The Republicans’ big ‘dependency’ lie | New York Daily News BY ROBERT REICH
As I have written before, Republicans have cause and effect backwards.
The reason for the rise in food stamps, unemployment benefits and other safety net programs is Americans got clobbered in 2008 with the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. They and their families have needed the help.
This isn’t an "entitlement society." Americans weren’t overly dependent before the slump and they won’t be dependent when jobs and income return. But America is still reeling from economic trauma.
If anything, America’s safety nets aren’t strong enough. That’s why the number and percentage of Americans in poverty has increased dramatically since 2009.
The real scandal – which no speaker in Tampa will mention – is only 40% of America’s unemployed qualify for unemployment benefits. That’s because most people who lost their jobs had been working part-time on several jobs before they were let go. Or they hadn’t been working long enough on a full-time job to qualify for unemployment insurance.
In addition, only a small fraction of the nation’s poor any longer qualify for welfare. The 1996 legislation that formally ended the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children program provided just five years of aid in a person’s lifetime. But given how deep the recession has been and how long it’s continued, many of the nation’s poor have reached their lifetime limit.
Meanwhile, millions of unemployed Americans and their families have lost health insurance that had been provided by their employers. What’s the Republican answer? To repeal Obama’s Affordable Care Act, so 30 million Americans will lose health-insurance coverage.
The truth is America’s safety nets are in tatters exactly when a large portion of America still needs help. And apparently Republicans don’t care.