The GOP Has A Simplistic & Mean-Spirited View Of Poverty

The Republicans in Congress have for decades now pursued economic policies that ignore the poor and favor the wealthy. And this current crop of Republican elected officials have gone even further. They want to take away the few crumbs this government tosses to the poor, so they can give even more to the wealthy. The latest budget passed by House Republicans cuts all programs designed to help take care of the poor and help them to better themselves, while slashing taxes for the richest Americans (and giant corporations). They are helping those who need no help, while hurting those in most need of help.

I have often wondered how they could be so misguided and downright hard-hearted -- especially since they are the loudest to proclaim they are christians (followers of a person who taught it was the responsibility of his followers to help the poor and disadvantaged). It would seem they aren't interested in the teachings of christianity, but just in how the religion can be used to further their own goals. And those goals involve little more than selfishness and greed.

But it is not just the superficial use of religion that guides these Republicans. They have a simplistic and rather mean-spirited view of the world -- a view that shows itself in their very different treatment of the poor and the wealthy. If a person is poor, they believe it is because they have individual failings and a poor work ethic. And if a person is wealthy, it is because that wealthy person worked harder than all the people who aren't wealthy. In other words, both poverty and wealth are the fault of the individual.

Of course this simplistic view ignores the fact that the world (and this country) are a lot more complicated than that. The truth is that most of the wealthy were either born into wealth, or born with certain advantages that gave them a head start over others. And most of the poor were born without any of those advantages, but instead faced huge disadvantages in overcoming their poverty -- things like having an inadequate/unhealthy diet, no access to education in a good school, no access to funding for higher education, poor access to modern technology, no access to adequate health care (especially preventative care), etc.

It is much easier to justify denying help and opportunity to the poor when you blame them for their own condition -- and easier to tilt the economic playing field to advantage the rich. But this is a denial of reality. No one wants to be poor, and most of the poor work hard at full-time jobs (jobs that pay so little that they remain stuck in poverty). They work just as hard as the rich (harder most of the time), but are denied the opportunity to better themselves or their children.

Think I am not being fair to those Republicans? Then look at the results from a recent YouGov Poll (done on April 15th and 16th of a nationwide sample of 1,000 adults, with a 4.3 point margin of error). Note that the GOP base has the same simplistic and mean-spirited view as their elected officials.