But first, a little context:
[Paul has] said approximately 50 percent of his income is Medicare and 5 percent is Medicaid. According to the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Paul has been paid $130,461 over the last five years through Medicaid. If that represents 5 percent of his income, then Paul’s Medicare payments over the same period would be more than $1.3 million or about $260,000 a year.
A self-proclaimed tea bagger who is also a libertarian and a Medicare millionaire? Imagine that.
(Paul’s opponent, Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, has called on him to release his Medicare billing records.)
So here’s Paul putting his elitist view of how the world works on display:
[On Friday, Paul] urged Americans who have been unemployed for many months to consider returning to the workforce in less desirable jobs rather than continue relying on government unemployment assistance…
“As bad as it sounds, ultimately we do have to sometimes accept a wage that’s less than we had at our previous job in order to get back to work and allow the economy to get started again,” Paul said. “Nobody likes that, but it may be one of the tough love things that has to happen.”
Paul was responding to a question … about Thursday’s Senate Republican filibuster of a $120 billion package of additional jobless benefits and state aid. Tens of thousands of Americans will have exhausted their unemployment benefits this month without that extension.
Paul said he supports the filibuster. If the Senate thinks the bill is necessary, it needs to find the money to pay for it elsewhere in the federal budget rather than add to the $13 trillion national debt, he said.
“It’s all a matter of making priorities,” Paul said. “Some tough decisions will have to be made.”
It’s absurd to suggest that unemployed Americans are turning down jobs because salaries are too low when all the data shows that there are no jobs.
This would be funny if the situation weren’t so dire. Here is a son of privilege, a libertarian who has reaped millions from the evil of socialized medicine, advocating withholding government assistance to thousands of American families, and all he has to offer instead is the advice that they should take lower paying jobs that do not exist.
In other words, let them eat cake.
It’s really coming down to the wire, isn’t it? I saw yesterday that the state of New Jersey has to decide on whether on not to cut/reduce social programs (like unemployment) or tax the wealthy (a little more). Hmmm… which will it be, WHICH will it BE, I wonder? We saw what happened in California with Herr Arnold as governor…
It’s about time for a revolution…French style. Line ’em up and lop ’em off. Don’t matter if it’s an oligarchy rather than a monarchy. Neither of those is a democracy.
I hope that in New Jersey’s case, it’s cut the social programs. While providing the idle with funds while they find work, or low-income parents with young children the same regardless of work status, is a nice idea if it is affordable. The entire plot, however, is entirely unnecessary.
I don’t see absolutely any reason whatsoever to tax the rich and hand it to the poor. We have a Rule of Law in this country and should be more concerned with enforcing that than simply crucifying the rich as a gang of heartless thieves.
A simple craigslist search will dispel any myths that “are no jobs” available…
Ted George – The idea that someone who used to make $50,000, $75,000 or six figures would rather collect unemployment — which tops out about $22,000 — than take a job making $35,000 or whatever is just absurd.
Do you right wingers ever apply logic or think things through based on how the real world works? It’s like you all live in fantasy land, that you just absorb what you hear from Beck, Limbaugh, O’Reilly and the rest without bothering to process what you’re hearing.
Trickle down economics is a fraud. That was proven under Reagan and it’s being proven now while the Bush tax cuts are still in effect. On the other hand, when Clinton up the rate on the top 5%, we had the best economy in decades. Billionaires in this country play $0 in taxes these days. How is that fair?
The middle class is evaporating before our eyes, while the uber-wealthy are getting uber-wealthier. History shows us that oligarchies — the Roman empire, the British empire and American Confederacy, for example — are unsustainable over time. Nonetheless, the American right is determined to drive this great republic over that cliff. It’s up to normal Americans to stop them.
I know people who have been unemployed for months and can’t even get a job offer from a place like Walmart.
What fuckin planet are you on? You think 10% of the country are unemployed because they WANT to be?! Just because jobs are listed on Craigslist doesn’t mean there are lots of jobs out there — else why would the unemployment rate be so high. Employers who place jobs on Craigslist get hundreds of resumes. It’s a buyer’s market, way more applicants than positions to fill. Try watching some news besides Fox or reading a newspaper. Dumbass Tea Baggers are startin to piss me off.
