Liberal Forum

Republicans are launching a class war with racial undertones—and hurting the poor whites they'll need to win in 2014.





The welfare queen, she has risen.
Spawned by Ronald Reagan to turn blue-collar whites against the Democratic Party, then buried by Bill Clinton with a law "ending welfare as we know it," she's been excavated under the first African-American president as Republicans inveigh against the costs of health insurance and food stamps for the poor.

Twenty-five Republican-led states have—astoundingly—rebuffed billions of federal dollars under Barack Obama's signature health care law to offer Medicaid insurance to more poor people. To justify this unprecedented rejection of federal relief, these governors and state lawmakers say they just do not believe Washington will keep its promise to pick up the tab. Republicans in Congress are egging them on, denouncing Obamacare's disastrous launch as proof of the arrogance and folly of big government.

But all of this opposition carries an unmistakable undertone of class warfare, a theme easy to exploit in states such as Kentucky, packed with low-income white voters who have a strong distaste for the federal government. To hear the rhetoric coming from Capitol Hill and the campaign trail, Medicaid and food-stamp recipients are a bunch of shiftless freeloaders living high on king crab legs and free health care, all on the backs of hardworking Americans.
Medicaid expansion is "the principal reason your kids' college tuition is going up," Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky charged at a press conference here.
New Medicaid recipients "have no personal responsibility for their health," said state Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate, in a memo from the state capital.

And in Louisiana, Senate candidate and Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy hypothesized about a single woman forced to pay high premiums under Obamacare who thinks her neighbor could make more money. "But he would rather work fewer hours or work for cash or, perhaps, live out of wedlock so that he and his girlfriend both qualify for the taxpayer-provided free insurance," Cassidy wrote in a newspaper column.

The tirades don't stop at Medicaid.

The rhetoric about rewarding indolence is also pervading the debate over the farm bill, passed with subsidies for big agriculture—but no food-stamp funding for the first time in four decades. Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas said he's heard "so many times" from constituents standing in line at the grocery store behind a shopper buying king crab legs. "Then he sees the food-stamp card pulled out and provided. He looks at the king crab legs and looks at his ground meat and realizes because he does pay income tax, he doesn't get more back than he pays in. He is actually helping to pay for the king crab legs when he can't pay for them for himself."

The mythical welfare queen was accused of driving a Cadillac and pumping out babies to keep the government checks coming; under the "food-stamp president," as Republican Newt Gingrich dubbed Obama, she (or he) nets free health care and expensive shellfish.

"Newscasts tell stories of young surfers who aren't working but cash their food stamps in for lobster," wrote Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy in a memo before the House vote, referring to a California beach bum who flaunted his food-stamp-financed lifestyle on Fox News. "Costing taxpayers $80 billion a year, middle-class families struggling to make ends meet themselves foot the bill for a program that has gone well beyond a safety net for children, seniors, and the disabled."

The facts defy the stereotypes. The largest group of food-stamp recipients is white; 45 percent of all beneficiaries are children; and most people eligible for Medicaid are families with children in which at least one person in the household has a job. But pitting makers against takers is simply smart, hardball politics for some Republicans. McConnell and Ernst both face GOP primaries that will be largely decided by a mostly white conservative base that hates the welfare state.

Same with the potential Republican presidential contenders in 2016. Governors who turned down the Medicaid money, such as Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Rick Perry of Texas, and Scott Walker of Wisconsin, have a leg up in GOP primaries over possible rivals who accepted the federal aid, such as Chris Christie of New Jersey and John Kasich of Ohio.

Class warfare can work in a primary. But, ultimately, Republicans' scorn for antipoverty programs hinders the party's efforts to expand beyond its conservative base. Women and minorities disproportionately make up the "47 percent" that Mitt Romney notoriously derided for depending on government assistance. Even more significant, blocking Medicaid expansion and food stamps hurts the blue-collar whites the GOP increasingly depends on at the polls, cracking the door open to Democrats to compete for their votes. (Fact: When you sign up for Obamacare, you can also register to vote.)

