Continually baffled

Yet another demonstration this week by the GOP that they are:

• Completely out of touch with popular sentiment
• Couldn't care less about rebuilding our shrinking middle class
• Are much more interested in taking symbolic, confrontational stances on issues than actually doing the logical (and moral) thing. 
• Always going to side with big business over the common man

I've blogged before about the staggering collapse of the middle class. It's a fact, not an opinion. It's not about Obama or W; it's been taking place for over 30 years now. The '08 recession definitely hurt the middle class a lot, but they were in pretty bad shape by '07 anyway. If you care to read about the topic, Carville & Greenberg wrote a great book on it. Are they biased? Hell yes they are. But let's be clear - just because they work for the Dems doesn't make them wrong. They're brilliant, and the book is filled with economic data that is not in dispute; any way you look at it the middle class in this country is not what it once was. Also, it talks about how people rightly don't trust the government today because we all know that money runs politics, which means rich white people and corporations pretty much get the policies they want. I'm a "rich" white guy who works for a big corporation, so through no fault of my own I benefit from a lot of the GOP's bullshit, but I still hate it. I hate that it takes politics away from the people, and I believe a government that works for the elites and the greed of corporations is bad for America, period.

In the current Congress, the GOP has voted AGAINST raising the minimum wage, AGAINST fair pay for women, and FOR cutting food stamps. Are too many people on food stamps? Absolutely. In the richest nation in the world, we should be collectively ashamed that 47,000,000 people can't get the food they need without government assistance. Is there fraud in the program? Absolutely, as is the case with any government program. Let's keep it in perspective though. Let's compare tax fraud by the rich and corporations to "food fraud" by people poor enough to qualify for food stamps. Some interesting facts about the food stamp program:

• 41% of the people on it have jobs that simply don't pay enough money to feed a family
• 14% of US families are on it
• Today, over 900,000 of the families on it are veterans, whose unemployment rate is 2x-3x the national average
• It costs $80 billion a year, the US budget is $3,770 billion a year, so food stamps make up just over 2% of Federal expenditures. 
• It was signed into law originally by a Republican President (Eisenhower)
• Its original goal was to kill two birds with one stone: help farmers by buying their surplus food production and help poor people by feeding them with those surpluses; this is why the food stamp program is still part of the farm bill

So wait, if we raise the minimum wage, we could potentially cut the food stamp rolls by 41%, shifting that burden back to employers and off the American taxpayer, while simultaneously helping our veterans and their families? Score!

To be clear, if you're mad about government spending and your solution is to go after the food stamp program, you're an idiot. The GOP cuts trimmed $8.7 billion, which is a lot, until you realize that it's 11% of 2% of the federal budget. So congrats GOP you just saved 0.22% of federal expenditures by taking dinner away from poor people. In who's country is that an awesome move? I hope not America.

What about minimum wage? Who does that affect? Who makes minimum wage anyway?

• 4.7% of hourly workers
• 76% of minimum wage earners are NOT high school kids
• Over half of them are women

By paying its employees minimum wage, the average Wal-Mart store costs taxpayers an estimated $900K/year, because those employees need assistance programs like... FOOD STAMPS! (that report has some flawed assumptions, but the basically calculate an average taxpayer burden of $3,000 per minimum wage employee per year) Wal Mart has over 3200 US stores, for a total taxpayer burden of... $2.8 billion! That's just Wal-Mart! Now let's add in all the other stores, hotels, and other businesses that pay minimum wage. 4.7% of the 75,000,000 hourly workers in the US, $3,000 taxpayer burden per minimum wage worker gets us... $10.5 billion dollars. Raising the minimum wage would save more money than they cut from the food stamp program. Not only would it not screw poor people and veterans, it would actively help them move towards the middle class. 

The most frustrating part to me is that much of the GOP base today is dumb enough to believe their bullshit.