8, 2012 at 12:00 pm

    There is so much to be furious about in that article. But this is one of them:

    Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution, who helped draft the 1996 law as an aide to House Republicans and argues that it has worked well for most recipients.

    “The issue here is, can you create a strong work program, as we did, without creating a big problem at the bottom?” Mr. Haskins said. “And we have what appears to be a big problem at the bottom.”

    He added, “This is what really bothers me: the people who supported welfare reform, they’re ignoring the problem.”

    Don’t be coy, Mr. Haskins. You knew damn well what would happen to the people on the bottom. Now that it’s becoming too awful to ignore, and the New York Times comes calling, you’re suddenly shocked, shocked at this inevitable and completely anticipated consequence of your handiwork. Nobody is fooled.

  10. 10.

    Jay in Oregon

    April 8, 2012 at 12:04 pm

    @HgMn:

    That is assuming that, as a poor dark-skinned or penis-deprived citizen, the GOP will allow them to vote. The recent push for voter ID laws everywhere didn’t come out of nowhere; they think that every time a poor person votes Democratic, Satan wins.

    The part that I find mystifying is that the GOP and the 1% think that the poor people will just quietly toddle off and die in the ditch, out of the sight of their betters.

    Because the French Revolution never happened, nor did the Bolshevik Revolution.

  11. 11.

    alicia-logic

    April 8, 2012 at 12:05 pm

    Why does the name Jean Valjean come to mind?

  12. 12.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik

    April 8, 2012 at 12:05 pm

    Feel that Predestination, baby.

  13. 13.

    Neldob

    April 8, 2012 at 12:09 pm

    Cool. Now all we have to do is seal the borders to Arizona with a giant electric fence and watch the satellite images. Maybe I’ve had too much coffee.

  14. 14.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    April 8, 2012 at 12:09 pm

    @HgMn: As a general rule, the poor vote in very low numbers.

  15. 15.

    SatanicPanic

    April 8, 2012 at 12:13 pm

    Being hungry gives you hope? Fuck you Santorum.

  16. 16.

    Bret

    April 8, 2012 at 12:14 pm

    ‎”Fuck the poor.” – I Corinthians 14:6

  17. 17.

    Corner Stone

    April 8, 2012 at 12:17 pm

    @HgMn:

    anybody want to guess what the republican vote share will be come November?

    I think the floor will be about 47% and the top somewhere around 48.5%.
    If that’s what you were hinting at.

  18. 18.

    Luthe

    April 8, 2012 at 12:17 pm

    @HgMn: What do you think all those “Voter ID” laws are for? The GOP wants to make sure the poors and the browns can’t vote.

  19. 19.

    gene108

    April 8, 2012 at 12:17 pm

    Almighty Job Creators

    I am sure many Job Creators want to employ Esmirelda, Rosa, and Maria, but are those three really worth $7.25/hr?

    I think it’s time to realize the minimum wage depresses job creation and ties the hands of Job Creators.

    The reality is that once welfare is cut people should go back to the work force, but they can’t because the government is imposing an artificial barrier on Job Creators.

    Also, too you may wonder, if someone can live on $2/hr? Well I say they do a fine job of it all over the world on a lot loss. Sure the standard of living will go down in some places, but it beats people sucking on the government teat and will teach them the morals they need to succeed, such as hard work and taking responsibility for ones actions.

  20. 20.

    Corner Stone

    April 8, 2012 at 12:19 pm

    Haven’t seen others mention it, am I the only one who has lost the comment box tools like blockquote and italics?

  21. 21.

    piratedan

    April 8, 2012 at 12:23 pm

    well the idea seems to be, if we can make enough poor people homeless and transitory, then they can’t prove that they’re citizens and then they can’t vote for democrats equals WIN!

  22. 22.

    chrome agnomen

    April 8, 2012 at 12:24 pm

    ‘ladies and gentlemen, compassionate conservatism at work!’

  23. 23.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    April 8, 2012 at 12:26 pm

    That’s OK, when you go to the link, the first word you see is “illegal” under the picture at the top. No conservative I would want to show that to would even get past that word.

  24. 24.

    ruemara

    April 8, 2012 at 12:27 pm

    @Schlemizel: How does your initial statement jibe with the rest of your sentence? If the Big Dog knew how to fight the GOP, then this WOULD NOT HAVE PASSED. Nor DOMA nor DADT.