"Most people believe the banks, the mortgage companies, Wall Street, and the insurance companies are screwing them over, and if a year from now they think the Democratic Party has their back, that could change the conversation," said Tom Perriello, president of the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund. "If we can get past all of the misinformation and the race politics, we may have a chance."

That's the Republican Party's worst fear: The Obama administration's largesse will reach a broader audience and take hold as a coveted entitlement. These are the "gifts" to young people and minorities that Romney blamed for his defeat, and that the next Republican nominee could come to fear.

DENYING DEPENDENCY

To understand Kentucky's conflicted relationship with the federal government, 50 years after hosting President Johnson's launch of the "War on Poverty," is to meet Terry Rupe. The 63-year-old widower can't remember the last time he voted for a Democrat, and he's got nothing nice to say about President Obama. He's also never had health insurance, although he started working at age 9. Since his wife's death four years ago, he's been taking care of their 40-year-old, severely disabled daughter full time. She gets Medicaid and Medicare assistance.

"I don't have any use for the federal government," Rupe said, even though his household's $13,000 yearly income comes exclusively from Washington. "It's a bunch of liars, crooks, and thieves, and they've never done anything for me. I'm not ungrateful, but I don't have much faith in this health care law. Do I think it's going to work? No. Do I think it's going to bankrupt the country? Yes."

Rupe sounds like he could be standing on a soapbox at a tea-party rally, but he happens to be sitting in a back room at the Family Health Centers' largest clinic in Louisville—signing up for Medicaid. Rupe, who is white, insists that illegal immigrants from Mexico and Africa get more government assistance than he does. (Illegal immigrants do not, in fact, qualify for Medicaid or coverage under the Affordable Care Act.)

He's not alone in thinking this way. A majority of whites believe the health care law will make things worse for them and their families, according to a United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll.

"President Obama's idea is taking from the working people to give to the people who won't take care of themselves. It's redistribution of wealth," Rupe said. "I've always taken care of myself. You got these young girls who go out and get pregnant and then they get $1,500 a month for having a kid, so they have two."

On the other side of town, Adele Anderson was signing up for Medicaid at a public library. The white, middle-aged woman makes $10 an hour as a child-care provider; she also gets $86 a month in food stamps. She was unaware that Republicans voted to cut $40 billion over 10 years from what's called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. "Democrats are too liberal," Anderson said. "They just want to give handouts."

The disdain she and Rupe show toward living on the government dole at the very moment they are doing just that is typical in a state that distrusts Washington as much as it needs federal help.

Read More: http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/the-return-of-the-welfare-queen-20131212

Misty » 14 Dec 2013 10:05 pm » wrote:The Return of the Welfare Queen

Republicans are launching a class war with racial undertones—and hurting the poor whites they'll need to win in 2014.

RichClem » 15 Dec 2013 7:56 am » wrote: What "racial undertones," moonbat?

they're talking about the huge systemic problem of welfare dependency and cheating.

RichClem » 14 Dec 2013 8:52 pm » wrote: Well gosh, if someone says something on the internet, it must be true!

And great job at bungling my complaint about the Post Office.

RichClem » 14 Dec 2013 8:52 pm » wrote: Well gosh, if someone says something on the internet, it must be true!

RichClem » 14 Dec 2013 8:52 pm » wrote:The several times I had the door closed and locked in my face 2 or 3 minutes before 5PM when I had crucially important overnight packages to go out is my imagination....
Thanks for displaying the Post Office attitude.
It wasn't the postal workers' fault for closing early.

No, it was my, i.e. the customer's fault even thought I was on time.

And btw, the local UPS guys never once kicked me out, even when I was a few minutes late. They understood how important the customer was.

RichClem » 14 Dec 2013 8:52 pm » wrote: Well gosh, if someone says something on the internet, it must be true!

