Boehner's Weird Idea for a Safety Net - Matt Taibbi

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/boehners-weird-idea-for-a-safety-net-20110107

So my new piece on John Boehner is up online. Boehner I think is not long for our political center stage. He might be the biggest target, punditry-vitriol-wise, that I’ve ever seen occupy a major position of power in this country (of course that’ll only be true until Michelle Bachmann becomes Vice President or Speaker of the House). After Boehner’s press appearances yesterday I got a string of phone calls from friends, all asking the same thing: Is that guy drunk? Or is he just brain-damaged?

Boehner’s slurry/weepy speech has been a topic people have been chuckling over in DC for years. There’s even an occasionally-updated website devoted to tracking the topic (I like the Boehner-themed “Speaker of the Sauce” decorative Christmas stocking they came up with ).

Anyway, more interesting than his peculiar rhetorical delivery were Boehner’s comments yesterday that he believes in a “social safety net” for “those who can’t compete,” while not believing in one for those who “won’t compete.”

Now, it’s bizarre enough to hear a Republican congressional leader endorse a social safety net of any kind. But it’s even weirder to hear one lay out this vision of conditional socialism so clearly – the idea that state aid should somehow be dependent upon the intent of the recipient, i.e. you don’t get it if you’re not actually trying to get by without state help. Now I’m sure that if pressed Boehner would say he was talking about people who are perennial welfare recipients, families who live off food stamps and programs like TANF for years on end, generation after generation, a life strategy which definitely sucks, no doubt about it. If he’s just talking about the notion of temporary aid as opposed to perpetual aid, then that is understandable (that is to say, I at least understand what he means).

More at the link --

[GoneOffShore]

1. It's the Victorian idea of "the deserving poor"

Wrong on its face.

[Laelth]

2. Boener's idea is not that weird. Lots of people share it, I think.

Most Americans do not oppose state aid to those who truly "need" it. Most are opposed to people taking state aid when they don't really need it. Me included. Personally, I target my anger at oil companies, bankers, food conglomerates, and other wealthy entities that demand and get a lot of state aid that they neither need nor deserve.

If one were to compare the pitiful cost of the few poor people who rip us off to the enormous cost of the numerous rich people who rip us off, one would see that the anger of conservatives is misplaced. But I do understand that anger. I share that anger. I don't like to see the state defrauded. I simply think Boener's anger, and that of those who think like him, is tragically misplaced.

-Laelth

[OHdem10]

3. The GOP will help the most downtrodden--they describe it

Helping those who cannot help themselves.

[mrcheerful]

4. Having been disabled since age 5 I know exactly who Boner means

deserves a safety net. Those people who are so old and sick that they have to live in care homes that they can only sit around tied to a wheel chair waiting for death. I hear wing nuts who read stories about disabled who work at sheltered work shops, now mind you that most of these work shops are in business to get tax payer funds to make a profit, where the disabled worker is only able to use his little finger of his left hand so anyone who can do more then him is not disabled.

Now mind you in the article it states the guy works at the sheltered work shop for extra income, since the handi capped guy was born in this condition he is able to collect disability from his parents Social Security which also means Medicare picks up the tab for his in home care, mind you I am not knocking the guy for his actions, these are the facts stated in the news article. The wing nuts over look all of these facts and come to the conclusion that he is self reliant so if this guy can make it on his own anyone less disabled can, one size fits all.

I have wing nut relatives who read these stories and come to me with these inspiring stories to motivate me into working for a work shop. Never mind the fact that I did work at a work shop or the fact that I stopped because I was only able to earn $20 to $30 and it was costing me $40 a week to get to the work shop, wing nuts insisted that it beat me sitting around the house doing nothing. In their eyes I'm just a lazy free loading bum who refuses to earn my way, never mind that I am collecting disability in my name and not my parents because I did work until I was forced to stop working because work was causing more damage to my body.