Today's Reads - Poverty of the Soul Dept.

From today's once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle, frequent blind squirrel Dana Milbank is on a roll, discussing the Republican "War on the War on Poverty."  Could he finally be focusing his snark on the right targets?  Permit a lengthy excerpt:

The chairman of the RSC’s “anti-poverty initiative” is one Rep. Steve Southerland, a funeral director from the Florida Panhandle who is best known for heading an effort to dismantle the food-stamp program.

Southerland led five other white men in suits onto the stage Wednesday and declared the War on Poverty a failure. “It’s clear we’re now engaged in a battle of attrition that has left more Americans in poverty than at any other point in our nation’s history,” he said. There are 46 million in poverty, he added, “despite more than $15 trillion to fight this War on Poverty. Clearly the big government ideas of the past need to be improved and aren’t working to the extent that they should. We have a moral obligation to break the mold.”

CNN’s Dana Bash asked the mold-breaker what he thought of the White House’s claim that the poverty rate fell from 25.8 percent in 1967 to 16 percent in 2012. “The percentage of people in poverty today as compared to 50 years ago as a percentage is less,” he acknowledged. “But I also want to make sure it is very clear that there are more Americans living in poverty.”

Well, yes, 10 million more Americans are in poverty now than there were in 1963 — but the overall population has increased by 125 million. If you include all of the financial assistance from anti-poverty programs, the poverty rate dips to below 8 percent today. And people who are poor suffer less because they receive health care through Medicaid and nutrition through food stamps.

Finally seeing through the bullshit, are we?  Well a more reliably perceptive observer, Harold Meyerson, also writes today about the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and the continuing efforts by Republicans to deny access to health insurance (and therefore affordable health care) to millions of Americans.  Please permit another lengthy excerpt:

Which is to say, the ACA is working as planned, perhaps a little better, in the states where governors and legislatures chose to implement it, such as California and New York. It is barely working in those states where governors and legislators have refused to implement it, such as Texas. Although the number of states declining any participation probably will diminish over time, as the tea party’s grip on the Republican Party wanes or as older white conservative voters die off, the resulting red-blue division between the states probably will be a feature of the nation’s political economy for some time.

Consider the implications: A larger share of Californians will be able to afford regular medical check-ups than Texans. A smaller share of Californians is likely to be bankrupted by the expense of major medical treatment than Texans. When the law’s tax penalties take effect, a smaller share of Californians will be subject to the penalties that come with the individual mandates than will Texans. In the coming years, a smaller share of California hospitals will face financial risk for indigent care than hospitals in Texas, where fewer of the sick and poor will be covered by Medicaid.

The conservative argument that the ACA is a disaster is true only when it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: Most of the negative consequences that right-wingers have warned against have occurred only in those places where right-wingers have subverted implementation of the law.

 When you have a poverty of ideas combined with a poverty of the soul, this is how you operate.