"...more people are getting money from the government than are paying into it. "

[alp227]

I liked reading this letter to the editor of my local paper until encountering the bold part:

Too many ignorant of basic civics issues

I would agree with all the noise about increasing voter registration and hopefully increased participation in the basic tenet of our democracy, provided that voters could pass a basic civics test. I am appalled by the number of people I talk to who are so ignorant of issues that they should not be allowed within a mile of a voting booth. We are now a society where more people are getting money from the government than are paying into it. Too many fleas on the dog kills the dog.

The letter writer sounds like somebody who would vote for a guy who drove with his dog on an open-air rooftop crate. In another era, he would have supported Jim Crow type of legislation like the literacy test and poll tax. Otherwise, I pretty much agree that too many voters don't know a damn thing about politics.

How do you respond to this RW claim about people's dependance on government? For instance, according to the 2004 election results, states that voted for Bush took more federal dollars than states that voted for Kerry. An analysis of 2010 census results found the same situation in red vs blue states getting fed funding. This year the NY Times had an article "Even Critics of Safety Net Increasingly Depend on It" that finds even conservatives are willing to take welfare if they need it.

What about the fact that the Republicans in Congress have united behind Mitch McConnell's mission to make Obama a one-term president by filibustering and obstructing and downvoting ANYTHING that would make the economy look good. Just look what happened with Obama's American Jobs Act that he introduced in fall 2011 in the face of a Tea party-controlled House.

Thom Hartmann had a great response to such complaints about "free stuff" on his Monday show, after Sarah Palin went on Fox Boobs and said that minorities voted for Obama for "free stuff". At the 5-minute mark Thom tackles the RW myth of the deadbeat unemployed:

[Mopar151]

1. It has to do with fair./living wages

We subsidize Wal-Mart something like 1.5 billion./yr by payment of public assistance to their employees.

[Dkc05]

2. Make over $200,000 pay 50% tax.

We need to equalize the the haves and have nots. Somebody making over 200,000 should pay more money. France has it right in raising taxes of the filthy rich to 75% or more.

[brewens]

3. Only if a bagger got to write the civics test. If it was a legit civics test, we'd get the long

end of the stick on that one.

As far as people getting money from the government it drives me crazy what no one ever talks about. The people at the top that actually get millions from the taxpayers. Look at what someone heavily invested in oil companies and defense contractors must rake in. We buy a lot of gas for the military and federal government. That's tax dollars going right into their pockets. Think about a corporate officer at a weapons manufacturer. That's big money. Courtesy of the taxpayers.