{"id":5115,"date":"2012-08-28T13:31:38","date_gmt":"2012-08-28T19:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/?p=5115"},"modified":"2012-08-28T13:31:38","modified_gmt":"2012-08-28T19:31:38","slug":"the-republicans-big-dependency-lie-by-robert-reich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/election\/the-republicans-big-dependency-lie-by-robert-reich\/","title":{"rendered":"The Republicans’ big ‘dependency’ lie | BY ROBERT REICH"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Republicans’ big ‘dependency’ lie | New York Daily News<\/a> BY ROBERT REICH<\/strong><\/p>\n

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As I have written before, Republicans have cause and effect backwards.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t an "entitlement society." Americans weren\u2019t overly dependent before the slump and they won\u2019t be dependent when jobs and income return. But America is still reeling from economic trauma.<\/p>\n

If anything, America\u2019s safety nets aren\u2019t strong enough. That\u2019s why the number and percentage of Americans in poverty has increased dramatically since 2009.<\/p>\n

The real scandal \u2013 which no speaker in Tampa will mention \u2013 is only 40% of America\u2019s unemployed qualify for unemployment benefits. That\u2019s because most people who lost their jobs had been working part-time on several jobs before they were let go. Or they hadn\u2019t been working long enough on a full-time job to qualify for unemployment insurance.<\/p>\n

In addition, only a small fraction of the nation\u2019s 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\u2019s lifetime. But given how deep the recession has been and how long it\u2019s continued, many of the nation\u2019s poor have reached their lifetime limit.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, millions of unemployed Americans and their families have lost health insurance that had been provided by their employers. What\u2019s the Republican answer? To repeal Obama\u2019s Affordable Care Act, so 30 million Americans will lose health-insurance coverage.<\/p>\n

The truth is America\u2019s safety nets are in tatters exactly when a large portion of America still needs help. And apparently Republicans don\u2019t care.<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Republicans’ big ‘dependency’ lie | New York Daily News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading The Republicans’ big ‘dependency’ lie | BY ROBERT REICH<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5116,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5115\/revisions\/5116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}