Class Warfare: Republicon Style

Just like the healthcare reform debates of two years ago, during which the Republicons falsely accused the Dems of precisely what they, the Republicons, were guilty of (rationing of healthcare with a free market administered Death Panel), the Recons are now engaged in a kind of class warfare that is not only hypocritical but misrepresents the facts in a very deceitful manner.

Romney recently expressed the kind of sentiments that right-wing radio hosts have been promulgating for many years now: Half of the country does the work (the upper income people) while the other half lays on the couch all day long waiting for their Government check to arrive.

Ed ciaccio, a friend and former MoveOn member sent me the following information in an email, which saved me the trouble of a google search. Ed also makes some excellent points:

"If you missed a very disgusting screed by a candidate for the presidency, here is what Mitt Romney said recently behind closed doors (revealing his true opinion of many of us):

'There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, 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. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what….These are people who pay no income tax. […] [M]y job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.'

It's actually 46 percent, and people in southern red states—you know, where those "right to work" for less laws Mitt likes keep wages low—are disproportionately likely to pay no income taxes.

Here is the truth, which Romney either refuses to know or will not acknowledge, given his prejudice against anyone unlike himself:
Just who was included in that 47% Mitt Romney was referring to in his secretly-recorded comments at a Boca Raton, Fla., fundraiser as people who don’t “take personal responsibility and care for themselves”?

61 percent of them work but don’t earn enough to owe Federal income tax.
17 percent are students (who will pay plenty of taxes once they’re out of school), military families, people with disabilities and people who have lost their jobs—including victims of outsourcers like, well, Mitt Romney.
22 percent are elderly.
(Data source: www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3505#_ftn9.)

The fact that they're not paid enough or are active duty military or are too old or disabled—maybe suffering from black lung or other diseases acquired on the job—does not mean they don’t contribute to America’s tax revenues. In fact, the poorest one-fifth of U.S. households pay a grinding 16 percent of their income in various federal, state and local taxes."

Hey that's more than Romney pays!
Thanks Ed, good work

The Republiconservatives are trying to make it look like half the country is on welfare. This garbage comes straight from the bigoted minds and out of the big fat mouths of radio hosts like Rush Limbag and the countless copycats who have adopted his surefire moneymaking techniques.

This is how the deceit works: First you take the worst examples of the excesses of the 1970's welfare state. Then, because the President's a Democrat (all the better that he's black), you make believe that welfare reform never happened in the 90's under Clinton. Then you take that 70's stereotype, exaggerate it, then conflate it with every government program including Medicare and Social Security. Then you conflate that twisted image with the idea that this is where all your taxes go, assuming that you're in the 50% who pay "all of the taxes."

Here's a more honest and accurate, fair and balanced description of the "welfare state":

Government "welfare" programs are insurance programs that we all pay into either directly or indirectly, including the poor. These programs are available to any and every American citizen who is proven eligible and meets the requirements. This is a fact that is ignored by the right until it comes out that one of their heroes, like Paul Ryan or Ayn Rand or Joe the Plumber used Government programs. When it came out that Ayn Rand collected her dead husband's Social Security and used Medicare to treat her self-inflicted, tobacco-caused lung cancer (tobacco which was supplied by the free market at a handsome profit) and Joe the Plumber was on public assistance, their defenders pointed out that "they paid into the system"! Same goes for the hypocritical bug-eyed creep Ryan.

Do some people cheat? Sure, but the same thing is true for private insurance programs. I don't hear conservatives calling for getting rid of private insurance. We should do our best to stop any cheating. Interestingly, conservatives don't want to do anything to stop cheating in the free market because that would be "big government interference." Better to let the market regulate itself.

I'll have more on this later.