Drug Testing For Welfare

It's an idea that draws wide support from people of all ideological stripes.  The idea that we should have mandatory drug testing for all people applying to welfare, and deny those who fail the drug test any benefits.  Some states, such as Florida, have recently tried to implement testing, to mixed results. Should we drug test welfare recipients?

Team USA: It Takes a Village (End of Year Re-Run)

So while we're talking about large government cuts versus raising taxes, I wanted to re-run a piece I did (on July 31st) about why Democrats love the government, and some of the awesome things our government does and has done over the years...

I am sick of Democrats being defensive about our love for American government.  We have the best government ever, and we have used it to do some truly amazing, wonderful things.  And what's more, the people who "hate the government" are usually overlooking the many, many things the government does for them - and does very well.

Take this dude (not the President, the business owner), for example:



He's forgetting that he accepted over a million dollars in aid from both state and federal governments to help his company start and grow.  Money that had nothing to do with his success?  I doubt it.

Every time some self-involved, entitled person...

Mitt Went to Tampa and All I Got Was this Stupid Empty Chair

What did we learn last week?

Yes, Paul Ryan got up there and just, well, lied/fibbed/bamboozled/what-have-you.  And it seems like some of the press realized that, which is refreshing.  Even Fox joined in.  But Ryan is not the point.  Then Clint Eastwood yelled at a chair.  Which was seriously uncomfortable to watch, because he seemed a bit out of it at times.  But Eastwood is not the point.  The point is larger, and potentially more disturbing.

5 Moments in Racial Dogwhistling History (of the last 30 years or so)

 

Inexorably during the last 30 years or so, someone starts doing the math, and realizes that white people make up a hefty percentage of the electorate. Politicians inevitably try to appeal to this important demographic, some by using soaring rhetoric and an appeal to better nature. Others, well, not so much. Since it is no longer acceptable to pitch things to people in blatantly racial terms, politicians in recent times have tried to craft workarounds, dog whistles if you will, to appeal to certain demographics, without having to state out loud exactly what they are trying to say. Follow me below the fold to get 5 modern examples of racial dog whistling...

Mitt Romney: Yo Momma Is So Poor...

Did you hear the one about the candidate who decided to race-bait rather than talk about his taxes?

So suddenly this week - into the presidential race about "the economy, stupid" - charges one of the least understood, most micro-managed, least policy-driven debates we ever have in our country.  The debate over welfare.

See, e.g. the new ad Romney has put out, per Rachel Maddow...

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1. This is a personal issue.  I was a kid when Ronald Reagan railed against Welfare Queens.  He talked a lot about single mothers, too.  At the time, my mother was a single mother (not on welfare, but certainly struggling, financially).  I took it personally.  I'm still pretty angry about it.

Team USA: It Takes a Village

I am sick of Democrats being defensive about our love for American government.  We have the best government ever, and we have used it to do some truly amazing, wonderful things.  And what's more, the people who "hate the government" are usually overlooking the many, many things the government does for them - and does very well.

Take this dude (not the President, the business owner), for example:



He's forgetting that he accepted over a million dollars in aid from both state and federal governments to help his company start and grow.  Money that had nothing to do with his success?  I doubt it.

Every time some self-involved, entitled person...

What Do The Poor Deserve?

A newspaper in New Orleans recently published a story about a public housing project where the residents had to be moved due to a possible looming health threat.  The comment section of the newspaper became full of outrage, not because the state allowed some people to be in physical danger to save a few bucks...but because the accompanying photograph with the story had a young boy playing with an iPad while sitting out in front of the housing project.