Ahhh,
My post has clearly been misunderstood. Perhaps it is my fault.
No, I do not believe that anybody would rather go from $50,000 – “six figures” to unemployment then $35,000. Indeed, that is absurd. However, what remains to be true is this; if you have consistently been making $50,000+ annually, and now find that you are facing homelessness after a few months of unemployment, you have lived above your means. That is a very realistic view of the world we live in. Clearly, unemployment is at least 10%. I don’t live under a rock. But to claim that there are no jobs is equally absurd. Swallow your pride. I’ve had pizza delivered by a man driving a Mercedes as of late. I know it’s not as easy to pull down $150,000 a year as it once was.
I believe we can agree that money, in our combined society, roughly equals opportunity. Of course, there is something to be said of any ability, and I lament to deny anybody that opinion. But, all else equal, the wealthier of two individuals will have more opportunity to pursue whatever they happen to desire.
Since money is roughly equivalent to opportunity, I don’t feel that the re-appropriation of it should be taken lightly or casually. I think, that before taxes are increased for anybody, we have the obligation to both our present and future generations to evaluate the long term monetary effects of increased taxation. Have we been fiscally responsible, or have we voted ourselves one too many gifts from the Treasury and now find ourselves counting Quarters to pay the firemen?
Some rich people have been at least unethical in their dealings, no doubt. But the vast majority of them have done nothing more unethical than which the Law has allowed them. They’ve taken advantage of loopholes because they exist for that very purpose. They have legislated away their competition with the willing hands of Congress. There things are true. Of both parties.
But who is to blame? Corporations? Nope. They are simply doing what society has allowed them. Congressmen? You won’t find the culprit here. They only do what their constituents have allowed and tolerated. Who is left? Us.
We waited until the very last possible second to begin caring about our Economy and credit lines, and this is what happens. History, Mathematics, and Common Sense have all been stacked against us for quite awhile now. Did we heed the writing on the wall? Nope. We bought, bought, bought. We put it all on the credit cards and home equity lines and forgot about the dusty old savings accounts. That’s what happened.
That’s not to say that we did it alone. Of course the Banks and Corporations that everybody loves to hate now led us down the road; it’s profitable as hell. I would do the exact same thing. If you were dumb enough to take out an interest only mortgage; you’ve earned it. If you just put $2,000 worth of home entertainment equipment on a credit card when you make $36,000 a year, you’ve earned it. If you repeatedly bought and sold the same houses over and over again from the incestuous pool of real estate speculators, raising the price each time, and in the process have failed every shred of financial sense a human skeleton can support; you’ve earned it.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this recession hasn’t hit everybody. Not in the least. Do you know who it hasn’t ravaged? The savers. The judicious. The spend-thrifts. In essence, it hasn’t hit those who know how to balance a budget.
It doesn’t surprise me to see that the same people who didn’t bat an eye when they took out a second mortgage (after letting their initial mortgage “mature” for five years…) are now deeply concerned about punishing those who let them do it. Let’s face it, no one wants to point to the mirror when facing an angry mob. But, there is such a thing as acting like an adult. There is such a thing as taking responsibility for your actions and your country. You’re angry because your stock based pension fund has vanished. I get it. But how long did you really think you could see 7% growth? Didn’t it ever occur to you that what goes up must come down?
Well, lesson learned I would hope. But I suspect not. Already, there tens of thousands of individuals who make $40,000 a year buying $150,000 homes with zero down payment. There are already grown men jumping on the deflated housing bubble willingly pumping it up again. Wait a couple years; your easy financial times will return. And when they do, you’ll be able to skip making the deposit into the savings account for those marble counter tops. Then for the trip to Maui. Then for the luxury SUV. And it too will be punctuated by another crash of some sort. Rinse, lather, repeat.
You could have skipped all of this by reading your shampoo bottle…
Ted – It’s not your fault, because it’s clear now that you said what you meant but what you meant is misguided — a regurg of the propaganda you’ve been soaking in. Also it’s a matter of temperament. Conservatives reflexively always blame the victims. In this case, however, logic tells us that it isn’t statistically possible that all 30 million unemployed Americans are the shiftless no-accounts you describe who deserve what they’re getting. But — or so says Limbaugh, Beck et al — since a few are, they should all suffer. That’ll teach ’em who’s in charge of this country. (Hint: it ain’t the government.)
