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(Dan Wasserman, Boston Globe)
(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
We know Republicans are engaged in a (futile) effort to send the message "We care!" about the jobless and the poor, while "deep-six-ing" programs that would alleviate their misery. Meanwhile, Ezra Klein says "Follow the money" if you want to gauge the seriousness of Republican concern:
Follow the trail in the party’s recent budgets and what you find, hidden between appendix tables, are deep cuts to programs for the poor. That’s the inevitable consequence of Republican commitments to favored constituencies. The party promised its anti-tax wing no tax increases and lower tax rates. It promised older voters that Medicare and Social Security would not change for those over age 55. It promised defense hawks that sequestration cuts to military spending would be reversed. And it promised its tea party allies that it would cut trillions from government spending and balance the federal budget.
The only way to square all those promises is through draconian cuts to programs for the poor. The liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that programs for lower-income Americans would account for two-thirds of proposed Republican budget savings. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that as many as 37 million Americans would lose access to Medicaid, which was targeted for hundreds of billions in cuts.
That’s an agenda that would result in more poverty and deprivation, not less. Yet all the Republicans now talking about poverty -- Sens. Marco Rubio, Mike Lee and Rand Paul and Rep. Paul Ryan -- either voted for or, in Ryan’s case, authored these cuts.The rest of Klein's post is worth the read.
Though none of the above comes as a shock to anyone who's followed politics in the last 40 years, it's always worth highlighting the fact that the overriding concern of the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party is, and for over a century has been, the welfare of the
