More on Mitt and the Poor

As I posted earlier, Mitt said today that he isn’t concerned about the poor, he’s concerned about the middle class.

My sense is that he’s so out of touch with normal Americans that he doesn’t realize how many people have fallen out of the middle class and become poor since the Great Recession began.  Some of those people had been middle class all their lives and never known poverty, others had succeeded in reaching the middle class, only to fall back down.  The line between poor and middle class has become blurred.  People who used to write checks to their local food banks are now getting groceries there.

Does Mitt have some sort of cut off in mind?  Will he help you if you were middle class on some date in 2007?  He definitely seems to think that there are some hopeless poor people unworthy of his time and attention, who should get what they need to survive, but not the opportunity to do better.  He’s writing some people off as too stupid or lazy or fond of alcohol and drugs to reach the middle class.

Mitt is bringing back the concept of the “undeserving poor” from Victorian England.

Mitt’s not just fomenting the class warfare the GOP falsely accuses President Obama of doing, he’s clearly taken sides.  And it’s not the side that will win in November.

Is the GOP Really Going to Nominate This Guy?

Mitt the Tone Deaf told CNN, “I’m not concerned about the very poor.”

Given a chance to walk that back, he doubled down!  “I said I’m not concerned about the very poor that have a safety net, but if it has holes in it, I will repair them.  You can choose where to focus.  You can focus on the rich.  That’s not my focus.  You can focus on the very poor.  That’s not my focus.  My focus is on middle income Americans….”

So he’s saying the poor can just stay where they are and remain at their subsistence level, he has no interest in helping them move into the middle class.  This is completely antithetical to everything that America means and stands for.  We don’t believe in a permanent underclass, we believe in upward mobility.  We are the country where you were a guy with a cart selling pickles on the Lower East Side, but your son became a judge or a surgeon.

It is also the rap that the GOP likes to lay on the Dems — that the Dems don’t really care about the poor as they profess to, that they like to keep them dependent on their public housing and food stamps and Medicaid so the Dems have a built-in voting block they can rely on.

Poor people were never going to vote for Mitt.  But better-off people who care about the poor, maybe because they or their parents or their grandparents used to be poor, won’t either.  That’s a voting bloc the GOP can’t afford to lose.

For all the GOP’s garbage that Obama is the “Other” who doesn’t understand and believe in America, it’s their guy Mitt who can’t open his silver-spoon-clogged mouth without revealing that he really is the “Other.”

The Romney campaign may be celebrating their Florida victory, but the GOP should be in panic mode.  You’re saddled with a big loser.

Vote Red, Vote Blue — Green Always Wins

Liberal elites chide the “yokels” in the red heartland who vote Republican, against their economic interests, over issues like abortion and gay marriage.

But don’t be so smug, middle class Americans on the blue coasts, who think you’re smarter than the folks in flyover country.  The truth is you’re voting against your economic interests too.  When you vote Democrat, you’re just buying into the flip side of the culture wars, you’re responding to those who say they’ll protect and fight for your right to choose or to marry someone of the same sex.

Because if you’re middle class, whether you vote Democrat or Republican, you’re voting against your economic interests.  Both parties seek the contributions of Wall Street, both parties are bought and paid for by them, and both parties protect the interests of the rich.  The Dems do more for the poor, that’s true, but I’m talking about the middle class.

In the last thirty years, we’ve had both Democrat and Republican presidents, Democrat and Republican Congresses.  And the middle class has suffered and declined.  Much of the responsibility for the economic meltdown that happened under Bush 43 goes back to Bill Clinton, with such dumb moves as the repeal of Glass Steagall.  Dodd-Frank is a joke that doesn’t begin to address what caused the economic collapse or to prevent the next one.  Dodd-Frank passed because Wall Street signed off on it in an attempt to throw us a few crumbs.

It infuriates me that Mitt Romney, like other venture capital and hedge fund and equity guys, pays income tax at the rate of 15% because of the indefensable loophole of “carried interest,” while I pay 35%.  But you know who one of the top defenders of “carried interest” has been and continues to be?  New York Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat.  He gets tons of money from Wall Street (he’s their senator) and he watches out for them, not the middle class of New York and the rest of America.  Basically, Mitt Romney and Chuck Schumer are the same guy.

The Wall Street folks don’t care about abortion or gay rights or guns or the “war on Christmas” or any of the emotional issues that get people to vote red or blue.  They just care about the money and the stuff — the triplexes on Fifth Avenue, the oceanfront places at the Hamptons, the Ferraris and the Gulf Streams.

The Wall Street folks know it doesn’t matter if the Democrats or Republicans win because they can’t lose.  They own both sides.  Real power doesn’t shift between red and blue, it always stays with Wall Street green.

Blue people may laugh at red people, but the green people are laughing at all of us.

The Iowa Caucuses are a couple of hours away.  The rich will win tonight, they’ll win the rest of the primary contests, and they’ll win the general.