What you and your right-wing cohorts are advocating — although I, too, doubt that you really understand how you’re being manipulated — is the conversion of the American democratic republic into a corporate oligarchy similar to Mexico’s, with a tiny billionaire elite — Forbes’ wealthiest person in the world now is a Mexican — and a small middle class of doctors and lawyers to service the elite, both sitting precariously atop a vast, seething underclass of peasants picking through Wal-Mart dumpsters for subsistence.
This is the dystopian vision that is the ultimate goal of Fox News propaganda. It’s what Rush Limbaugh and, especially, Glenn Beck are pushing for. And even though they truly are clueless, it’s this drive to corporatize the republic that secretly funds the tea bagger “movement.”
Having read through your explication I know that I’m wasting bandwidth here and that even now you’re rushing to turn on Limbaugh or Beck to shake off doubt and reinforce the propaganda that you’re fighting against “socialism” (even though you probably went to a socialist school, you rely on socialized police and fire protection and socialized community hospitals and you have family members getting their health care and retirement benefits from socialist programs like Social Security and Medicare) and fighting for “freedom” even though the corporatists’ true definition of freedom, as evidenced by what they do (see Joe Barton’s apology to BP, the Republican justices’ Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, Halliburton and Blackwater contracts, etc. etc.), not what they say, is everything for the corporations and nothing for the “small people.”
The fact is the United States operates under a regulatory capitalist system, and has done since the early 1900s. This system was put in place after the anarchy of the Robber Baron’s Gilded Age “free” unregulated markets wreaked havoc on the nation’s finances in successive waves during the latter half of the 19th century. The president who installed the regulatory capitalist system was a Republican, Teddy Roosevelt.
Some of the most successful nations in the world operate under the same system in Europe, but they call their regulatory capitalist systems “social democracies,” or just “socialism” — a word that has a negative connotation here because of the warping of our political vernacular by the Republican witch hunts in the McCarthy era, during which socialism was elided with communism for GOP propaganda purposes.
Point is, the United States has been a “socialist” country for about 110 years. It’s time we all grew up and accepted that reality.
The only thing Republicans and conservatives are competent at is propaganda — if they had any skills at governing, they’d really be dangerous. But even the GOP’s giant noise machine can’t alter reality forever, and every now and then real life intrudes and uncovers the lies. The Bush recession that began in 2008 and the Gulf Spill this year, for example, are both proof positive writ large that strong, smart regulation of industry is necessary if we are to survive as a country. Similarly, socialist programs like providing stipends to the unemployed are the only proven way to survive economic downturns and return to prosperity. Shocking, but true.
The fastest way to reduce the national debt and deficit, which are both direct results of Republican ineptitude and malfeasance, so that they don’t get passed on to the next generation, is to get people working. Stopping unemployment benefits now would have a ripple effect through the economy — from groceries and retail up into the service sectors as a new waves of millions more families lose their homes — that will bring on an even greater and more devastating version of the Bush Recession we’re experiencing now.
You’re right that not everyone has been affected by the Bush recession — even during GOP Pres. Hoover’s Great Depression only 25 percent of the country was unemployed; the other 75 percent were fine, I’m sure — but in Europe, the countries that have weathered the economic collapse the best are the the socialist democracies in the north.
Too much talk. We need action. Line ’em up and lop
’em off!!
Jon (and the rest),
It seems as though, without my ever indicating as such, it is the general impression that I must use Rush Limbaugh and FOX News as my primary sources. This is completely false. Limbaugh is a great entertainer, but a hack philosopher. FOX News has been un-newsworthy for years if not decades…
Republicans make some valid points, once in awhile. So do the Democrats. Neither Party, however, acts outside of its own self-selected interests. To posit that somehow one party is to blame, for anything, more than the other is ludicrous.
Both parties have exasperated the tremendous increases in both the National Debt and year to year budget deficits. Both parties have bailed out their cronies and fair-weather friends (why bother with large campaign contributions otherwise?) Both parties, and this is the important part, allow their friends-in-industry to write their own regulations.
