I had a discussion with some conservative relatives recently that got me thinking. I asked if they supported Trump's tax cut for the rich that would kick millions of people off their health care plans. Is that what our country needs right now? Give people making over $250K a tax cut and kick 20 million people off of health care? Seems obviously terrible.
"Well, they aren't being kicked off. They are choosing to not buy insurance. They now have a choice that they didn't have before. Before they were forced to buy insurance they didn't want. Now they can spend money as they choose."
You see how brilliant these conservative think tanks are? That's probably where this argument originated. From there to Fox News, to my brother's head. The think tanks get paid to craft arguments. Arguments that advance the agenda of the rich. This is the kind of stuff they come up with. The rich want tax cuts. How to make this palatable to the public that doesn't think this is a good idea? Pretend it is our concern for the poor that drives us. We only want these poor people who can't afford health insurance to have the choice of not buying it.
I realize that this is a strategy you get over and over. You know why we shouldn't raise the minimum wage? It will hurt the poor. The first person to lose his job when minimum wage goes up is the person with the least amount of skills. Probably the poorest person.
Isn't it strange that poor people advocacy groups don't advance arguments like this? They're always flowing from the right wing think tanks whose goal is to advance the arguments of their wealthy backers, like the Koch brothers.
I asked my brother to think this through with regards to health care. Families making less than $25K get full medical coverage for free right now under Obama Care (if they are in a state that accepted Medicaid expansion). These people are obviously not better off when you take away their subsidy and they lose health coverage. People that make between $25K and $60K get a subsidy that phases out the closer you get to $60K. So people making $30K or $35K are getting a significant subsidy. We're taking away that subsidy to make the tax cuts for the rich possible. We're doing this because we're concerned about the poor rather than the rich?
"Yes. When you take away a person's subsidy this motivates them to stand on their own two feet and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps."
Grrrr. Again, isn't it strange that Oxfam or other anti-poverty groups do not advance arguments like this (to my knowledge). They don't say "When can we strip the poor of Medicaid so we can finally see some improvement in their lives." It's the institutions representing the interests of the rich that advance these arguments.
And it's a common strategy. We need fewer environmental protections. Removing regulations will cause the economy to blossom, providing jobs desperately needed by the poor. We need to invade Iraq to relieve the suffering of the poor, oppressed Iraqi people. Wealth trickles down. Tax cuts for the rich, like a reduction in environmental protections, is a shot in the arm for business and will allow them to hire more people. It's a mere happenstance that my wealthy backers from the coal industry don't want us to pursue reductions in fossil fuel emissions. What I'm really concerned with is the poor miners in West Virginia.
One thing we know about our government generally is that it is not responsive to the concerns of the non-wealthy. They justify their policy positions by pretending they do it all for the common man, the poor man. It's total crap. What's frustrating is that many common men buy it.
