The Real Public Charges

The hardest-working and most economy-supporting people in this country have the lowest-paid jobs.  Those would be the jobs the rest of us literally can't live unless somebody else does them:  the lettuce-pickers and all the other food crop harvesters, the toilet cleaners and the garbage collectors, the diaper-changing, vomit-mopping-up caretakers of our infants and our elderly.

They are the ones who keep this country running.  They are the ones whose hard-earned taxes repugs are giving to the real public charges:  the oxygen-wasting idle rich.

One desperate guatemalan refugee cleaning hotel rooms while hiding from ICE does more real work in A SINGLE HOUR than Ivanka fucking Trump has done in her entire grifting, cheating, pissing-on-the-poor life.

Wonkette: 

One of Stephen Miller's top priorities for fucking over America's legal immigration system is finally about to take effect, assuming it survives the many lawsuits that will be thrown at it. The new rule would sharply restrict the ability of low-income people to get permanent residency or even temporary visas by screening out virtually all applicants who have ever used federal assistance like Medicaid, food stamps, or public housing. The rule will be published in the Federal Register Wednesday, and then go into effect in October, despite an overwhelming majority of public comments opposing the change.

 

The rules are an attempt to inject steroids into a relic of the Immigration Act of 1882, which prohibited immigration by anyone deemed likely to become a "public charge" -- that is, likely to become a burden to the taxpayer. That term was never explicitly defined by Congress, so Miller and his allies in the Trump administration decided it should be defined as restrictively as possible, to keep out anyone who's used any of a whole raft of public assistance programs for any amount of time.

Let's emphasize right up front that this is not about undocumented immigrants: This is an attempt to punish legal migrants who legally received benefits that Congress said they legally qualify for.

Just for shits and giggles, because reality doesn't exist in the Pumpkin Traitor's America, have some facts:

Nancy LeTourneau at Political Animal:

Like all of this president’s immigration policies, this one is based on lies. Here are the facts.

–  Legal Permanent Residents (LPR’s)–sometimes referred to as green card holders–do not have full access to all public benefit programs and are subject to limitations before being eligible for federal means-tested benefits…such limitations include the “five-year bar,” which requires the individual to have maintained LPR status in the U.S. for five years before being eligible for benefits…

– Legal immigrants use federal public benefit programs at lower rates than U.S.-born citizens…

– Both documented and undocumented immigrants pay more into public benefit programs than they take out ...

Not infuriated yet?  Have some Rude Pundit.

Tax Day Meme

Down with Tyranny:

e

Remembering also that all us working stiffs are paying way more in federal taxes this year because of the Trump Tax Cut for Rich Fuckwads.

The Misunderstood

Down with Tyranny:

by Noah

A Trifecta of Truth, presented in a simple meme. Perspective matters even when based on bullshit.

Plus, I would add that Trump is lunatic man's idea of a sane man, or, more specifically and accurately, a Republican man's idea of a sane man, and, a traitor's idea of a great president.

Tonight's meme is adaptable to all genders of course.

Eliiminate the Rich. Do It Now.

By taxing them at 99.9999 percent or chasing them into the sea with pitchforks and torches, I don't care.  Just do it.

Steve M.:

I think the rich assume they're bulletproof now. They think they'll maintain their ability to hoard all the nice stuff even if the rest of America (or the world) burns. And I wish I believed they were wrong about that. I support progressive politicians, but I suspect it may be impossible now to make significant improvements to ordinary Americans' lives through conventional politcal means. I fear the rich won't allow us to do that unless we threaten to destroy their world.

Why We Must Tax Billionaires Out of Existence

Via Down with Tyranny:

Mulch the Rich

Dok Zoom at Wonkette:

Also, it is evil to try to convince children to believe the super-rich should be objects of pity. They should instead be eaten. Or rather, mulched, for environmental and health reasons.

David M. Perry

✔ @Lollardfish

 · Jan 14, 2019

Eat the rich.

outrageoboros @1stnameNounvrbr

Someone pointed out that due to biomagnification of toxins being concentrated in predators going up the food chain, we might be better off mulching the rich, vice eating them and absorbing all those toxins ourselves.

