Newt’s War on Poor Children (Charles Blow, NYT)

[eppur_se_muova]

By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: December 2, 2011

Newt Gingrich has reached a new low, and that is hard for him to do.

Nearly two weeks after claiming that child labor laws are “truly stupid” and implying that poor children should be put to work as janitors in their schools, he now claims that poor children don’t understand work unless they’re doing something illegal.

On Thursday, at a campaign stop in Iowa, the former House speaker said, “Start with the following two facts: Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works. So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of ‘I do this and you give me cash’ unless it’s illegal.” (His second “fact” was that every first generational person he knew started work early.)

This statement isn’t only cruel and, broadly speaking, incorrect, it’s mind-numbingly tone-deaf at a time when poverty is rising in this country. He comes across as a callous Dickensian character in his attitude toward America’s most vulnerable — our poor children. This is the kind of statement that shines light on the soul of a man and shows how dark it is.
***
First, as I’ve pointed out before, three out of four poor working-aged adults — ages 18 to 64 — work. Half of them have full-time jobs and a quarter work part time.

Furthermore, according to an analysis of census data by Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College, most poor children live in a household where at least one parent is employed. And even among children who live in extreme poverty — defined here as a household with income less than 50 percent of the poverty level — a third have at least one working parent. And even among extremely poor children who live in extremely poor areas — those in which 30 percent or more of the population is poor — nearly a third live with at least one working parent.
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more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/opinion/blow-newts-war-on-poor-children.html?_r=1&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB




Of course, Gingrich isn't citing facts -- he's citing points that "everyone knows" to be true, becuase, well, they just have to be, don't they? It's common sense. :sarcasm:

[Frances]

1. Gingrich is trying to appeal to people who are racist

He assumes his listeners will think of blacks in big cities.

I don't know how the rural poor will react to his comments. And there are lots of rural poor.

[applegrove]

2. Ding, ding, ding.

[Moostache]

3. I really did not think my opinion of him could go lower.

I think if offered a chance to dine with Newt Gingrich or the chance to drink raw sewage, I would have a very hard time not reaching for the foul smelling brew...I can't stand him, his fucking ditz of a 3rd wife or their entire sham of a marriage.

I really hate the fact that good people die every day of horrible accidents, illnesses and bad luck and piles of human excrement like that go right on wasting oxygen and consuming resources that I would rather see ANYONE else use.

[Enthusiast]

4. Gingrich is only reinforcing what his base already believes.

After all that is what they hear on Fox News and right wing radio.

[Martin Eden]

6. Yes, it reinforces the larger narrative that poor people are moochers or criminals ...

... and it also appeals to racist attitides about black Americans.

[ThoughtCriminal]

5. OK, what is Newt projecting here?

"poor children don’t understand work unless they’re doing something illegal"