Remember back when Clinton was president how everything was about "the poor". He could gain sympathy for the most ridiculous proposal simply by mentioning how the poor might benefit.
And of couse the media ate it up; "Look how compassionate he is", "he really seems to feel their pain" or "what would the poor do without him". And then in the very same paper or newscast they would extole the booming economy.
Not only did he use "the poor" to gain sympathetic support for programs, he also used "the poor" to bash conservatives. "You don't want to raise taxes? That's because you don't want the poor people to have any of your money". And sometimes it wasn't even that subtle.
Now as our ecomony booms despite a recession started during his(Clinton's) last term, a huge terrorist attack, a hurricane that had the strength of a nuclear bomb, and a war that has lasted over four years the Democrats want to go back to that trick of using "the poor" as a political weapon. Why? Because they want to capitalize on the goodwill that the Republicans have squandered. They want the moral high ground. And acting like they care for "the poor" is a good way to play on people's feelings.
The problem they have is that "the poor" really don't exist as a voting bloc anymore. What we call "the poor" would be upper level society in many countries.
What you will see now are the democrats pointing to the "Income Gap" and income "inequities" to garner sympathy. In other words "the rich have more than the not as rich and it's not fair".
And you are starting to see this turning in to out and out America bashing since America has too much of the "world's wealth".
Thomas Sowell takes on these ridiculous sensibilities in his NRO article. It's a good one, read the whole thing if you have time.
Who are these minority of the world’s population who own a majority of the world’s wealth?
They are the population of the United States, Western Europe, Japan, and a few other affluent countries. How did these particular people come to possess so much more wealth than other people?
They did it the old-fashioned way. They produced the wealth that they own. You might as well ask why bees have so much more honey than other creatures.
The rhetoric of clever people can verbally collectivize all the wealth that was produced individually, and then they become aghast at the “disparities” that are magically turned into “inequities” in the distribution of “the world’s wealth.”.....
Nobody likes to see poverty in a world where technology and economic know-how already exist that could give everyone everywhere a decent standard of living.
All you have to do is change people. But have you ever tried to do that?
The quick fix is to transfer wealth. But more than half a century of trying to do that with “foreign aid” has left a dismal record of failure and even retrogression in third-world countries.
Some countries have themselves made changes that lifted them from poverty to prosperity. Indeed, the affluent countries of today were once living in poverty.
But they didn’t do it with quick fixes or by turning a dangerous power over to politicians.
Amen.
