Walker budget attacks poor--His Response 'That's The Point'

[HereSince1628]

Walker's Budget Attacks The Poor - - His Response, 'That's The Point'

http://fwix.com/milwaukee/share/a06f75ec5f/walkers_budget_attacks_the_poor_-_-_his_response_thats_the_point?referrer=http%3A%2F%2Frawstory.com%2F

references an original article in Wisconsin State Journal


The Wisconsin State Journal is reporting that Scott Walker's budget goes after tax benefits for low-income taxpayers while adding more breaks for business or upper-income filers.

Incredibly, Walker defends what anyone else would see as weighting a system even further against people at the bottom of the ladder:

"In an interview Friday, the Republican governor called the tax credit a “redistribution program” that involves “taking money from other taxpayers and giving it to individuals who have a limited tax liability.”

“This is reducing how much money other taxpayers have to give to those individuals,” Walker said.'"

[bobbolink]

1. Isn't it interesting that THIS is NOT what the protests are about?

Why is that, do you think?

:nuke:

[Shiver]

4. Likely because the protests started before the actual budget was revealed.

There are a whole slew of nasty things in the budget that are riling up even more people.

[bobbolink]

7. Its only about the middleclass. Which is conveniently ignoring us.

THAT is the "class war".

[MedleyMisty]

14. I hear you

Every time someone talks about how oh noes, we've got to save the middle class, I think - what about the working class? What about poor people? Do we not matter? I guess we're expendable. Gotta drive a luxury SUV to be considered human.

When I brought that up IRL, someone informed me that most Americans think of themselves as middle class. Found this blog post on Black Agenda Report about the whole social construction of "middle class".

http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/freedom-rider-middle-class-means-working-class

And yes - I believe I had to go to Black Agenda Report to find discussion about it because the majority of DU posters who are all up into saving the "middle class" are white.

[bobbolink]

16. YEs, we are expendable. We don't have a voice. We are quietly taking it out on ourselves,

without a fight, and there are VERY FEW middleclass people who give a damn.

To put it quite bluntly.

When are we going to be ready to come together and fight???

[CTyankee]

35. You are turning this into "middle class v. poor" argument and that is short sighted.

The point is that the slide of the middle class into poverty is a bad thing in and of itself. Democracy cannot exist without a strong middle class, period. But we don't save the middle class and help the poor by having this argument. What we need to do is realize we are, both groups, vulnerable and we need to band together against the greedy capitalists to fight back.

The point is not to make more people poor but to raise up the poor and the sliding middle classes. We can no longer withstand the "divide and conquer" strategy of the greedy rich in this country.

Let's not help them destroy us with their "us and them" type of argument. It isn't helpful and it doesn't get you where you want to go...

[bobbolink]

37. WE aren't doing it.. the middleclass left us in the dirt a long time ago.

Sometimes it is those who say they are "progressive" who do the dividing.... just listen to Schultz, et al.

All they ever talk about is the middleclass.. that isn't US doing that dividing, and the middleclass goes right along with it.

I have YET to hear any caller to any "progressive" talk show say, "We middleclass people can't forget our poor brothers and sisters... they are getting it worse than we are."

If you don't like the divide, then I urge you to do just that... start speaking up,.... but NOT against US. We are the ones taking the brunt of this! And it won't end well if it continues.

[CTyankee]

40. I do this all the time and have been doing this all along.

The point I am making is that the middle class must be made more aware that if we don't all band together against the greedy rich, we are playing right into their hands. Make the argument that it is in the middle class's best interest to do so.

The Reaganites used this technique: telling the middle class that the REAL enemy was the poor. What we need to do is argue, as I do constantly, that the middle class will lose THEIR station in life not thru joining in the demonization of the poor, but in organizing with the poor on behalf of both groups. It is the only way we can save our democracy and hopefully make a better life for all. Open their eyes by pointing to the inevitable if they do not recognize this reality. Ranting on them won't do much good and will probably turn them off.

Also, some people are poor but they don't consider themselves poor. They stand to lose a LOT if the conservatives get their way. We have to also point out that the conservatives are playing to "traditional American values" as a way of driving a wedge among ordinary Americans,leaving them fragmented instead of organized and in a better position to gain in political power.

I'm not really arguing against you, I just think we need to organize all of us under a common banner.

[bobbolink]

57. Thank you for clarifying. It is past time for the middleclass to look at their part in this.

"The point I am making is that the middle class must be made more aware that if we don't all band together against the greedy rich, we are playing right into their hands."

Any suggestions how we can make the middleclass more aware?

The seem stubbornly bent on remaining UNaware.

