I remember when presidential candidates actually paid lip service to wanting to help the poor. Obama is too scared to mention anybody but the middle class, and we've heard the pure vitriol and sheer contempt and disdain with which Mitt Romney refers to these folks. I feel like the most vulnerable of our society are inconvenient at best to half our leaders, and actually loathed by the other half.
and we've heard the pure vitriol and sheer contempt and disdain with which Mitt Romney refers to these folks
you and I live in different worlds dude. be careful not to judge to quickly about what Mitt Romney thinks of "poor people". You may not agree with his ideas on what government should or shouldn't do for people in need - but don't make the leap to think you know what he believes about people in need. There is a difference.
When you smear those people who are so poor they are in the no tax bracket as people who don't care for their own lives and have no personal responsibility by definition, that's vicious and contemptible imho. Those are his words. He said them. He said them when he thought the media wasn't listening to boot. No spinning that or escaping that fact. Edit: btw, my original point was not referring to the candidate's contrasting policy positions on how to tackle the problem (though Mitt comes up short here in my view) but rather how the candidates talk (or don't talk) about the poor in the aggregate. It's not too hard to derive their priorities from there.These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax...And so my job is not to worry about those people—I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.
I think Obama did ok actually, at least he signed the health care reform that will make a huge difference for millions of people who are too poor to get their teeth fixed. Unfortunately the way the electoral system works, hundreds of thousands of people who vote are easily outbalanced by small fraction with massive bank accounts. There are numerous papers on the effect of campaign contributions on policy, and it's pretty clear that unless that is changed, the poor will continue having practically no voice in this system. http://www.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/publications/impact-n...
I agree that Obama's policies are no question better for the poor. It just strikes me that that happens via rhetoric that mostly talks about the benefits to the middle class. Policy is less often pursued "in the name of" helping the poor. On your second point, I commented elsewhere on here today that there is only one issue, and that is campaign finance reform. It is the underlying issue that affects every single issue people on both sides of the aisle care about.
I commented elsewhere on here today that there is only one issue, and that is campaign finance reform. It is the underlying issue that affects every single issue people on both sides of the aisle care about
I couldn't agree more ecib. It's the #1 thing most disastrous to our democracy. It's also something nobody passionately champions. To do so would be counterintuitive to most politicians.
I agree that Obama's policies are no question better for the poor. It just strikes me that that happens via rhetoric that mostly talks about the benefits to the middle class. Policy is less often pursued "in the name of" helping the poor.
Perhaps it has something to do with the whole "individualistic" streak in American national consciousness? I've heard people say that in the US, everyone thinks that where you are is where you got yourself - poor people are poor because they are lazy, and so on.
This plays a huge part. The narrative on the right is that the rich got rich solely by their own talent and skill, and that the poor are poor because they are lazy. Of course there are qualifications made, but this is the underlying theme. Obama made a point that rich business people actually utilize a lot of public infrastructure and got where they are through collaboration. That led to a new line of attack and outrage that one could suggest that the rich didn't build their business themselves on the part of Republicans.