Do you seriously believe that any given Congressman both knows much about, for example, drilling for oil 5 miles beneath the surface of an ocean AND is unbiased enough to enact regulation that is fair to EVERY party affected by said regulation? The answers are not likely in the case of the former, and doubtful in the latter.
Politics, like any other profession, is a career-path. There are no successful / powerful politicians who are also uninfluenced by their campaign contributions and vested special interests. That statement applies, very equally, to members of both parties. That’s merely human nature. To blame the politicians for their human fallacies is honestly maniacal.
“The fastest way to reduce the national debt and deficit, which are both direct results of Republican ineptitude and malfeasance, so that they don’t get passed on to the next generation, is to get people working.”
Oh, yea? What if, as hypothetical President, I decide to throw the Third World War? I bet that will get a lot of people “working”. But is that the kind of work that grows our Economy for the long run? Sure, more than a few people would have jobs but, pray tell, what happens when I decide that the war is no longer tenable and withdraw? Those people are all back to square one, no? I could also raise taxes and pay the unemployed from the National coffers for such projects as National Park restoration, Infrastructure creation, etc. But is that real growth? Did I generate any revenue (or, in different words, did I grow the economy) or did I simply take money from one pile and move it to the other? Or, restated, did I take money (a reflection of opportunity that no one has argued with) from one group for the endowment of the other (Whether it felt justified or not)?
The U.S. has socialist tendencies? And here I thought we were in the “Golden Age” of Laissez-Faire Capitalism! Well now, it seems as though the status of the country’s political system should be written on our Driver’s Licenses! Maybe then, I would have been better informed…
Clearly, the US runs more than a few social programs. As a matter of fact, close to 50% of the federal budget’s total spending is composed of social programs. Ever think that perhaps that could play a role in the rapidly increasing national debt? Or, perhaps, that large-scale social programs warp incentive / natural market forces? Defense is another area
of the budget in which we could save vastly. How big does our military need to be in order to simply “defend freedom”?
The point is, both parties have their favorite high-dollar items. The better point is, we all lose in the long run due to increased interest and debt. We lose in the sense that young people now have come to expect the government to provide everything for everybody. Or, that the US somehow has a right to occupy large tracts of the globe simply because it can. Either way, it’s unaffordable.
Earlier I jumped the gun in describing “everybody” as having spent themselves into oblivion. However, large conclusions from that diatribe still remain correct. Namely, the US as a country has spent itself into oblivion. And, while as appetizing as it may be, it is not productive to blame politicians and CEO’s. They have only played their roles. If Americans haven’t figured out that in many Arenas they are stepping into a game of monopoly in which all squares already contain hotels; the solution will never be self-evident. That is, the answer does not lie in greater regulation (in which the relevant industries have the upper hand already, namely because we allow it) but in the general enforcement of a stable Rule of Law (Which stands a greater chance of turning the “game” from repelling business from one’s competitor to attracting it to one’s self).
Until the American people identify that the largest piece of the political problem is our own general complacency in all things politic, the system will continue to produce “tea-baggers” and misguided socialists. Until we, as a unified people, can begin to discuss economic issues with the attention to detail typically reserved for the sport’s section, we’re all doomed to repeat this exact cycle again and again until another civilization replaces us.
It’s a cynic’s world out there. Those who don’t understand this WILL be taken advantage of. The forensic question is; whose fault is that?
P.S. I don’t consider this a waste of bandwidth…
In New York State the maximum unemployment per week is $405, and from this taxes are taken out. Whether the person was earning $20,000 or $100,000 they will receive no more than $21,000 a year in unemployment. Despite lower income one’s housing and living costs have not declined. The loss of the benefits is extremely harsh at this time.
Hey liberals, tell me why i should pay for someone who goes to the casino with there govt ebt cards??,, 1.8 million dollars spent on casino atms this year so far from welfare recipients,, Read it and weep ,, its on LA times 2 days ago,, the free ride is over,,, we are so breeding a lazy nation its pathetic, your way will always fail eventually..
problem is your taking all of us smart people with you.
So what, Steve? Govt screws up, but so do businesses — even ginormous multi-billion dollar corporations like BP — churches, schools, sports teams and any other groups where humans are in charge. Are you right-wingers ever gonna grow up or are normal Americans going to be forced to carry you while fighting you for the rest of time?