  25. 25.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    April 8, 2012 at 12:30 pm

    @Elizabelle: Happy Hunger games, indeed. May the odds be in your favor.

  26. 26.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    April 8, 2012 at 12:31 pm

    @Elizabelle: I keep trying to get my kids to write a paper on how Doctor Who relates to England and Batman relates to the US.

  27. 27.

    BigSouthern

    April 8, 2012 at 12:31 pm

    And the more this happens, the more they push marginal people out of these states, and the Redder these states become, ensuring two Republican in the Senate per and the appropriated amount in the House in perpetuity.

    And suffer the rest of us.

  28. 28.

    Phil Perspective

    April 8, 2012 at 12:38 pm

    @ppcli: And can we please stop calling Brookings a center-left think-tank. it was never, ever center-left. It’s not as insane as Heritage or AEI but it was never, ever center-left.

  29. 29.

    punkdavid

    April 8, 2012 at 12:38 pm

    @gene108: Truly snarktastic, Gene.

  30. 30.

    BigSouthern

    April 8, 2012 at 12:39 pm

    @ruemara:

    Thank you for this. Clinton was able to fend off Republicans on a few issues, but when it came to some of the important stuff his true skill was for polishing GOP turds and calling it gold. He was the one who boasted about “ending welfare as we know it,” after all.

  31. 31.

    Ben Cisco (mobile)

    April 8, 2012 at 12:39 pm

    @gene108: If this is snarling, masterfully done.

    If not, fuck you, the horse you rode in on, and the barn the horse was raises in.

  32. 32.

    dr. bloor

    April 8, 2012 at 12:40 pm

    If anything turns me into a theist, it’s going to be the fervent desire that hell actually does exist. The looks on the faces of these sanctimonious, hate-filled greedheads as they get sorted into various circles of hell would be priceless.

  33. 33.

    Ben Cisco (mobile)

    April 8, 2012 at 12:46 pm

    @gene108: It seems it was snark. Too good

  34. 34.

    Alison

    April 8, 2012 at 12:46 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent): You know…I thought I remembered that the Public Editor dude at the NYT said a while back they were changing their internal rules and would no longer use the term “illegal immigrant(s)”. I wonder if that only applied to the editorial pages? Because I still see it in their regular articles a lot, and every time am disappointed…

  35. 35.

    Rome Again

    April 8, 2012 at 12:47 pm

    I’ve seen lots of dumpster divers while I’m doing my route in Phoenix, (I’ve started taking nosegays with me to keep the awful smells away) but I’ve NEVER seen one with a child in tow. While I agree that most of the activities mentioned are often done with children following closely behind, dumpster diving probably isn’t one of them (and thank goodness for that!).

  36. 36.

    OzoneR

    April 8, 2012 at 12:47 pm

    You all seem to think that the reaction among most Americans won’t be “fuck these people, they did it to themselves”

  37. 37.

    SuzieC

    April 8, 2012 at 12:52 pm

    @Luthe:

    Right. And another benefit to incarcerating the poor is that many states disenfranchise convicted felons.

  38. 38.

    OzoneR

    April 8, 2012 at 12:53 pm

    @gene108:

    Well I say they do a fine job of it all over the world on a lot loss. Sure the standard of living will go down in some places, but it beats people sucking on the government teat and will teach them the morals they need to succeed, such as hard work and taking responsibility for ones actions.

    this is a joke, right?

  39. 39.

    J. Michael Neal

    April 8, 2012 at 12:57 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent): The nine alignments of Batman.

  40. 40.

    Corner Stone

    April 8, 2012 at 12:58 pm

    @Rome Again:

    but I’ve NEVER seen one with a child in tow. While I agree that most of the activities mentioned are often done with children following closely behind, dumpster diving probably isn’t one of them (and thank goodness for that!).

    Does this somehow make the dumpster diving more or less acceptable?

  41. 41.

    d0n camillo

    April 8, 2012 at 1:03 pm

    @OzoneR:

    this is a joke, right?

    It is. The correct grammar and spelling is a giveaway. The sad thing is that there are a lot of people who seem to think this way, and some of them are in a position to do something about it.

  42. 42.

    gene108

    April 8, 2012 at 1:06 pm

    @d0n camillo:

    I thought the use of “Also, too” would be a give away…how many trolls are familiar with the BJ Lexicon?

