Have you heard the wealthy complain that the poor are ruining the economy?

[Philosoraptor]

Being a hopeless cspan junkie, I constantly hear rich repubs complain bitterly that the poor are the real problem with our economy, the rich have to pay huge taxes to take care of the poor, the poor take out loans they can't pay, always falling behind on their credit payments, and generally not keeping up with rush limbaugh, not pulling up their boot straps, not pulling their weight, living on govt. programs and sucking the life out of the American economy, etc.

I guess the poor just suck for not being rich like decent Americans ought to be.

[Vinca]

1. Of course the rich are getting richer by sending our jobs overseas.

They didn't think it through. Either you need jobs for the masses or the poor clutter up the government programs and/or die on the street from starvation. God forbid the limo has to pass a corpse on the way to the club.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

2. A poor person may suck hundreds a month from the economy

A rich person has the means to suck millions a month from the economy.

Rush Limbaugh sucks more than most.

[Philosoraptor]

3. I've read some VERY weird things about rush limbaugh...

dick cheney is the perfect wealthy republican, he and rush.

[unhappycamper]

4. Yes, and the Iraq occupation sucks out $5,000 a second. n/t

[Philosoraptor]

5. That's ALMOST as much as rush gets for sucking.

[summer borealis]

6. As the great Mike Royko once wrote ...

"The poor have all the money"

[alphafemale]

7. They complained about the same people when they had good union jobs too.

Of course most unions in America have been eviscerated.

[PA Democrat]

8. Perhaps they need to look at who has been wiping out regulation of business.

Perhaps they need to look at who is making obscene unwarranted profits off of Bush's illegal war. Perhaps they need to look at who is becoming wealthy by shipping jobs overseas and using child and slave labor to increase corporate profits. Perhaps they need to look at who mislead consumers into taking out loans without full disclosure of the terms of those loans. Perhaps they should look at the mortgage companies who knowingly made loans to people they should not have.

The list goes on and on. But the theme with Republicans is that they are so greedy and stupid that they are easily convinced to believe that some poor slob is getting something they don't deserve. They NEVER look at the real thieves, the people who unfairly rig the whole stinking system so they can amass even greater levels of wealth.

[SmileyRose]

9. Just think of how rich they'd be if they didn't have to pay employees at all.

I snark. (ok only half snark)

[bdamomma]

10. my opinion the rich can't take it with them.

it is a class/culture war.

[Philosoraptor]

11. They complain the most about the Mexican slave laborers.

The poorest of the poor, they call the 'illegals', and simply want them exterminated.

[raccoon]

14. And probably have illegals working as maids and yard workers. nt

[alphafemale]

22. Yet they expect to be able to buy food cheap. They also hate public schools.

Is guessing they would be unopposed to child slavery in this country very much of a logical leap?

[old mark]

12. The real problem is all those trailer parks

on land that would be perfect for another golf course or mall. I suppose the poor will want to vote some day as well. What Next!!!
(joke)

mark

[asdjrocky]

13. Heard an idiot just this morning

complaining that now it's going to be up to the wealthy to take care of all of us poor, stupid people.

Really, honestly, I'm trying not to whine.

[pampango]

23. While conservatives are the leaders of the "people are stupid" movement, they are not alone.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3624887

Sometimes I think that the belief that the masses are stupid is the only thing that the far right and far left agree on.

[salguine]

15. We could all just rise up and kill the rich, then they wouldn't have to worry about it.

[Philosoraptor]

16. The rich are very high in protein.

[Fovea]

17. Don't eat the rich!

Feed 'em to the hogs.

[KharmaTrain]

18. Most Inherited Their Money

I've met my share of rich GOOPers...and I've seen them come in two varieties. The first are the self-made...entrepeneurs and true "fiscal conservatives" who watch every dime like a hawk. These people will complain about taxes, but they also realize the benefits of it from the days when they didn't have much. I've also found many of these people to be the most helpful in trying to help others attain either success or financial independence.

The other group are those those "won the lottery"...either through inheriting or social climbing. These are the most bitter as they truly feel both special and entitled. Their concept of money and of life in general has been jaded through their status and lack of struggles. When things are done for them, it's expected, when it's not, then they're being discriminated against. Selfishness and arrogance reign supreme as they've never had to really struggle in this world and their "norms" are of being privilidged. The manchild squatting in the White House is a classic example.

I hear those same callers and I tend to think they're not very good business people...the cause, not the problem. Fact is that while the precentage may be higher on their incomes, the overall bite is minimal. Be assured a person who earns $50k a year feels the tax bite a lot harder than someone who earns $500k a year.

[happygoluckytoyou]

19. GOP = Cheap Labor.... life IS a war... between the kings and the serfs... don't kid yourself

[SammyWinstonJack]

20. Those working class folks who vote republican are the ones who are kidding themselves.

I'll never understand that. Guns abortion gays and god do not put food on their tables, good paying jobs do however. MOrans!

[Brewman_Jax]

21. I've heard that

they hate those "lucky duckies"

[asteroid2003QQ47]

24. The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay All

--HERBERT J. GANS

<>
Today, poverty is more maligned than the political machine ever was; yet it, too, is a persistent social phenomenon. Consequently, there may be some merit in applying functional analysis to poverty, in asking whether it also has positive functions that explain its persistence. Merton defined functions as "those observed consequences which make for the adaptation or adjustment of a given system." I shall use a slightly different definition; instead of identifying functions for an entire social system, I shall identify them for the interest groups, socio-economic classes, and other population aggregates with shared values that "inhabit" a social system. I suspect that in a modern heterogeneous society, few phenomena are functional or dysfunctional for the society as a whole, and that most result in benefits to some groups and costs to others. Nor are any phenomena indispensable; in most instances, one can suggest what Merton calls "functional alternatives" or equivalents for them, i.e., other social patterns or policies that achieve the same positive functions but avoid the dysfunction. (In the following discussion, positive functions will be abbreviated as functions and negative functions as dysfunctions. Functions and dysfunctions, in the planner's terminology, will be described as benefits and costs.)

Associating poverty with positive functions seems at first glance to be unimaginable. Of course, the slumlord and the loan shark are commonly known to profit from the existence of poverty, but they are viewed as evil men, so their activities are classified among the dysfunctions of poverty. However, what is less often recognized, at least by the conventional wisdom, is that poverty also makes possible the existence or expansion of respectable professions and occupations, for example, penology, criminology, social work, and public health. More recently, the poor have provided jobs for professional and para-professional "poverty warriors," and for journalists and social scientists, this author included, who have supplied the information demanded by the revival of public interest in poverty. Clearly, then, poverty and the poor may well satisfy a number of positive functions for many nonpoor groups in American society. I shall describe 13 such functions—economic, social, and political—that seem to me most significant.
< . . .
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/che725/teaching/poorpayall.htm

Rich repubs love the "big lie."
-------------------------------------
The great masses of people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.
--Adolf Hitler