Even Critics of Safety Net Increasingly Depend on It

[ProSense]

Even Critics of Safety Net Increasingly Depend on It

By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM and ROBERT GEBELOFF

LINDSTROM, Minn. — Ki Gulbranson owns a logo apparel shop, deals in jewelry on the side and referees youth soccer games. He makes about $39,000 a year and wants you to know that he does not need any help from the federal government.

He says that too many Americans lean on taxpayers rather than living within their means. He supports politicians who promise to cut government spending. In 2010, he printed T-shirts for the Tea Party campaign of a neighbor, Chip Cravaack, who ousted this region’s long-serving Democratic congressman.

Yet this year, as in each of the past three years, Mr. Gulbranson, 57, is counting on a payment of several thousand dollars from the federal government, a subsidy for working families called the earned-income tax credit. He has signed up his three school-age children to eat free breakfast and lunch at federal expense. And Medicare paid for his mother, 88, to have hip surgery twice.

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The expansion of government benefits has become an issue in the presidential campaign. Rick Santorum, who won 57 percent of the vote in Chisago County in the Republican presidential caucuses last week, has warned of “the narcotic of government dependency.” Newt Gingrich has compared the safety net to a spider web. Mitt Romney has said the nation must choose between an “entitlement society” and an “opportunity society.” All the candidates, including Ron Paul, have promised to cut spending and further reduce taxes.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/us/even-critics-of-safety-net-increasingly-depend-on-it.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all

This is fueled by rising income inequality, decreasing tax revenue (photo:Mitt and the Tax Dodgers) and the demonizing of "big government" by the "protect the top one percent and greedy corporations" Republican Party.

Lend Me Your Earmarks – Santorum Flirts With Negativity

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In the ads, Santorum, whose hopes in the upcoming South Carolina primary hinge on evangelical and conservative voters, is called a serial earmarker (a big no-no with the Tea Party) and is blamed for letting convicted felons vote. Santorum is swinging back.

At the presser in Columbia today, Santorum said Romney has sent out his “henchmen” in the super PAC, “lied about his record,” and “went after earmarks” as governor of Massachusetts. He saved some punches for the rest of the candidates, too: He said Paul is “one of the greatest earmarkers of all time,” and that Rick Perry “supported earmarks and, in fact, requested 1,200 of them.”

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http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/lend-me-your-earmarks-santorum-flirts-with-negativity/

They should be drug tested for every earmark they request.

[ProSense]

1. Kick! n/t

[sammytko]

2. Read it this morning. Great article.

[ProSense]

3. It is.

Shines a light on anti-government hypocrisy.

[renate]

4. what an excellent article!

I have some sympathy for the people whose lives and needs are at odds with their beliefs about the way things should be. And the people in this article who don't like government assistance do seem, most of them, to be a little embarrassed about needing or accepting it. But how can they not see that the very fact that real people like them need help is a clear demonstration that government assistance can be a very good thing? Why do they keep voting the way they do? I honestly do not understand--even though I've read "What's the Matter With Kansas?" It's literally as if starving people voted to get less food.