The Safety Net

8 Random Items for 11/17/2008 #1

Atrios points us to an article in the Sunday New York Times that talks about the dismantling of the American safety net. Conservatives love to whine about welfare and unemployment, but during tough economic times, they prevent recessions from becoming even worse. Think about that, not only do they lessen the impact of an economic downturn on the most vulnerable people, they help keep people spending which prevents the downturn from getting worse. Good fiscal sense.

So why were they largely abandoned? Mostly because of the belief, sort of a holy grail for Reagan fetishists, that the vast majority of people on welfare were scamming the system and just too lazy to work. Funny how there has never been an independent, peer reviewed study that would back up that opinion. Of course, what good conservative would allow something like the facts to influence their opinion?