    And yes, there are a lot of very serious people, making very serious statements, who think that doing away with the minimum wage will usher in an era of prosperity for all.

    There really is a slippery slope with these guys, with regards to the fact they want to take us back to the Guilded Age, in terms of law, standard of living and taxation. They really have trouble realizing how and why the labor movement, for example, of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (a) existed and (b) became so damn popular.

  43. 43.

    Bubblegum Tate

    April 8, 2012 at 1:07 pm

    Fuck these goddamn GOP assholes. Fuck them. They are just terrible people. And then they have the gall to act like they’re the definition of benevolence.

  44. 44.

    piratedan

    April 8, 2012 at 1:08 pm

    @gene108: good quality snark that is painfully close to the truth, well done.

  45. 45.

    Yutsano

    April 8, 2012 at 1:13 pm

    @piratedan: I have to make my snark obvious. It kind of ruins the fun.

  46. 46.

    El Cid

    April 8, 2012 at 1:16 pm

    It was so terribly offensive when Alan Grayson said that Republicans’ plan help with health care was to not get sick and if you did, die quickly.

    I think Politifact should score this blog post as Two and a Half Stalins.

  47. 47.

    WereBear

    April 8, 2012 at 1:17 pm

    They are expendable.

    It’s the long version, and the short version.

  48. 48.

    piratedan

    April 8, 2012 at 1:20 pm

    @Yutsano: I know, that fact that gene’s been here at least as long as I have and made them question their credentials as a possible troll was a bit of a surprise, but then again, the commentariat can be used as a force for ebil if you step on the appropriate landmine around here and have issues with your phrasing.

  49. 49.

    El Cid

    April 8, 2012 at 1:23 pm

    By the way, I love the continuing attitude that ‘cutting welfare rolls’ is somehow difficult.

    It’s amazing how throwing people off (by time-limiting, defunding, canceling, disqualifying, whatever) any aid causes that aid program to be aiding fewer people.

    Sure, in earlier decades “cutting welfare rolls” might have implied somehow making people better off so they didn’t need the aid, but it’s just political and journalistic malpractice (in fact but in context “best procedures”) to pretend like “cutting welfare rolls” automatically implies “making people better off”.

    It’s like celebrating a homeless shelter reducing homelessness because there are fewer homeless people in the shelter each night, without noting that they accomplished this miracle by turning more people away.

    Or that a cancer ward suddenly increased the life expectancy of its patients by 30% without mentioning that it was refusing to treat the worst-off patients.

    Wow! Really? You were able to reduce the numbers of people receiving aid? Wow! That’s so difficult! How could you have accomplished that? My gosh! You must be smart!

  50. 50.

    YoohooCthulhu

    April 8, 2012 at 1:23 pm

    Of course without that vital last part, it becomes and endless conveyor belt to transfer wealth to the wealthy and drive the poor into other states (preferably blue ones) where they become somebody else’s problem.

    It’s not just red states/blue states, it’s red counties/cities and blue counties/cities. As someone who lives in San Francisco, this bothers me to no end…almost inevitably when I talk to homeless guys here, they’re from somewhere inland that lacks homeless shelters, has more aggressive panhandling laws.

    If your state/city/county is exporting homeless or poor people, you’re not solving the problem, assholes.

  51. 51.

    El Cid

    April 8, 2012 at 1:25 pm

    Also, people forget that our nation’s best music came out of the disastrous legacy of sharecropping, Jim Crow’s new slavery, forced prison labor, millhands’ starving, workers being shot down, and the like.

    If we’d only let people return to bleeding, brute, publicly offensive levels of grinding poverty, think of the explosion of artistic creativity we’d be in for!

  52. 52.

    El Cid

    April 8, 2012 at 1:27 pm

    The Onion continues its crusade of pre-cog satire:

    Sweeping New Labor Reforms Allow Foxconn Employees To Work In Inhumane Conditions From Home

  53. 53.

    Mark S.

    April 8, 2012 at 1:31 pm

    @El Cid:

    Are you Tyler Cowen
    ?

  54. 54.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik

    April 8, 2012 at 1:32 pm

    @El Cid:

    The Onion has gone from Satire to Psychic.

  55. 55.

    magurakurin

    April 8, 2012 at 1:33 pm

    @HgMn: Because people don’t vote. The Republican share of votes doesn’t get above 27% when you look at it as a proportion of voting age population. The voting age population in 2008 was 231 million people. Mccain got 59 million votes or about 26%. Obama got 69 million or around 30%. The rest didn’t vote.

