Sunday, January 24, 2010

The Ignorant Cracker Defense

Via Josh Marshall, we find the Lt. Governor of South Carolina, who is running for the Governor's office, dog-whistling to his fellow trailer trash:
"GREENVILLE - Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer has compared giving people government assistance to "feeding stray animals."

Bauer, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor, made his remarks during a town hall meeting in Fountain Inn that included state lawmakers and about 115 residents.

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better," Bauer said."
Not only was his grandmother uneducated, it's clear she insured he stayed that way, too. This is his understanding of "welfare":
"He said government hasn't made requirements to make those receiving aid be more responsible.

"They can continue to have more and more kids, and the reward is there's more and more money in it for them."

Instead, he said, the government should place incentives in its welfare programs, such as providing child care so parents can work or receive education so they can break the welfare cycle.

Government continues to reward bad behavior by giving money to people who "don't have to do a thing," he said."
You see, this man lives in the Reaganesque world of welfare queens and lazy chicken-eating Negroes, so he missed 1996, when Clinton's welfare reform created the Temporary Aid to Needy Families program, which places limits on lifetime receipts of benefits, and requires parents to work or go to school in exchange for what benefits they receive. And since that program is highly individualistic by state, he must be unaware of his own state's requirements, which requires work and/or school, and which limit the receipt of aid to 60 months in an entire lifetime. Extensions of aid beyond the stated limit are only granted to heads of households who are disabled or caring for a disabled person, who are under 18 and still in high school,who are not themselves recipients of TANF or are caring for abandoned children, or who have no reasonable access to transportation or child care. Failing to comply with extension criteria means immediate termination of the case. Yet this lying sack goes boldly on with his lies, taking swipes as children who,through no fault of their own, must seek school lunch aid to ensure some nutritional adequacy in their diets:
"Later in his speech, Bauer said, "I can show you a bar graph where free and reduced lunch has the worst test scores in the state of South Carolina," adding, "You show me the school that has the highest free and reduced lunch, and I'll show you the worst test scores, folks. It's there, period."
share12If there are poor test scores. it could have something to do with his state's atrocious poverty rate, which, even before the great recession, was growing steadily. As early as August 2005, S. Carolina had an overall poverty rate of 15.7%, and a rate of 22.1% for its children, making it 12th highest among the 50 states. Of course, it would help if all these stray animals had jobs, but Bauer's state is currently showing a 20% unemployment rate for African-Americans, in a state that is 28.5% black. I guess they could bring back the sharecropper model and put all those school-lunch-eating little bastards to work. That's the kind of solution I have a feeling Mr. Bauer would find eminently satisfying. After all, he has plenty of cash. And he has no dearth of brazenness:
"Bauer said he shouldn't have used the "stray animals" reference. However, he said he knows his comments are politically incorrect, and he does not feel that he needs to apologize."
Fine work, Republicans. More of him and the Crackerbaggers will be ready to start up the lynch mobs again.

3 comments:

bobby. said...

"Extensions of aid beyond the stated limit are only granted to heads of households who are disabled or caring for a disabled person, who are under 18 and still in high school,who are not themselves recipients of TANF or are caring for abandoned children, or who have no reasonable access to transportation or child care. "

before you tear my response a part, please know this; i'm an independent who works in social service.

this "60 month in a lifetime" rule that you're talking about might as well not even exist. it would only apply to POSSIBLY 2% of those receiving assistance because (in my opinion) 98% of people receiving government assistance fall into some type of extension category.

take some applications at a social service organization and you will see that at least 75% of applicants are either disabled, caring for a disabled person/child, or both.

the percentage of TANF recipients is lower, but still a large number.

i would say that at least 50% of women aged 40-75 are taking care of "abandoned" children.

and i would also say that only 5-10% have vehicles which would qualify the other 90-95% as not having adequate transportation to daycare.

i'm not saying that i agree or disagree with anything... what i am saying is that i don't think it's fair to base an argument on something just because it is written down. you have to understand how it works in practice.

Riggsveda said...

I understand what you are saying and I appreciate your response. In fact, I have had several staff working for me who used to be Case Assistance Workers in my own state's welfare department, and I have heard the stories. I also once had my own experiences on the other side of the desk, years ago, when I was seeking assistance, which were less than helpful.

But the broad brush that Bauer used to dismiss all recipients was inexcusable. For him to consign innocent children to hunger and poverty because of his anachronistic ideas is the worst kind of political pandering to the lowest common denominator of human reason. And if some recipients are indeed disabled or caring for the disabled (full-time job if you can't afford help), how is it wrong to help them with the pitiful mite that most states offer as "welfare"?

The Liberal Democratic Party of the United States said...

I fault the Republiklan party and Bill Clinton for our government TANFing people's hides when they need help.

Well 98 percent of people who either have gotten disabled or care for someone disabled apply for extenisions? Only 2 percent apply for extensions and get rejected? Hmmm how about those people who already saw that they would get rejected and discouraged themselves from applying? That would bias the reapplications for extensions?

Conservatives for decades have pandered to stupid white people prejudices about poor white and black people, calling them lazy, and other epithets so these conservatives could win election. George Wallace and others come to view and it continues today. For the most part, the Democratic party got rid of these conservatie bigots and they now infest the Republiklan party.

For the most part Bill Clinton did a decent job with getting America out of the Reagan Bush malaise but he did give in to the Gang Rich revolution so I partially fault Bill Clinton for this 1996 Whelllllfare law.


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