17

1:18 PM - Jan 14, 2019

And there was rejoicing ("Yay").

Medicaid Torture

Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You right here in Kentucky started this shit.  How dare impoverished people - no matter how sick, disabled or already working - dare take a penny of tax money that should be going to make Bevin and his billionaire buddies even more filthy rich?

 

Digby:

Making sick people work in order to get health care is right up there with the most dissonant policies they've ever came up with. It makes even less sense than usual.

Look for them to start saying people need to work to get social security and Medicare as well. After all, just because they're old doesn't mean people shouldn't "take responsibility" for their retirement and health care, amirite?

I wish I could understand what it is about sick people getting health care that makes these people so angry that they lose their humanity.

It's the same reason we can't have all the nice things European socialists have:  because American motherfucking racists hate everything that puts a penny into the pocket of a ni**er or a spic.

The Wrong Way to Legalize Pot

After trillions of wasted dollars and millions of wasted lives, the repugs are finally giving up on the War on (Some Classes of People Who Use Some) Drugs.  But not before they make sure all the profits from legalization will keep going to already filthy rich white repug men.

Zandar:

Michigan voters overwhelmingly approved the legalization of marijuana earlier this month in order to gain tax revenue to pay for schools and roads.  But Republicans in the state's lame duck session are making sure that tax money goes to cops instead, with nothing for students, and that the profits go to corporate growers with both deep ties and deep pockets to give to lawmakers.

A bill proposed by outgoing Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive, would significantly change the voter-approved recreational marijuana program in Michigan, including by drastically lowering the tax revenue the state is set to receive.

Proposal 1 passed with 56 percent of the vote Nov. 6. It will take effect next week.

Meekhof, R-West Olive, introduced the bill Thursday.

In addition to lowering the tax rate from 10 percent to three percent, the bill cuts out Michigan's schools and roads from receiving tax revenue from legal marijuana. The state's six percent sales tax would still apply, said Amber McCann, Meekhof's spokeswoman.

"It's disrespectful to the political process and it's disrespectful to the voters of Michigan," said Josh Hovey, spokesman for the coalition behind the ballot proposal, of Meekhof's bill.

"The people of Michigan have spoken. They knew what they were voting on."

Tax revenue from marijuana sales could reach $287.9 million by the time the market matures in Michigan under the tax structure in Proposal 1, according to a Senate Fiscal Agency analysis. It's unclear how much revenue Meekhof's proposal would draw.

Under Proposal 1, Michigan has one of the lowest tax rates on adult-use marijuana in the country. Under Meekhof's proposed bill, Michigan would have the lowest tax rate in the country. The bill redirects the revenue to municipalities (25 percent), counties (30 percent) and county sheriffs (5 percent) that have marijuana facilities, and 30 percent for state police, police training and first responder disability benefits.

Meekhof's bill, Senate Bill 1243, proposes other major changes to the voter-approved Proposal 1; including eliminating the ability for individuals to grow marijuana at home and cutting out a micro-grower's license.

Proposal 1 allows for individuals to grow up to 12 plants at home, and up to 150 plants at home with a micro-grower's license.

Republicans have such a huge majority in Michigan thanks to gerrymandering that there's a chance that this passes, but it'll take Democrats too because the measure would need a 75% margin to pass. But sending all the tax money to counties with state-approved growing operations (all rural, natch) means Detroit gets zero, and it means that the growing can become yet another industry in the pocket of corporate owners and donors.

That was the plan all along, and it's dank as hell.

The Repug Skeleton Key

Albert Burneko at The Concourse:

It’s a bit late for anyone not to have figured this out yet, but the skeleton key to understanding American conservatism is this: At bottom, it lacks absolutely any moral or ideological underpinning beyond the reactionary protection of moneyed white men—of their station, their wealth and power, and their egos. Its supposed ideas and abstractions are just a framework for spasmodic lashing-out against anything that can be interpreted as a threat to rich white dudes. It likes supply-side economics because the supply side is made of rich white dudes. It likes tax cuts because the taxes are mostly cut for rich white dudes. It likes cops and soldiers because cops and soldiers uphold a social order with rich white dudes at the top. It likes “traditional family values” because social, economic, and sexual dominion over women are the most traditional family values of all. It likes “Make America Great Again” because rich white dudes used to roll through society and over everyone else with even greater impunity than they do now. All of these things are just proxies for reiterating, over and over and over, forever, the power and security and primacy of rich white dudes.

