Ronald Reagan perfected the use of the “welfare queen” – a black woman on welfare who manages to drive around in a Caddy while decked in furs and going home for a steak supper while the rest of us are working our butts off. Variations of this story were used in the 1990s as reasons for ending welfare and forcing people back to work.
Conservatives like a related story, one the nasty guy uses a lot: You don’t have a job because all those illegal immigrants took it away from you.
David Akadjian has an answer to these stories. When a bank is robbed look for the guy with the money.
Hint: It isn’t the welfare queen (I suspect that person never existed). It also isn’t the undocumented immigrant who is probably struggling more than we are.
Akadjian goes into the usual inequality talking points: The productivity gains over the last 40 years going to the 1% or .1% and not to the workers who made those gains happen. Tax cuts for the wealthy don’t create jobs and only help Wall Street.
He closes with an important point. Want a more equitable country? Want to fix infrastructure? Want new public transit? Want good schools? Then we need to get the story straight about where the money is going – and who is doing the robbing.
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