LittleMissMarxist[url=http://liberalforum.net/viewtopic.php?p=94107#p94107]» 05 Apr 2013 12:04 pm[/url] » wrote: Oh, My Clemmy®, you know the only thing I like to nibble on viciously is you. And please don't call your magic wand a 'micro-issue'. I have seen some that were smaller, albeit usually on young children. Speaking of which, why do you have so much kiddy porn on your computer? Are you doing some sort of research?

Misty » 15 Dec 2013 1:40 pm » wrote: Listen carefully Puss, you'll hear the dog whistle.

RichClem » 14 Dec 2013 8:52 pm » wrote: Well gosh, if someone says something on the internet, it must be true!

Misty » 04 Apr 2013 12:54 pm » wrote:Why didn't you respond to bingster's post?

Clem: I didn't respond because he's psychotic.

Misty: ****. You run around here whining about how you want serious debate, and then as soon as someone challenges you, you engage is childish name calling.
You're the biggest phony around. You have no interest in any kind of serious discussion.
All you want to do is go around tooting your own horn about your supposed intellectual superiority, insisting that you know everything there is to know about everything while displaying your ignorance on a wide variety of subjects.
As soon as someone gets the best of you, you turn into a five year old, labeling them as a 'liar' or a 'moonbat'.

Clem: I never claimed a fetus had Constitutional rights.

Misty: No, you only said 'a fetus has a separate set of genes and is a separate life' and called it 'the "life" that is guaranteed by the Constitution.
Do you think we can't read Jackhole?

Clem: How hilarious. Look at the liberal agenda, and for many decades it has been about micromanaging the most important issues and smallest details of Americans' lives by force of federal law under penalty of fine or imprisonment.

Misty: We don't want to lock people up for having anal or oral sex.

RichClem » 15 Dec 2013 3:15 pm » wrote: Racist.

Misty » 15 Dec 2013 7:31 pm » wrote:There's so much good stuff in this thread.
Do you think we can't read Jackhole?

Misty: We don't want to lock people up for having anal or oral sex.

Misty » 15 Dec 2013 7:34 pm » wrote: I'm not the one who said that it's okay to express your racism as long as it's done privately.

RichClem » 15 Dec 2013 9:23 pm » wrote: No, you can't read, because that's an inaccurate representation of my beliefs.

Brattle Street » 16 Dec 2013 12:55 pm » wrote:I received a surprise visit from Jeff Foxworthy the other day. He wanted to run an idea by me to test market viability. In effort to extend his familar vehicle, and establish a new wing to his franchise, he suggested a new take on, "you might be a red neck". He calls it, "The View from Clemmy's World".

He made several suggestions to illustrate how this would manifest.


If you don't think that Clinton should be tried for murder, you might be a moonbat.


If you don't support women being raped by dogs, you might be a moonbat.


If you think that humans have more rights than corporations, you might be a moonbat.


If you don't wish you could sniff Reagan's underwear, you might be a moonbat.


I told Jeff that I was not sure if this approach really had legs. I thought it prudent to run it by our expert in receiving stalk-assault and moonbattery, Misty

RichClem » 15 Dec 2013 9:26 pm » wrote: But you expressed a racist belief yourself.

Misty » 16 Dec 2013 1:01 pm » wrote: Yeah....good luck with that one.

You've shown yourself to be the closet racist here Clem......

RichClem » 16 Dec 2013 1:20 pm » wrote: I mentioned welfare fraud, and you immediately you brought up race.
Of course that's racism.

Misty » 16 Dec 2013 2:12 pm » wrote: No, Pumpkin. merely 'bringing up race', is not racism.
Perhaps you should look the word up in the dictionary.

The Republicans have a long history of blowing that dog whistle Puss.
Reagan often recited the story of a woman from Chicago’s 'South Side' who was arrested for welfare fraud.
That was the famous 'welfare queen'.
The racial coding is apparent Kitten.
The woman Reagan was talking about was African-American

RichClem » 16 Dec 2013 2:26 pm » wrote: Bulls***. I mentioned welfare fraud, and the first thing that popped into your head was minorities.

Yes, that is absolutely racism on your part.