    People don’t vote. Big problem in a democracy. Hell some of the naderesaque trotskyites on here boast how they won’t vote. Poor people barely finding enough to eat everyday aren’t tuned into politics. They should be, but grinding poverty has its own agenda.

    So yeah, as the post says, working as planned. More poor people, less voters, good for the GOP.

  56. 56.

    Abstruse

    April 8, 2012 at 1:35 pm

    Feature, not bug.

  57. 57.

    slim's tuna provider

    April 8, 2012 at 1:40 pm

    @gene108: what’s scary is that they don’t really want to go back to the gilded age, but actually want something worse. the labor-capital struggle in edwardian times was really about capital needing labor and therefore being terrified of it. the other big part of it was that as labor (and, in places like the russian empire, people like sailors and army NCOs) became more technically proficient, educated, and mobile, they refused to accept capital’s demands. with the fact that at least for the moment, a large portion of capital is doing just fine in a demand slump, and with the use of outsourcing (which is inefficient, but for the moment beats dealing with truly enfranchised labor), the equation is not in labor’s favor… better students of history feel free to correct.

  58. 58.

    Jay in Oregon

    April 8, 2012 at 1:44 pm

    @magurakurin:

    And isn’t it funny how programs aimed at getting poor people and minorities registered to vote and to the polls, like ACORN, are finding themselves targets of the right-wing hate machine?

    It’s almost like they have an agenda…

  59. 59.

    slim's tuna provider

    April 8, 2012 at 1:44 pm

    in moderation! is it because i said “edwardian”?

  60. 60.

    Jess

    April 8, 2012 at 1:46 pm

    OT (sort of), but I’ve been reading Showdown by David Corn, about Obama’s battles with the right wing after the 2010 elections. It’s quite interesting–I recommend it.

  61. 61.

    Jesse

    April 8, 2012 at 1:48 pm

    @OzoneR: I think there’s quite a lot of evidence that that is indeed the view of many, as evidenced by the people that are elected and represent them. If it were really such a rare thing, why do we keep constantly hearing about one proposal after the next to undermine further and further what sheds of the public support currently exists in the US? Not to mention the actual enactment of such views.

    Sigh.

  62. 62.

    BethanyAnne

    April 8, 2012 at 1:58 pm

    @El Cid: The Depression created hair metal?

  63. 63.

    Tonal Crow

    April 8, 2012 at 1:58 pm

    You forgot to mention the story’s irony of ironies:

    Arizona spends most of the federal [welfare] money on other human service programs…while using just one-third for cash benefits and work programs — the core purposes of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
    __
    “Yes we divert — divert’s a bad word,” said State Representative John Kavanagh, a Republican and chairman of the Arizona House Appropriations Committee. “It helps the state.”

    Yes, that’s right — Republicans in Arizona are enthusiastically sucking the federal welfare tit to prop up their no-new-taxes ideology at the expense of taxpaying liberals in the blue states.

    ETA: Every day I become more convinced that Grant and Sherman didn’t kick enough traitor ass.

  64. 64.

    pseudonymous in nc

    April 8, 2012 at 2:10 pm

    If those on welfare turn to crime, then it’s clearly permissible to cut welfare even further to stop coddling these criminals

    And it’s also permissable to agree nice big corrupt contracts with private companies for prison services, because as we all know, prison is the welfare system that middle-class white America is okay paying for.

  65. 65.

    Cacti

    April 8, 2012 at 2:11 pm

    That’s not even the worst that’s happened here in sand land.

    Last year, our governor and wingnut state leg were willing to let 6 people on the AHCCCS (state insurance) organ transplant list die in the name of cutting the state budget deficit by 1%.

  66. 66.

    Schlemizel

    April 8, 2012 at 2:14 pm

    @ruemara:
    I have a very good friend who is a libertarian – he would like to be a Republican but is put off by the racism, misogyny and general dickishness. He was the first to point out that Bill was the best Republican of his lifetime. And as I look back at the Republicans of my youth, guys like Rockefeller I can see his point. Many of the policies of Clinton (the destruction of the social safety net for instance) and Obama (ACA was a GOP plan until the Dems proposed it) are only non-Republican because the GOP has gone so far off the rails.

