In 1980 we elected a man who wanted to reduce the tax burden on the wealthiest Americans. The justification was that this would free-up more investment capital, allowing the most productive Americans to innovate and add jobs (this, Reagan claimed, was a better option than paying more revenue to a corrupt and inefficient government).
So we listened.
Reagan reduced taxes from the 70% range into the high 20s. To make room for these tax cuts he proposed to cut welfare programs. So he waged war on Welfare, claiming that the poor were lazy. This belief that the poor are lazy has become an article of faith for republicans - it is the Archimedean lever for crushing the poor. The Right ignores the fact that there are over 50 applicants for each job - meaning: there are not enough jobs for over 10 million people who want to work, and who are actively seeking employment. (The actual number of unemployed people is likely much higher, as many people have given up looking, not least because they have been deemed unemployable).
The OP seeks to punish people who are trying to find work. He believes they are lazy because he has been told that over and over by his media sources. Many of them lost their jobs during the aftermath of the 2008 Bush Meltdown, brought on by a criminal financial industry that placed trillions of dollars of bets that it could not cover.
Many downtrodden welfare families have hungry children. The OP wants to punish them too by locking them into a life of poverty - excluding them from communication and information, forcing them to wait in line a libraries whose budget the OP & his ilk wants cut.
This is the blueprint for creating a permanent, socially excluded under class, the kind you see in the 3rd world where those born in poverty remain there.
Ronald Reagan's father lost his job during the Great Depression. In addition to getting plenty of government assistance, he was saved by an FDR work program, which was paid for by raising taxes. People called this a handout - a useless make-work program. FDR said it was an investment in the American people. He said that if you give Americans a helping hand during hard times, they will some day move on to be productive citizens. FDR didn't want to see Great American Families be destroyed by an economic crisis that many of them played no part in creating. He didn't want a future scientist or president to be crushed by poverty. He didn't call them welfare queens; nope, FDR had faith in the American people. He said that he would cut foreign aid before he would stop investing in the American people.
Do you think he made a mistake in investing in the Reagan family? Are you mad that he saved these people who could not support themselves? Did the investment pay off?
