Republicans’ fixation on welfare never ceases to amaze me. Many times throughout this campaign season, I have heard the familiar refrain of "I won’t vote for a Democrat because I don’t want my taxes going to some lazy bum who refuses to work," or something to that effect.
Oh, what a simple world these people live in. I only wish I lived in a world that simple, where my biggest concern was — god forbid — my tax dollars going to a couch potato. In this time of economic collapse, melting polar ice caps, war on multiple fronts, and a criminal health insurance system that is literally killing people, these bots continue to drone on about welfare, as if this were just any election, at any place in time.
Never mind that most welfare recipients aren’t lazy bums, but people suffering from dire circumstances — often disability — and that two-thirds are white, with many living in poverty-stricken rural areas (contrary to the inaccurate stereotype of the "Cadillac-driving black welfare queen" — thanks, Reagan!). I think it’s safe to say assumptions about race feed into the right’s welfare obsession.
Speaking of welfare, did you hear the one about the Bush administration wanting to cut a $700 billion blank check to Wall Street with no strings attached? That’s an unfathomably huge gift from taxpayers to the very wheelers and dealers who got us into this mess. Now that’s rewarding personal responsibility! Anti-handout Republican voters must really have their panties in a bunch about this plan. Right?
As for the candidates themselves, both Obama and McCain have called for more oversight, but bear in mind that McCain’s economics guru and potential Treasury Secretary pick Phil "nation of whiners" Gramm was a great champion of the deregulation that led to this glorious moment. (Gramm stepped down from his formal role with the McCain campaign after the "whiners" comment.)
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather give a hand to some poor, laid-off soul in a gutted manufacturing town than to a Master of the Universe. But maybe that’s just me.