The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    GOP: To Fight for the Poor

    By NCD on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 8:16pm |

    NYT: WASHINGTON — Senator Marco Rubio says the American dream has become “unattainable.” Senator Mike Lee says reforming government benefits programs should be the country’s “first priority.” And Representative Paul D. Ryan says the government safety net has “failed miserably.”...

    After doing nothing but obstructing every appointment, order, action, bill, spending measure, or legislation associated or backed by the President, along with unending muckraking investigations of the IRS, Benghazi, birth certificates and ACORNs, the GOP now plans to return to the 'compassionate conservatism' meme last used by George W. Bush who, in 8 years, started 2 wars with 'fabrications, deceptions and cover-ups' that killed somewhere in the range of 1 million people, cost trillions and plunged Iraq into permanent chaos, and also oversaw the crash of the US economy and banking sector.

    At this point the Republican 'messaging' plan includes:


    1) Tax cuts. Who woulda thought? Cutting corporate, income and payroll  taxes.

    2) Turn federal programs like Medicaid over to the states to use as they may see fit, which for some states meant diverting the funds meant for health care for the poor and hospitals to the general fund, allowing state tax cuts for the rich, diversion was done in Indiana - $58 million, North Carolina, $100 million, reported in 2012.

    3) Deep cuts to food assistance programs and unemployment insurance.

    4) Ease the use of federal education loans and grants to students for Republican connected flim-flam online education outlets 'just as good' as real colleges or universities.

    5) Combine 79 means tested federal programs into one, cut staff administering them, cut the funding, implement mandatory work requirements across the board.

    6) Block any tax increase on the rich and any increase in the minimum wage, as a way to fight 'the issue of our time' income inequality:  GOP Messaging: 'want them' , (the poor) 'to all make $50 an hour' (Senator Rubio-R).

    Comments

    Why do you hate the job creators??!!!

     


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 8:39pm

    I want them to make $50 an hour too, after taxes. Fair?


    by NCD on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 8:55pm

    I do not know why but this song:

    This Rubio/Cruz crap is getting to me.

    Mandatory work.

    Hell, I have no problem with mandatory work.

    We all wish to work.

    But this idea does not work!

    hahahaha

    Where is the work?

    the end

     


    by Richard Day on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 11:01pm

    This Guardian piece basically suggests it's all trial messaging 'cause Stagnating social mobility expected to be central issue in 2014. Why right this moment? Some Dems planned in advance to use the 50th anniversary of LBJ's speech for messaging, and those with aspirations to compete had to have some comeback ready. Again, looks like trial balloons, see what might work with the necessary voter groups...nearly guaranteed private polling is to follow.


    by artappraiser on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 2:48am

    Good article. Rubio is off on the usual 'blame the government, blame the victim' meme.

    The government safety net is the cause of those in it, so blow it up.  Scatter it across the states as block grants, which can then be used for other purposes than what was intended (like political payback/patronage/or tax cuts). Cuts to the grants can also then be done with little political accountability at the federal level.


    by NCD on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 10:13am

    Rubio has been muttering this crap for awhile here in Florida.  He has been insisting the war on poverty has failed.  It don't mean anything to the young people around here.  I think he is after the retirees that sit and watch Fox all day. Creating jobs and raising the minimum wage is more important to most in Florida. 


    by trkingmomoe on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 10:13am

      The proof that the safety net has not "failed miserably" is that the condition of the poor got worse as we destroyed the safety net (or much of it, anyway).


    by Aaron Carine (not verified) on Fri, 01/10/2014 - 8:42am

    Shredding the net into 50 'experiments' by 'block granting' it to the states will, as intended by the GOP:
    (1) expunge any federal culpability for what happens to the unemployed/homeless/sick/poor/disabled etc.

    (2) magically create 50 complicated programs, in 50 states, that academics and the Cato Institute and the AEI can study for years.  NPR/establishment media can discuss and argue the economic/tax/education/policy reasons why it all 'worked well' or 'saved money, reduced unemployment in some region of some state, while also arguing over what 'working well' means as opposed to 'failed miserably'.

    Any program like this is best done national standards set by the federal government, with clear objectives and accountability.


    by NCD on Fri, 01/10/2014 - 12:15pm