[CTyankee]

64. Well, as I always say, people don't change until they get a swift kick in the pants!

This recession has shown how perilously close the lower middle class was to impoverishment. The credit card companies and other entities in our consumerist society pushed people into going into debt and once they were there, impoverished them savagely with high interest rates and fees and now those people are feeling less secure (for good reason; they are less secure) and it is frightening. But we can explain what happened to them and try to help them understand that the only way WE succeed is by joining together.

We can't let their anger slip by. It is their anger and bitter disappointment that can drive them towards real change and economic justice.

The war on the poor is the war on all of us...the middle class no longer has the "luxury" of feeling superior...

[CrispyQ]

66. This is a great post.

"We can't let their anger slip by. It is their anger and bitter disappointment that can drive them towards real change and economic justice.

The war on the poor is the war on all of us...the middle class no longer has the "luxury" of feeling superior..."

[CTyankee]

67. Thank you. It is the blatant truth, is it not? At long last...

[bobbolink]

69. "The war on the poor is the war on all of us"....another bumpersticker!

You *do* know that all these beauiful words are very supportive to me, don't you? I have been ignored and vilified for so long, and to see these words....well, it is really healing to me! I'mm sure it would be to other poor people, too, just to see them, so a bumpersticker is something to consider... ^_^

Just a word on that.... I really object to "the" anything... We are all people first, before whatever else we are categorized as, and I like to see that remembered... we are people who are poor.

"We can't let their anger slip by." ABsolutely! Yet, poor people, when they go for "help", must always bury their anger. It is very unhealthy! WE need to be there to let them know their (our) anger is OK and accepted.

[Boswell]

28. no reason you can't go to the protests

and get it included...

[bobbolink]

60. Why would poor people go to a protest for middleclass people and just be ignored?

Why should we support a cause which doesn't help us, when they don't support US?

You see, that is the divide,and WE aren't the ones causing it.

[CTyankee]

70. the middle class has been fed a line of BS that somehow their plight is "different" from the poor.

Hell, even some of the poor that I know (who think they are not poor) turn against the people they call "poor." My mechanic's daughter works part time for her dad in his garage answering the phone and doing billing. She cuts back her hours if her pay gets to the point where her 4 children will not be eligible for state provided health care, and then she rails against "those people" who are on state aid! I hear it all the time. I sometimes want to slap these people silly (verbally) but I try to control my outrage and reason with them. They are in denial. They don't want to admit that they are in the same boat with "those people." In fact, they ARE "those people," they just don't know it...

[HereSince1628]

6. Actually they sort of are about this...

The cause of the poor may be under-represented in Madison, but not in protests in Milwaukee.
Walker is revealling what he is really made of...and that smell ain't Limburger cheese

[cognoscere]

20. Are you talking about Rush Limberger cheese? Cuz' I have to say, that

is one of the vilest smelling substances in existence.

[Lifelong Protester]

13. Shiver is correct, it started as an attack on unions, then later

the budget was revealed, and THAT, my friend, is what is making more folks wake up to the fact that this guy must be defeated. When the Rev. Jesse Jackson talked, he definitely emphasized that we need to be looking out for all of our brothers and sisters, especially those with no voice.

On a side note, next Saturday there will be a march from Milwaukee to Madison, and this is to protest not only the budget Repair bill but the budget which hurts those in poverty even WORSE than the middle class. There will also be a farm families protest in the form of a tractorcade to Madison, because many farm families live in or very near poverty and need a lot of the programs the gov wants to slash. These folks bring us the food we consume, and I support them.

[bobbolink]

17. Obama announced budget cuts to poverty programs BEFORE Wanker did his trip.

There were a few words about it, but..... no FIRE.

[Lifelong Protester]

43. gotta get the fire started somehow, and now it is ON

[bobbolink]

56. !!!

:hug: :loveya:

[liberal N proud]

2. Evil bastards

[Initech]

3. He'll get his when the recall election starts.

Fuck him. :grr: :mad:

[bobbolink]

9. And how many deaths will there be by then?

We haven't yet figured out how to bring people back from the dead, evenn when they die unjustly.

The. Time. To. Speak. Up. Is. NOW.

[Initech]

24. I'm not following this logic.

Do you think he'd try something as stupid as to send the National Guard into Madison? There's no way, that would be political suicide.

[HereSince1628]

26. Cuts to BadgerCare (medicare) cuts to other programs for the poor

all increase the likelihood of bad outcomes.


