Religious Right Lipstick on a Reaganomics Pig

[SecularMotion]

Ed Kilgore's piece yesterday on conservative attempts to make the working poor the new welfare queens is incredibly important. The consequence of the GOP's new emphasis on the "makers and takers," the "job-creators and the moochers," is that such extremism leaves little room for nuance about the plight of the working poor and the middle class.

This Randian worldview has led to a seemingly upside-down world in Washington where Republicans in Congress are now blocking a Democratic President's proposed tax cut because it will disproportionately benefit middle- and working-class families. The new conservative truthiness, of course, holds that only the rich are overtaxed while all the other "lucky duckies" clearly pay too little.

As Kilgore notes, this is just a rehash of the tried and true "welfare wedge" political strategy of demonizing the poor as spoiled, selfish freeloaders. Such framing allows politicians to circumvent the traditional American aversion to kicking people when they're down and provides moral cover for their draconian agenda of decimating protections that help the vulnerable make ends meet.

http://blog.faithinpubliclife.org/2011/08/religious_right_lipstick_on_a_1.html