Welfare for the wealthy

A few other things from Terrence Heath's blog from the last month.

The easiest way to give the economy a boost? Raise the minimum wage. It would even help the federal budget deficit. Heath notes that two-thirds of those making minimum wage work for big corporations -- the ones sitting on their huge profits -- not the small businesses the GOP claims to be protecting.



The Supremes said states may refuse new Medicaid money without jeopardizing the Medicaid money they already get. So six GOP state governors have declared their refusal. That's even when the feds pay all of the new increase for three years and 93% of the increase beyond that. Those governors claim they don't have the money. Heath points out how little taxes would have to be raised to cover that 7%. Then he documents how cruel those governors are. They would rather let poor people die than accept money from Obama's laws. And it was the GOP that railed against Death Panels.



Mitt Romney went overseas and made a fool of himself. While there he gave a speech in which he said the difference between Israelis and Palestinians was their culture. That translates to Romney declaring Israelis are naturally superior to Palestinians.

Juan Cole rebuts that: Palestinians are poor because their land, water, and other resources were taken away from them, leaving them stateless.

Romney was stating a common conservative belief. Some cultures are superior. And America is at the top of the heap. Which makes Romney a cultural supremacist.

Romney did a similar comparison between American and Mexican economies. Another rebuttal: NAFTA made food so cheap that Mexican farmers could no longer make a living on food crops. So they turned to something they could make money on: drug crops.

Which brought Heath back to a familiar refrain. By (their) definition, the richer you are the more moral you are. Romney is more moral than us because he happened to be born to a mega-rich man and figured out how to cheat the system through Bain and hide is gains overseas.

Through that definition we get the Bully Economy -- you deserve whatever economic success you have. And if you don't have any success, you deserve that too.



The GOP has begun to trumpet that Obama wants to "gut" welfare reform. To understand their charge one must understand what the GOP meant by successful welfare reform that was enacted under Clinton. A progressive would think to get people off welfare we must give them the tools (education, job training, public transportation, perhaps even child care) to be a productive member of society and no longer need welfare.

That's not the GOP definition. Theirs is to simply get people off the welfare rolls. No longer have any means of support? Too bad.

Heath reminds us that their current trumpeting is a lie. We can easily disprove it. Which is exactly what the GOP wants us to do. Because then we'll be so busy focusing on this lie we will miss talking about their real agenda -- improving welfare for the wealthy.



And one little tidbit not from Heath's blog…

I haven't wanted to bother with the claim from Todd Akin, candidate for US Senate from Missouri, in which he said that if it is a true rape, a woman's body can shut it down and avoid pregnancy. It's one of those things the GOP (especially Paul Ryan) strongly believes, but doesn't want to actually say in public.

The only reason why I mention it is because it creates a great campaign slogan: "There's one thing women's bodies can shut down. And it's called the Republican Party."

Reading all this about the GOP gets annoying. And tiring.