McConnell vs. Kentucky

Noah at Down with Tyranny:

Hands Off Social Security, Motherfuckers

Killing Social Security is the repug holy grail.  Once the social program that allows workers disabled by destructive corporations and exhausted by decades of unpaid overtime to retire with dignity is dead, then the billionaires can force everyone who is not filthy rich to work literally to death without relief, and the New Gilded Age will be permanent.

Ddown with Tyranny:

Fuck Civility

From Juanita Jean:

Your Tax Dollars in the Greedy Mitts of Super-Rich Fckwads

Zandar nails it:

Just remember that when Republicans tell you that we can't afford roads, bridges, schools, clean water, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and health care, just remember they had no problem giving Apple $47 billion a year to buy their own stock.

Who's A Lazy Taker?

Repugs are just lumpy bags of projection.

Shakezula at LGM:

Republican apparatchicks are obsessed with the idea of poor people, especially poor minorities, sitting around doing nothing because that’s what they do. If they were smart they’d be worried the poor are sitting around planning where to put the guillotines.

GOP Tax Cuts Are Worse Than We Thought

Yep, the repugs just snatched the wallets of every working person in the country and handed them directly to corporate shareholders.  Do not invest in new factories, do not create jobs, do not pass go.  Just steal the savings of everyone who's not obscenely rich.

Political Animal

Corporations aren’t just spending their tax cuts on stock buybacks. They’re investing at almost record levels on mergers and acquisitions, which increases what they’re making on buybacks. Isn’t that special?

Let’s take all this one step further though. Mergers and acquisitions are the building blocks of monopolies, something the Washington Monthly has been warning about for years as perhaps the single biggest contributor to stagnant wages and income inequality.

We can all complain that Democrats didn’t do enough to tackle the monopolization of our economy when they had majorities in Congress and a president in the White House. But now we see what the Republican position is. They aren’t just ignoring the issue, they’re feeding it with their corporate tax cuts and expect the rest of us to be happy with an extra buck fifty a week.

Noah at Down with Tyranny has it in meme form:

Take a look at that $6 Billion for workers. Chances are that is you, the reader of this post. If you are one of the approximately 300 Million Americans (I'm rounding it off just in the interest of simplicity), your average share of that $6 Billion would be $20.00. How's that $20.00 changing your life? Oh, you say your share is well above the average? OK. Great for you! You say your share is what $100? $1,000? $1,500? Wow! I bet that's life changing for you! That money can buy you a lot of healthcare, no?

They Never Learn

Down With Tyranny:

Why Bevin is Dead Wrong About Medicaid

Mostly because he's an obscenely rich libertarian motherfucker who thinks that people who were not born rich don't deserve to live.

More specifically:

Dok Zoom at Wonkette:

Now, before you get all “ARE THEY GONNA MAKE NURSING HOME RESIDENTS WORK IN COAL MINES,” the letter is quite clear that states can only throw people off healthcare for not working if they’re “non-elderly, non-pregnant adult Medicaid beneficiaries who are eligible for Medicaid on a basis other than disability.” So relax! Sending Meemaw to the coal mines is Phase III, and won’t even be considered until CHIP reauthorization is made conditional on the repeal of child labor laws.

SNIP

And if most people currently getting Medicaid are already working, or seem to have a good reason not to be working (which may win them an exemption from the work requirement), then why the hell is a work requirement needed in the first goddamn place? That’s simple: You gotta tighten the screws on poor people, because no matter what the reality is, Republicans just know life in poverty is an endless funtimes parade of free stuff. The goal here is to add more barriers to people living the high life on Medicaid, and the result will be fewer people getting the medical care that really can improve their job prospects.

