Monday, May 25, 2015

To Be "Fiscally Conservative" Is To Be Pro-Poverty

This article is directed at conservatives like Wisconsin's Teapublicans, but damn if it isn't even more appropriate for the likes of the boy prince, Boss Abele and the other Republicrats!  The whole article is well worth the read, but I would point out this part:
And in case you hadn’t noticed, poverty — including the cycle of poverty and the effect of poverty on children – disproportionately affects African Americans, Hispanics, other people of color, women, trans people, disabled people, and other marginalized groups.

So what does this have to do with fiscal policy? Well, duh. Poverty is perpetuated or alleviated, worsened or improved, by fiscal policy. That’s not the only thing affecting poverty, but it’s one of the biggest things. To list just a few of the most obvious examples of very direct influence: Tax policy. Minimum wage. Funding of public schools and universities. Unionization rights. Banking and lending laws. Labor laws. Funding of public transportation. Public health care. Unemployment benefits. Disability benefits. Welfare policy. Public assistance that doesn’t penalize people for having savings. Child care. Having a functioning infrastructure, having economic policies that support labor, having a tax system that doesn’t steal from the poor to give to the rich, having a social safety net — a real safety net, not one that just barely keeps people from starving to death but one that actually lets people get on their feet and function — makes a difference. When these systems are working, and are working well, it’s easier for people to get out of poverty. When they’re not, it’s difficult to impossible. And I haven’t even gotten into the fiscal policy of so-called “free” trade, and all the ways it feeds poverty both in the U.S. and around the world. (I’ll get to that in a bit.)

Fiscal policy affects poverty. And in the United States, “fiscally conservative” means supporting fiscal policies that perpetuate poverty. “Fiscally conservative” means slashing support systems that help the poor, lowering taxes for the rich, cutting corners for big business, and screwing labor — policies that both worsen poverty and make it even more of an inescapable trap.
And then there is this, which just screams out the hypocrisy of Abele and his supporters:
If you care about marginalized people — if you care about the oppression of women, LGBT people, disabled people, African Americans and Hispanics and other people of color — you need to do more than go to same-sex weddings and listen to hip-hop. You need to support economic policies that make marginalized people’s lives better. You need to oppose economic policies that perpetuate human rights abuses and make marginalized people’s lives suck.

And that means not being a fiscal conservative.
Ironically, Abele and his sheeple keep trying to refer to true progressives and liberals as the "Tea Party" of the left. Unfortunately for them, all of Abele's money cannot by them the truth. It is they who are supporting people and policies that are not only against their best interest, but harm all of us just as much - if not more - than Scott Walker's maleficence.

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