    The whole debate is out of whack.

  67. 67.

    Mnemosyne

    April 8, 2012 at 2:29 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    The Hunger Games as metaphor for the US.

    I will freely admit to not having read the book or seen the film (yet), but isn’t the underlying theme of The Hunger Games that adults are selling out the kids for their own comfort and benefit?

    I can see why people who dislike the violence of the book/film are unable to really argue against the vision of the US in it.

  68. 68.

    Amir Khalid

    April 8, 2012 at 2:34 pm

    @Tonal Crow:
    I’m wondering about this: how does a state like Arizona get away with diverting federal funds meant for cash assistance to the poor? Don’t the federal regs specify that money provided to a state for a particular purpose actually be used as the federal government intends?

  69. 69.

    El Cid

    April 8, 2012 at 2:38 pm

    @BethanyAnne: No, of course not. Only God could have created Hair Metal, either Him or the other guy.

  70. 70.

    Whatsleft

    April 8, 2012 at 2:39 pm

    Don’t forget that Our Noble Job Creators are being stymied by Economic Uncertainty and Job-Killing Regulations. Until that is fixed, we must All Suffer – as God intended. (Suffer the poor, suffer the little children or something like that)

  71. 71.

    Corner Stone

    April 8, 2012 at 2:40 pm

    @El Cid:

    I think Politifact should score this blog post as Two and a Half Stalins.

    I was going with 2 Satans, so I guess that’s somewhere in the right range.

  72. 72.

    swordofdoom

    April 8, 2012 at 2:44 pm

    @Bubblegum Tate: As long as there are folks with more money than scruples, preachers who will tell them they’re good and blacks (or other members of oppressed classes) who will tell them they’re just will make a real sweet living.

  73. 73.

    Tony J

    April 8, 2012 at 2:44 pm

    @magurakurin:

    Can you imagine the socio-political volcano of terror that would erupt on the Right if the Democrats were to suggest adopting the Australian system where voting isn’t a privilage or a right, it’s a duty all citizens have to carry out?

    Granted, it doesn’t seem to have crippled the Right in Oz (far from it) but in America, I think, the end result would be quite different.

  74. 74.

    Yutsano

    April 8, 2012 at 2:44 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    how does a state like Arizona get away with diverting federal funds meant for cash assistance to the poor?

    Because the state can define what “assistance to the poor” means under their laws. The feds do have some control here, but they have to sue in court for either compliance or the money back. Plus states can have other federal grants denied if they go too far afield. And states lurve them some sweet sweet highway monies.

  75. 75.

    danielx

    April 8, 2012 at 2:50 pm

    May Ryan and Santorum and all their ilk be reborn as cockroaches…or better yet, as single mothers in the world they seek to create.

  76. 76.

    BethanyAnne

    April 8, 2012 at 2:51 pm

    @El Cid: Definitely the other guy.

  77. 77.

    Raven

    April 8, 2012 at 2:56 pm

    Double Eagle and he threw the ball into the gallery!

  78. 78.

    Arclite

    April 8, 2012 at 2:57 pm

    Great post Zandar. Well put.

  79. 79.

    ruemara

    April 8, 2012 at 3:05 pm

    @Amir Khalid: I’m not sure if the Federal regs are as specific as needed. And I doubt you’d get a consensus in Congress that the funds should not be used to “balance” budgets and instead returned to the programs that have been shorted. Perfidy abounds.

    @Schlemizel:
    Um, ok. Again, this means that your initial statement regarding B. Clinton fighting the GOP has no connection to your conclusion. I fully understand Obama taking a Cato Institute plan that Republicans have pushed before with full throated support. He wanted to start something. It’s not as revolutionary as single payer would be, but it would give both sides something to agree on. Underestimating the amount of rapid hate and powerplaying on both sides of the aisle was the biggest failing in that debate.

  80. 80.

    Ash

    April 8, 2012 at 3:09 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Harry Potter, with magic and possibilities, in the UK.

    I hope that was just a failed joke, considering the UK’s class and race problems go back, youknow, thousands of years before the US existed.

  81. 81.

    burnspbesq

    April 8, 2012 at 3:14 pm

    @Zandar:

    Everything you say here is true and worth saying. And yet, if anything, you didn’t go far enough to connect the dots.