And Scott Lemieus at LGM:

Emma Sandoe is, as always on this subject, excellent:

Eight in 10 Medicaid beneficiaries of working age already live in working families. Recent analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation has found that the most Medicaid beneficiaries who are not working are sick or disabled (but do not meet the rigid definitions of disability outlined by the Social Security Administration), or they are taking care of their family who may be elderly, sick or children that need care. Many more are in school or are retired.

These people have valid reasons for not working and taking away their health insurance will likely make their health worse or worsen the health of the people that they are caring for. The administration has created a solution to a problem that does not exist.

This policy will make it more difficult for people who are eligible for Medicaid and are working in low-wage jobs to be enrolled in the program. Navigating the complexities of health insurance bureaucracy is difficult for anyone. This policy adds another layer of complexity to the system. Now, beneficiaries will have to take additional steps when applying for coverage, as well as monitor and ensure their state government is accurately recording their information to receive the benefits they are already eligible for. Think how the country would respond if Medicare beneficiaries had to regularly prove that they were aging to keep their Medicare cards.

In reality, IT systems don’t always work, mail gets lost and people working two to three jobs to get by and still making little money may not have the time to correct the paperwork. Healthy people who want to get preventative health care will drop out of Medicaid because the additional burden is too high. These people may miss cancer screenings and diagnosis of chronic conditions.

The purpose of any insurance is to protect against financial devastation. Rigorous and recent research shows that Medicaid coverage not only improves a beneficiary’s health, it protects low-income people against bankruptcy and financial loss. These important protections have reduced extreme poverty and allowed many people opportunities to get out of poverty.

The administration has tried to make this policy more palatable by making exceptions for people who volunteer or have a severe disability. But this policy is so heavily pushed by the administration and Republican states because they think it will reduce the number of people on Medicaid. When we’ve tied work to other government run programs, it does little to increase work. In fact, we’ve seen the opposite: that access to health care can make it easier for people to find jobs. We’ve seen that when people don’t have access to needed medications it is harder for them to find jobs.

The point about how adding further conditions creates bureaucratic impediments that inevitably cause even eligible people to lose their insurance is particularly important.

And this avoidable suffering and misery has become a pillar of Republican policy. A collaboration between one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States and Republican state legislators had denied Medicaid to millions of people. A Republican Congress came frighteningly close to enacting massive Medicaid cuts in order to fund a massive upper-class tax cut. And now, having failed to gut Medicaid, Trump and various state legislatures are lashing out against some of the most vulnerable people in society. This is what Republican health care policy is, and it’s simply vile.

"Simply vile" pretty much covers it.

What Taxing the Rich Brought Us

For more than 40 years, working Americans have paid through the ass for tax cuts for the rich. No more.  Tax the motherfuckers out of existence with 90 percent tax on investment income - the kind they get by sitting on their ass - and estates - which they get by being born - and use it to repay working Americans with infrastructure and renewable energy and publicly owned high-speed wifi and free college and universal health care and basic incomes.
 

Noah at Down with Tyranny:

The Enemy is the Money Power

Everything that's wrong with the nation and the world comes down to plutocracy: rule by the rich.

Noah at Down with Tyranny:

Remember That Repugs Destroyed the Economy

The only way to stop this catastrophe is to vote in a Democratic Congress is 2018.  That means you should be out right now knocking on doors and getting Democratic voters off their asses.

TPM:

As Republicans in the House and Senate hash out their tax bill differences in a conference committee behind closed doors, with the goal of producing a final bill before the holiday break, conservative economists tell TPM that the policies likely to become law will wreak havoc on the country for many years to come. Though Republicans insisted repeatedly over the past few weeks that the $1.4 trillion in tax cuts, most of them geared toward wealthy individuals and corporations, would pay for themselves by stimulating economic growth, they presented no evidence to support their claims.

Instead, the economists and former government officials predicted, the bill will drive up the federal deficit, shrink and destabilize the health care market, exacerbate already historic income inequality, and pressure Congress to make deep cuts to the social safety net and government programs.

When you're cleaning a millionaire's toilets with your tongue for 50 cents an hour, remember that repugs voted this motherfucker in while every Democrat voted against it.