GOP Revels In Their Ignorance and Cruelty

The GOP never ceases to amaze with their combination of ignorance and cruelty these days. And now, with total political control, they seem to be putting both of those qualities into overdrive.

Let's start off with Paul Ryan's presentation in support of Trump/Ryancare. In his little powerpoint demo yesterday, he had this to say. "The fatal conceit of Obamacare is that ‘We’re just going to make everybody buy our health insurance at the federal government level; young and healthy people are going to go into the market and pay for the older, sicker people.’ So the young healthy person is going to be made to buy health care, and they’re going to pay for the person, you know, who gets breast cancer in her 40s. Or who gets heart disease in his 50s. So take a look at this chart. The red slice here are what I would call people with preexisting conditions. People who have real health-care problems. The blue is the rest of the people in the individual market — that’s the market where people don’t get health insurance at their jobs where they buy it themselves. The whole idea of Obamacare is the people on the blue side pay for the people on the red side. The people who are healthy pay for the people who are sick."

Of course, that fatal conceit, as Ryan calls it, is how every plan that we commonly call insurance works. When your house burns down, it is money from my homeowner's insurance premiums that pays you to rebuild. And vice versa. That this cruel ignorance comes from a guy who was forced to live off survivor benefits from Social Security after his father suddenly died is especially galling and frankly sickening. In Ryan's terms, all those guys whose breadwinner didn't die when their children were dependent are supporting people like him. How unfair. It really makes you want to puke.

But Ryan's appalling ignorance and cruelty actually has to compete with the President of the American Enterprise Institute who was interviewed on the show Marketplace, hosted by the breezy Kai Ryssdal.  In the interview, Arthur Brooks says, "You know, one of the things that I ask when I'm in front of audiences is to do a little thought experiment: What would happen if all of the poor people in America just disappeared? Would you know it if all the poor people in America suddenly disappeared? I daresay that most people listening to us today wouldn't even know about it immediately. They have no emotional or moral connection to them."

Actually, I'm pretty sure even this condescending, obnoxious jerk would notice. There would be no one to take or prepare your order when you went to get your morning coffee and whatever. Your office would be dirty and your waste basket would still be full from yesterday because there would be no janitorial staff. There would be no security at his office building stopping angry poor people from harassing him. And when he goes out for a fancy business lunch there would be no one to serve him and no one to cook for him. I could go on, but you get the idea.

But this is the delusional world that Burns lives in. Incredibly, Ryssdal backs him up, saying, "Which is a horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible thing, but probably true." No, in fact it is provably not true. In 2014, over 6% of people who actually had jobs were living in poverty. I'm pretty sure we would all notice if suddenly 6% of the work force disappeared.

In addition, the majority of people living below the poverty line are the elderly, the disabled, children, and women with children, a minority of whom are the likely candidates for being in the work force anyway. Incredibly, that seems to be Burns' additional point. He continues with Ryssdal, "And the essence of the American experiment is that we need literally everybody in the country, and we're contravening the American experiment when we say effectively we don't need whole groups of people. It's actually un-American. You know, I'm just going to guess that the Ryssdals came to the United States. Not saying, 'It sure is great to be in America where there's a better system of forced income redistribution.' They came here because they were needed. There was something for them to do. And that's an incredibly important thing to keep in mind. This is a country that was built on the back of ambitious riff-raff who are necessary. And today there's, you know, some non-trivial percentage of the population, maybe a quarter of the population, that effectively the rest of us are saying we don't need economically, socially, morally."

Well, maybe Burns and his GOP colleagues thinks these people are not wanted or needed. But I know most Democrats don't take that position. And, in fact, most immigrants to this country came here for an opportunity to improve their lives and to escape oppression, violence, and poverty. They did not come in response to a help-wanted ad or because they felt "needed". Remarkably, Burns' remarks in some way echo Ben Carson's comments that slaves came here as immigrants trying to build a better life. In fact, they were brought here against their will precisely because they were "needed". And let's face it, there are always going to be people who are not going to be able to participate in our society in an economic sense. That does not necessarily mean they are not needed or wanted. Just ask artists and writers and volunteers. Despite the belief of Burns and most of the GOP, you can contribute to our society in more ways than just economically.

Finally, let's get to Markwayne Mullin from the man-made earthquake state of Oklahoma. During the markup of the Trump/Ryancare bill in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Democrat Michael Doyle asked a pretty probing question when Mullin complained of skyrocketing insurance premiums "because of the mandates from Obamacare." Doyle's simple question was "What mandate in the Obamacare bill does he [Mullin] take issue with? Certainly not with pre-existing conditions, or caps on benefits or letting your child stay on the policy until 26, so I’m curious what is it we’re mandating?" Mullins response, "What about men having to purchase prenatal care? Is that not correct? And should they?" Do I really have to comment on the absurdity of that answer.

Republicans seem to revel in their ignorance and cruelty and their supporters seem to just lap it up. The sad part is we will all suffer horribly because of it.