Lately, I often seem to come
across people who, though they may not see themselves as regressives, still
dutifully parrot the wingnut party line in regards to slamming the ‘takers’, ‘moochers’,
‘freeloaders’, ‘lazy welfare cheats’ who
live off of the taxes paid by hard working people like themselves. Now that
burns me, not because there aren’t lots of common people who’re gaming or
trying to game the system, but rather because they find it so easy to pick on
the little guy while being blind to the really big rip-off sleazeballs whose
gaming not only involves billions, but often also crashes the whole system when
their games don’t work out.
In the latest iteration a friend
of a friend on facebook was snidely pointing out that individuals who’re about
to lose $36 of their $657 monthly food stamp allotment will just have to get by
with less beer and cigs. I had to point out that the figure he quoted was for a
family of 4, not an individual. A big part of the problem is that many of these
people have their information so wrong they don’t know what the hell they’re
talking about, not to mention that they’re so out of touch with reality, they
actually believe the crap that comes out of their mouths. Anybody who thinks
the government gives individuals more than six hundred dollars a month in food
stamps might as well be living on a parallel universe.
Five billion dollars is being cut
from the food stamp program to satisfy the Repugs new found crusade to reduce
the deficit. New found because they love deficits and debt when they’re in
power. Besides they’ve never come across a program that helps the bottom rung
of society that they didn’t hate and it’s been that way since the first social
programs were enacted in the 1930s Great Depression. Herbert Hoover, president
when the depression began in 1929, was adamantly opposed to feeding the poor
since it would ruin their self-reliance. Better to starve than depend on
government handouts. The Dumbocrats are hardly blameless, since they love to capitulate
to every petty demand of the Repugs.
47 million people are on food
stamps; not surprising considering that unemployment is still very high and a
lot of the new jobs being created pay so little that even many full time
workers, such as those working for Mall*Wart and the fast food chains, qualify
for benefits. McDonald’s website has a page devoted to helping its employees in
their budgeting. One item is get a second job. Another is apply for food
stamps. Another allocates $20 per month for health care.
But lets put that $5b food stamp
cut into a little perspective. General Electric, one of the world’s largest,
richest corporations, earned $14b last year. It not only didn’t pay any taxes
but got a $3.5b refund from the IRS. The difference between what they should
have paid at 35% and what actually happened was $8b. So, in essence, 47 million
people take a hit so one corporation can enjoy just 60% of its corporate
subsidy. Or how about the special tax breaks for Big Oil of another $8b per
year. Exxon Mobile before 47 million Americans? Obviously top priority for the
US government. Clearly doesn’t impact their self-reliance. They’re already so
rich, the paltry $8b we throw at them doesn’t even amount to all that much when
you consider just one of them has profits up around $50b annually.
Another much more egregious
example of misunderstanding and/or manipulation and/or just plain ignorance,
was a screed forwarded by a friend, in which the writer railed against the
situation in New Orleans, in which welfare mothers receive $1500 per month per
child. He then went on to tally up what a single mom with 9 kids would get;
something like $16,000 per month. Now I’ve heard that places like New Zealand
and the UK are quite generous with the dole, but the idea that anyone in their
right mind could think that welfare pays that much in the US is hideously, ludicrously
out of touch. And further, the idea that anyone with half a brain could think
that that happens in Louisiana, probably the stingiest, meanest state in the
country regarding welfare, is almost beyond comprehension; nobody could be that
stupid or misinformed. Deceitful yes, but not that innocent of reality.
The family-values radical
conservatives who pride themselves on their welfare stinginess think staying
home and taking care of the babies is only valuable or important for middle
class women. The single parents dependent on welfare are supposed to get a job,
even though affordable child-care is rare and the jobs they might be qualified
for don’t pay enough to live on. Nevertheless, they are the lazy takers sucking
on the government’s tits whose only goal is to scam the system so they can live
high and drive Cadillacs. $16,000 a month for nine kids, pretty good deal, huh?
A while back another government
hater went on about how BART – Bay Area Rapid Transit – paid its drivers
$100,000 per year. As it happens, not long ago the BART drivers held a strike
action and according to the news reports, drivers earn $60,000 not $100,000.