Wisconsin is not YET to the point of Draco's Transylvania where Vlad the Impaler took his poor, put them inside a fortress and then burned it to the ground. And VIOLINS AND VIOLAS! Suddenly many fewer poor.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

41. Were you trying to say "voila" instead of "viola"?

:shrug:

[HereSince1628]

49. no, violins and violas

[bobbolink]

27. Probably not, because the middleclass doesn't think in terms of URGENCY.

[CTyankee]

46. For some reason it has been made a crime in America to be poor.

I have seen formerly "middle class" people become dependent on state aid and food stamps. These are the people for whom a swift kick in the pants CAN open their eyes to the reality of the situation in this country. They know that they, too, work hard and it hasn't prevented them from becoming more and more impoverished while the rich get richer.

Because I have worked in the nonprofit field all my life, I have seen perhaps a higher percentage of middle class people with more empathy for the poor (I don't like using that label because it implies we are not all in the same boat which we emphatically ARE). So perhaps I am being unrealistic that everyone sees it my way. To me, agitating is just my normal response to social inequity, but I just keep on trying. I hope I am opening, and have opened, some eyes...

[Initech]

54. Can't argue with that.

[Brigid]

36. But isn't Walker bent on political suicide?

He certainly seems to be. He seems to have a "scorched earth" mentality.

[alterfurz]

47. yes...

...take it from one of my old Milwaukee friends, who is in a position to know: Walker will never bend, he'll have to be broken. And if/when he goes down, he will try to drag the whole state with him. In a Republican party now filled with borderline sociopaths, Walker is in a league of his own.

[Brigid]

50. He sounds like Ghadafi.

And some people say people like that can't rise to power in this country. :eyes:

[alterfurz]

53. but unlike Qaddafi...

...Walker is not given to wild, crazed rants--he's just as cool and calm as can be, which helps make his horrendous policies actually sound reasonable. And he's utterly shameless--anyone else would have been embarrassed about being caught by the phone prankster, but not Scott--when questioned about it by reporters, he just matter-of-factly shrugged it all off. Cold, calm, fixated, iron-willed, relentless, and utterly cocksure--this one is dangerous, people.

[tblue37]

58. Like Adolph in his bunker. nt

[Initech]

55. I think the tea party in general is bent on it.

[Arkana]

62. Not yet. He seems to be willing to do everything but play the final card:

sending in the National Guard.

I guess even Scott Walker is smart enough to know how that would look.

[dragonlady]

5. And the extra $20 to a poor family

means a lot more than an extra million to a billionaire.

[HereSince1628]

11. This feeds his t-bagger base...I've written this a million times but

this is a place to say it again:

JEALOUSY is THE thing that holds the t-baggers to the GREEDY GOP Pro Corp types.

Walker is saying he hears that need and his budget protects that jealousy. All he needs is for them to forget that the real greedy bastards who make Walker's policy don't care if they live or die.

[pacalo]

15. Exactly! This man is a devil.

Walker has additional cuts in his budget aimed right at W-2 Welfare-to-Work recipients and even kids in the Milwaukee Public Schools breakfast program.

[alterfurz]

51. yes (see my response to Brigid above)

secretive, treacherous, fixated, unfeeling, unrelenting, and to top it all off, coolly cocksure. Quite the complete reptilian package.

[cognoscere]

32. Exactamundo. This bullshit about flat tax rates and how there is some kind

of equivalence if the rich pay the same percentage needs to stop. A few years ago, Bill Gates donated ten million to some college library. The media and everyone else was gushing about what a great contribution it was. From a strictly dollar standpoint, it was enormous and probably helped the library considerably (after the PTB skimmed their cut). But in relation to his situation, the ten million was .03333% of his net worth of thirty billion dollars. A person who donates a hundred dollars from a net worth of, say, ten thousand would be giving one percent. Compared to Gates, the "poor" person made a sacrifice that is thirty times greater than Gates did even though in dollars, it was a hundred thousand times smaller. Things in this country, indeed, the world, will continue to get worse for all but the rich if we keep letting the spread of non sequiturs, half-truths, and outright lies take the place of facts.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. Apparently "redistribution" is acceptable only if

the money is redistributed from the poor to the rich. What's interesting is that Wanker actually admitted that this is what they're doing. Most of them tapdance around this point by blathering about "protecting the taxpayers" or some such.

But this gets to the real crux of the teabagger/GOPer philosophy, which is that it's wrong for the government to use the tax system to "steal" from people who have more to give it to those who have less. You're on your own in GOPer world; if you have less, well, it sucks to be you because nobody is going to help you.

[reformist2]

10. Complete inversion of values. He actually thinks *not* helping the poor is moral!

Have they really regressed to Dickensian England?

[bobbolink]

12. That regression happened over 3 decades ago.

[reformist2]

21. It's amazing - Republicans today reject the course of history of the past 150 years!

[Brigid]

39. They are even rejecting their own history.

Ike would be furious. Hell, even Nixon was a flaming liberal compared to this crowd.

