Producers Vs. Moochers, Freeloaders And Losers — The Cruel Pro-Rich Propaganda Of The Right

According to the cruel language of the right, those workers are “losers.” If they need to get unemployment or food stamps they are “parasites” and “freeloaders” who are “asking for handouts.” When old, they will need the Social Security and Medicare they paid into all their lives, more “handouts.” People like Romney says these “entitlements” — the things we are entitled to as citizens in a democracy — are “draining the economy.”

Mitt Romney says government is the culprit, not people like him who show up and strip our jobs, factories, companies, industries and economy. Romney, who pays very little in taxes on the $20-plus million he receives in “capital gains” every year, wrote in a December USA Today op-ed titled, What kind of society does America want? that the very existence of government itself costs the economy jobs, writing, “With the growth of government has come an inevitable contraction of the private sphere.” Romney writes that programs like Social Security and Medicare are examples of “government dependency.” And, finally, he writes, “Government dependency can only foster passivity and sloth.”

Right. Mitt Romney, producer — who receives $20-plus million a year for not working — as contrasted with the “losers” who work two jobs at minimum wage, making so little they need food stamps just to get by. (They used to make more, but Mitt Romney came to town, buying the company they worked for, chopping it up and sending the parts they don’t sell to China, laying them off or cutting their wages in half, and taking their health care and pension.)

The Dependency Index

The conservative Heritage Foundation has published an “Index of Dependence on Government,” saying we have “unsustainable increases in dependent populations.” Heritage writes that, “Americans are haunted by the specter of enormously growing mountains of debt that suck the economic and social vitality out of this country.”

Heritage fails to mention that we were paying off the nation’s debt before Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy. In fact, at the rate we were paying off the debt when Clinton was President the entire US debt would have been paid off by now. Except for those tax cuts for the wealthy. But according to Heritage, the problem is not wealthy people paying very low taxes, it is humans who have human needs who are a “a potentially ruinous drain on federal finances.”

Please take a look at Heritage’s “dependency index.” Social Security is “government dependence.” Medicare is “government dependence.” And on and on. Heritage says nothing about the huge, bloated, corrupt, enormous, massive, ginormous military budget — that doubled under Bush. Heritage says nothing about the incredible subsidies government provides to oil and coal companies. Heritage says nothing about the cost of all of the tax cuts handed out to the wealthiest since the Reagan era. Nothing at all.

Heritage says that We, the People doing things for each other “encourages dependence.” They talk about people as if they are squirrels. Like building the interstate highway system encourages dependence or having good public schools encourages dependence or a pension after a life of hard work encourages dependence or public health programs that keep epidemics from spreading encourages dependence or giving vaccines to children encourages dependence or, I guess, in the old days helping a neighbor put up a barn encouraged dependence.

It is the Romneys, getting their $20-million-plus checks for doing nothing — the “gains” from stripping our economy and sending our jobs to China — who are dependent. Not the people that the Romneys threw out of work or cut their pay in half. Not the people working two jobs yet not making enough to pay rent and get enough to eat. The real “producers” in our economy are the 99%, the people who work, not the1%er “parasites” who use their wealth and power and connections to game the system and reap vast “gains.”

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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