    A 21-year old single woman with two kids? What’s up with that? Yeah, I’ve read all that stuff about cultural resistance to condom use, and in our heavily-immigrant parish we see 30-year-old grandmothers with distressing frequency. But how much of that is attributable to cultural factors, and how much of it is attributable to abstinence-only sex education in public schools?

  82. 82.

    mcmullje

    April 8, 2012 at 3:37 pm

    The GOP should fall on their knees before all these single moms who chose not to have abortions – oh that’s right – every life is sacred as long as it’s in the womb – once it’s born – who gives a shit. Bastards

  83. 83.

    Triassic Sands

    April 8, 2012 at 3:39 pm

    …drive the poor into other states (preferably blue ones) where they become somebody else’s problem.

    Not likely. First, it’s very expensive to move and you have to have somewhere to go to. Second, the blue states have been slashing their safety nets too.

    I live in Washington State and the legislature is considering further drastic cuts to health care for the poor. The article I read said that when asked about the harm these cuts cause, the legislators supporting them didn’t seem to care.

    Selfishness is our middle name.

  84. 84.

    Rome Again

    April 8, 2012 at 4:05 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    Acceptable? I don’t accept it. It is what it is. I am not solely to blame for these people seeking out whatever they need to find from someone else’s smelly trash.

    I’ve had this route for over two years, and ever since I’ve had it, there has been an older (late 60’s perhaps) asian couple and an even older woman that I can only figure if one of their mothers, and the three of them go out individually every morning and search the neighborhood except in the winter months. I just saw them out again recently in the last few days. It used to be for the longest time that these three were the only people doing this. Now I’m seeing lots of strangers (people I see once and don’t recognize and never see again) doing the same thing. I was merely making the observation that I don’t see children.

    It’s not acceptable by any means. Would you think I should put a stop to it? With what army? And since these people do have a tendency to load up their bicycle baskets and bags, am I to deny them whatever goods (I say that word loosely) they are finding? I don’t think they are looking for food in most instances, but metals and old appliances and such. I would never want something like what they are finding in my home even for five minutes, but, who am I to deny them from scavenging and keeping what they find or better yet, selling it to buy other necessities?

  85. 85.

    Jess

    April 8, 2012 at 4:06 pm

    @Tony J: How about a $50 refundable tax credit for voting? That would certainly boost the voting in lower-income circles.

  86. 86.

    The Raven

    April 8, 2012 at 4:18 pm

    Screaming in language that no one understands
    Of the rights that we grabbed with our own bleeding hands
    When we wiped out the bosses
    And stormed through the wall
    Of the prison they told us would outlast us all

    Marat we’re poor
    And the poor stay poor
    Marat don’t make us wait any more.
    We want our rights and we don’t care how
    We want a revolution – now.
    –Peter Weiss, Marat/Sade.

    I think I’m going to be croaking this all day.

  87. 87.

    PeakVT

    April 8, 2012 at 4:20 pm

    @Jess: That would only boost voting among the working poor. Given the different unemployment rates between ethnic groups, states, and more, it would probably fail various anti-discrimination tests.

  88. 88.

    Jess

    April 8, 2012 at 4:33 pm

    @PeakVT: If it’s a refundable tax credit, it goes to anyone who chooses to file taxes–which I admit most wouldn’t bother to do if they don’t need to. Question: do people on welfare or disability have to file taxes to prove eligibility?

  89. 89.

    Jess

    April 8, 2012 at 4:40 pm

    @PeakVT: To answer my own question, welfare recipients do not need to file taxes; unemployment recipients do. But welfare recipients MAY file taxes, and should for their own benefit in some cases.

    From ehow:

    Even if you are not required to file an income tax return, you may want to file if you had federal withholding from your paycheck or if you qualify for a refundable credit. For example, if your income was mostly from welfare benefits during the year but you did earn some income that was subject to withholding, then you qualify to have the federal tax that was withheld refunded to you. Also, some refundable credits, such as the Earned Income Credit, allow you to qualify for a refund even if you earned little income.

  90. 90.

    Citizen_X

    April 8, 2012 at 4:42 pm

    @Schlemizel:

    I have a very good friend who is a libertarian – he would like to be a Republican but is put off by the racism, misogyny and general dickishness.

    Really? Because I’d like to consider libertarianism as a serious political philosophy, but I’m put off by the racism, misogyny and general dickishness.

  91. 91.