[Scuba]

18. Thanks, I blatantly cut and pasted this to the JSOnline blogs.

[Tsiyu]

19. Don't you know if you yell at and shame a disabled poor person

they will suddenly throw away their cane and start making money hand over fist?

Do you know if you pull education programs from inner-city kids, they suddenly gain 50 IQ points?

Did you know if you force single mothers to work in order to get benefits, they will magically rise above poverty?

It's magical-thinking land, where the well-fed, clothed and housed wealthy "tax liabilities" are protected while the hungry, poor, underhoused and underserved "least of these" are simply tossed aside like refuse.

Where they will magically just go away.

[bobbolink]

25. Damn! How did you get so smart? Cuz this IS how it works.

:crazy:

You know... what you wrote needs to be a comic book!

Seriously... this is good material!

[ejpoeta]

30. i said it before and i'll say it again.... these folks have to believe poor people

are poor because they are lazy. If they face the reality that just the fact that someone got sick or lost their job and that was enough to put them there.... then that means any one of us could end up like that. If we pretend that there is something wrong with these people causing them to be sick or poor that is their own fault, then we can feel safe and secure in the knowledge that this couldn't happen to us. That way we can go on living the fantasy that we aren't just treading water here.

[TahitiNut]

34. "It's God's will."

:puke:

[ThomCat]

42. I keep getting mail, repeatedly, that implies that I can get out

of my electric wheelchair and find a high-paying job.

Social Security seems to think that all I need is a few weeks of job training, so I won't need Social Security Disability any more.

The insurance company that I get some private disability insurance from regularly seems to think that I got magically cured and found a job and just didn't tell them, so of course there is no more need for those insurance payments they are contractually obligated to send me.

I remember when a friend of mine had his wheelchair stolen a number of years ago, and he was told by Medicare that they wouldn't replace it. They told him that if someone was able to steal it then he wasn't in it at the time, so obviously that means he doesn't need it any more. So the fact that he sleeps means he must be cured and doesn't need a wheelchair anymore.

The wheelchair was found several days later. Local teens had used it for games and joy-riding. It was wrecked and ruined. It took months to convince Medicare to replace it, which they finally did ONLY because of a police report and persistence.

When people really insist on discriminating against us, Magical Thinking is always in their arsenal. That, and the use of Double Standards. Always. You can count on it. :(

[Tsiyu]

63. It's very sad

to see so many people buy the Magical Thinking


it's a cover for sheer selfishness

[OHdem10]

22. That is the point. GOP are not concerned with the poor.

As they plan to cut all these citizens off Medicaid
and Welfare is a shadow of the program it once was,
what are their plans for them??? I see no plans.
Just masses of poverty forgotten by the wayside.

[Jkid]

23. "School breakfast? Hey, you piggy seven-year-old. Man up: Scott says wait for lunch. "

A more straight-up correction would be "Hope you can afford lunch, because we will taking away free school lunch too". As for the job search "If you've been looking for a job for months, hope anyone will hire you".

Scott should say, "Fuck the poor and working class" and be done with it.

[ejpoeta]

29. but they take money from taxpaying middle class and poor and give it

to corporations and rich individuals who pay little to no tax. isn't that worse?

[undeterred]

31. Somewhere in the bill there is a provision for an increase in funeral assistance

for the poor. So you see, there IS A PLAN for the poor. They're supposed to DIE.

I'm not kidding.

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/04/walker-slashes-medicaid-funeral/#

[Tsiyu]

38. what ghouls

don't want their funeral home buddies to bite the bullet on this one


profits for everyone courtesy of the pre-engineered deaths of the poor


woohoo Happy Land

[ThomCat]

45. He has friends in the funeral home business.

They need to have subsidies to guarantee they make money.

[maryf]

48. They'll be making money on the poor who die

egregious...

[Hannah Bell]

52. i saw that & thought it was very weird. like they were expecting more deaths.

[Brigid]

33. Is Walker really that tone deaf and stupid?

Good God, he sounds like General Burgoyne in the series about the Revolutionary War I'm watching. WI voters need to make him pay -- big time.

[Rex]

44. The point is to fuck over the working poor...he even says so.

What a fuckwit.

[DaisyDeedles]

59. Isn't he special? nt

[opihimoimoi]

61. The man has NO EMPATHY...a BULLY TRAIT.....he is a tool for the obvious....RECALL

[CrossChris]

65. That's music to the ears of teabaggers. We have to stop thinking this rhetoric defeats itself.

That type of rhetoric is exactly what his base wants to hear.

[progressoid]

68. +1