Besides BART is not really a government, at best it’s a quasi-government,
charged only with running the trains. At any rate the median house price in the
San Francisco Bay Area is now about $550,000. Even the meanest, cheapest
run-down shack is likely to cost in excess of $300,000 and with mortgage, taxes
and insurance, not to mention upkeep, that ultimate fixer-upper will cost a
minimum $3000 per month. Compare that to driver’s pay which is $5000 per month
before taxes. $60,000 sounds like a lot of money to me, but in the Bay Area,
it’s just barely getting by.
It’s all part of the drive on the
part of conservatives to demonize public servants. They have it too easy,
they’re living high off the public hog. Even while Wisconsin’s Repug governor
was giving a $200m tax break for corporations he insisted it was important to
reduce civil workers pay and strip them of any worker rights. Teachers earn
about $50,000 in Wisconsin. Doable but hardly luxurious. Back in the 1950s and
60s, teacher pay was so low that only certain people could do that job. It was
either those who were so dedicated to teaching they were willing to sacrifice
their economic well-being to do something they loved, or the losers, people who
couldn’t make it in the commercial world. They were decent enough people, but,
for a variety of reasons, they happened to be lousy teachers. They were quirky
or nervous or too strange to make in a corporation, but they passed the civil
service test and had the qualifications and so got the jobs and besides the schools
had no choice, the potentially good people didn’t want to make the personal
sacrifice.
At that point the public realized
how important is was to raise pay so that quality teachers would be attracted
to the profession. One of the most important tasks a society has is to educate
its children. Lately, plying the 1% with generous tax benefits, giving the
banks $85b per month of free money, letting the corporations create offshore
tax havens and other tax dodges so they don’t have to support the US
government, leaving stock transactions untaxed so the big banks can play with
their lighting fast trading schemes that have no social purpose whatever and
are destructive besides, all those are (seemingly) more important than
education, health and social welfare in the eyes of conservatives and their
Dumbocrat enablers.
A recent study tried to gauge the
happiness of the people of different nations. The high-tax welfare states of
Scandinavia all came out on top. They are all highly productive, very wealthy
countries so, evidently, sky-high taxes don’t necessarily stymie innovation and
growth, but they do provide the security and benefits that let people enjoy
life. They work fewer hours than Americans and are guaranteed a minimum 4 weeks
vacation per year by the EU. I met a Dutch couple high up on a mountain in
Nepal some years ago, both of whom worked in a bank. They got 7 weeks of
vacation a year and said some of their co-workers thought that wasn’t enough. Americans
are lucky to get 3 weeks after working the same job for 10 years.
When the rollout of automation in
the 60s started reducing the need for workers many people believed or proposed that
it could lead to shorter work hours and greater leisure time for workers. The
industrialists hated that idea since it would lead to people earning and
consuming less, so instead of working less Americans are now working more
(those who have jobs at least). Amongst the benefits of a shorter work week,
aside from the obvious spreading the work around, is that it would
substantially reduce peak hour traffic. Whether it’s 6 hours 5 days a week or 8
hours 4 days a week traffic would ease up by about 20%. At any rate, that’s not
where the US is headed.
Finally, you’ve heard that the US
economy is growing, lately about 2.5% annually, and jobs are being created.
Unfortunately, 95% of the income gains since 2009 have gone to the top 1%, at
least partly as a result of the FED printing free money for the banks and
partly because most of the new jobs being created offer dismal pay. It wasn’t
an accident. Maybe the policymakers who created the current conditions where
almost everything goes to the top, didn’t realize that would happen, but
nonetheless it was their policies that did it. Just as it was no accident, it’s
also not inevitable, not engraved in stone, not dictated by the ‘free market’.
In a democracy that truly represented the people rather than the elite that
would not be happening. Meanwhile the fact that congress could hit on the
bottom rung of Americans who’re getting food stamps for a measly $5b while keeping
the position of the privileged sacrosanct, says we are a long way from fairness
and decency… Mean-spiritedness Lives.