    StarStorm

    April 8, 2012 at 5:12 pm

    @Schlemizel: I’m sorry, but it’s not like libertarians are much better. They’re basically Republicans with a weed fetish.

  92. 92.

    El Cid

    April 8, 2012 at 5:18 pm

    @StarStorm: Also, they are rightists who think they arrived at their positions simply by the sheer power of their individual, amazing, and special intellect, unlike the mere sheep who follow the Republican Party.

  93. 93.

    Linnaeus

    April 8, 2012 at 5:31 pm

    This stuff is just depressing. There’s a reason I’m sometimes pessimistic about the future of this country.

  94. 94.

    Jess

    April 8, 2012 at 5:34 pm

    @El Cid: Yes, exactly. They are the most pro-individualism of the various political positions, which is what initially attracted me as a teenager, but the arrogance and selfishness quickly put me off–not so much b/c of the sociopathic aspects of it (since teenagers tend to be, almost by definition, sociopaths), but because it leads directly to stupidity and close-mindedness. The more “individualistic” they become, the more committed to idiotic positions they become, and the more immune to course-correcting feedback.

  95. 95.

    PurpleGirl

    April 8, 2012 at 5:42 pm

    @burnspbesq: How about men just refusing to use condoms and women feeling powerless to insist on their use. (Without getting into why a women wouldn’t learn all they can about contraceptives in the first place.)

  96. 96.

    sagesource

    April 8, 2012 at 5:48 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent): I’ve always thought that Superman represented Americans as they would like others to see them, Batman represented Americans as they would like to be, and Spawn represented them as they really are.

  97. 97.

    Yutsano

    April 8, 2012 at 5:54 pm

    @Jess: Any refundable credit can be applied for by filing a tax return by anyone eligible for that credit. For most refundable credits (like EIC) that can usually be any source of income. And I’ve yet to see welfare benefits reported as income. So I think welfare is the only exception to that rule. Plus filing a return for zero raises a big red flag with us.

  98. 98.

    Corner Stone

    April 8, 2012 at 6:54 pm

    @Rome Again: If not you, then who? You’re making solid money running the paper route in AZ. Shouldn’t you be making sure these people aren’t dumpster diving for their sustenance?

  99. 99.

    Arakiba

    April 8, 2012 at 7:33 pm

    The Republicans are making The Hunger Games their strategy for 2012!

  100. 100.

    Clime Acts

    April 8, 2012 at 8:13 pm

    Obviously, the Democratic Party’s plan to oppose, obstruct, and prevent the horrors enabled by the Republican party over the last 30 years has been working really well.

    I can’t wait to go out and vote for more Democrats this Fall to prevent more of this.

  101. 101.

    TenguPhule

    April 9, 2012 at 2:23 am

    We will not have peace in our time until the Last Republican is stangled with the entrails of the last Liberterian.

  102. 102.

    patrick II

    April 9, 2012 at 9:12 am

    @magurakurin:

    People don’t vote. Big problem in a democracy.

    Americans don’t vote. Big problem with American democracy.
    Turnout in lower house national elections: (some examples)
    Austria 92% vote
    Italy 90%
    New Zealand 88%
    Denmark 87%
    Germany 86%

    Wiki:voter turnout

    I don’t know all of the reasons, but one of them certainly is the lines around the block I see on tv in poor neighborhoods. Other reasons are salted in comments throughout this post. And others still that I have no idea — but probably in part because of our history of voter suppression. But low voter turnout is not a given in most democracies.

  103. 103.

    Rome Again

    April 9, 2012 at 12:22 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    Solid money? I make 12k a year. What the hell are you talking about? Nobody ever got rich off running a paper route. I do it because I enjoy it, not for the money.

  104. 104.

    Rome Again

    April 9, 2012 at 12:28 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    You know what, Cornerstone? Just about every single night before I do my route, I’m accosted by a person who needs money in front of the convenience store I frequent for coffee. I quite often give them money, so long as they don’t treat me rudely. If these people who are searching out dumpsters find their way to a place where I have my purse available, I most likely would help them too. My purse is not available when I’m on route (I have it stowed where people can’t steal it when I’m out of my car), and I’m on a deadline. It’s not that I don’t want to help, I just can’t help every single person at every single moment that I see it is needed, or I will eventually become one of them myself. I do my part, as best as I can. I am not saying I do enough, it will never be enough, but, I am not made of money, nor am I about to display the location of my purse numerous times a day either.

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