Party of Hoover Says: Let Them Starve!

The New York Times ran a long article today about people who would be unable to afford food without the Food Stamp Program. These are people with no income whatsoever and who are selling off their possessions. Some are people who were making a damned good salary until the Great Bush-Greenspan Recession kicked in. Two percent of Americans live in households that have no income whatsoever and food stamps are their sole means to buy food.

Of course, the reaction of some politicians from the Party of Hoover is to endorse starvation as a motivation tool:

“This is craziness,” said Representative John Linder, a Georgia Republican who is the ranking minority member of a House panel on welfare policy. “We’re at risk of creating an entire class of people, a subset of people, just comfortable getting by living off the government.”

Mr. Linder added: “You don’t improve the economy by paying people to sit around and not work. You improve the economy by lowering taxes” so small businesses will create more jobs.

Once again, the party of Hoover blows the same note on its three note trumpet, the other two notes being "deregulate" and "bomb the shit outta somebody". Got a problem in any area, you can count on the Hooverites to call for cutting taxes, deregulating and killing people, sometimes all three.

We tried it their way. What we got was massively increasing deficits and the rich got a fuckload richer. The only way that the party of Hoover's prescription will increase employment is by destroying higher-paying jobs so that the rich can afford to have the same level of servants that they enjoyed in the Gilded Age. That is why there is no shortage of Hooverites calling for the complete elimination of the minimum wage and social services.

Listening to Republican ideas on the economy is about like listening to a crazy drooling guy with a hand-written sign. Their ideas were instrumental in bringing about the seriousness of this recession. They have not learned anything and they are absolutely rigid in their ideology.

Trust them at your peril.