Tom DeLay: People Are Unemployed Because They Want To Be
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I like it when they tell the truth of what they really believe.
DeLay makes this argument that people just looooove unemployment benefits so much they won’t go out and look for work. This is the same old Republican outlook on things that continues to get the country into a mess: YOYO, aka “You’re On Your Own”.
Look, guys, just wear top hats and monocles and be done with it. (via)
ALSO: Remember to keep having crooks like Tom DeLay speak up for the Republican side in the media. No matter what faults Speaker Pelosi might have, DeLay’s mug reminds them of what true corruption looks like.
33 Responses to “Tom DeLay: People Are Unemployed Because They Want To Be”
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
This barely coded racist crap has been uttered by Republicans for 2 generations now. We all know that when Republicans are talking about “unemployment benefits” or “entitlement programs” or welfare, they are talking about black people (and now latinos, particularly illegal immigrants).
The image of the black welfare-queen with 5 kids by 4 different men that never works and just collects checks from the government is their rallying cry against entitlement programs. It’s why Rush Limbaugh comes on the radio and calls healthcare reform “reparations”. Y’know, to rally the good, white *wink* “real Americans” to fight giving those neegras their hard-earned tax dollars.
So when they say “unemployment benefits take away people’s motivation to work”, just insert “black” in-between the words ‘away’ and ‘people’s’.
Is there some reason (that I can’t fathom) why he’s not in jail?
Look, guys, just wear top hats and monocles and be done with it.
You mean “white sheets and hoods,” right?
Seriously. If they wanted to work, they could go get themselves on ‘Dancing with the Stars’, right, Tom?
Unemployment benefits just keep people from going out and learning the tango.
Wait, isn’t DeLay unemployed?
Why do I have to be from Texas. *sigh*
IOKWYAR
I heard a radio spot from E-Meg Whitman here in CA recently, about how California is ‘the welfare state’. After declaiming that ‘welfare shouldn’t be a way of life’, she advocates cutting the _lifetime benefit_ from five years to two.
A lifetime limit of five years on welfare is ‘a way of life’? I suppose if you starve or die of exposure afterwards. Why can’t the poor be more like Craig T. Nelson?
Here’s one that’s good for a giggle: My best friend of 40 years (I’ve mentioned him on this board before) is a Limbaugh-worshipping wingnut first-class. He’s constantly railing about all of the usual shit: niggers (no code-speak), fags, welfare queens, “socialism”, etc. Here’s the kicker: He’s perfectly able-bodied but hasn’t worked in months; and willingly admits that he hasn’t even tried to look for anything. He lives for free with his girlfriend and daily spends his unemployment checks at the bar. He’s also a union member (I’m not sure which one). When I point out the obvious irony of all this, he just shrugs and goes back to freaking out about queers and “socialists”.
Because he’s rich, white, and male… and this is America.
(See also, Oliver North)
And your friend’s theme song is probably “Put Another Log on the Fire” by Tompall Glaser…
If you would have listened to us in the first place, we wouldn’t have so many unemployed to begin with.
So, SF, the recession and resulting unemployment are a result of the minimum wage being raise and has nothing to do with the housing bubble, etc?
Whoda thunk?
Yeah you’re right SF…if only we’d abolished the minimum wage altogether we’d have saved all those jobs. After all, isn’t a quarter plus a swift kick in the ass good enough for an hourly wage?
Its always the poors fault with you guys. Yes, the economic problems are the fault of minimum wage workers and not the millionaires and billionaires who played in a deregulated industry. Jesus.
But of course, the LEFT are the elitist ones…
If we’d listened to you there would still be slave labor, child labor, and debtors’ prisons.
Maybe teens and unskilled minorities wouldn’t be so disproportionately priced out of the market either, Wilbur.
Which is what I’m pretty sure SF was talking about.
Study after study shows no long term aggregate detriment to employment or small business from raising minimum wages, but go ahead, stick to the narrative. It’s all you’ve got.
More than just the narrative, Wilbur.
Facts.
Update: WSJ Editorial on the Minimum Wage; Excess Teen Unemployment Rose w/Min Wage
Wall Street Journal editorial?
Lies, of course. Facts, my ass.
Not lies, Oliver. My link wasn’t to the WSJ editorial, but to another study that took the BLS graph in the WSJ article to another level- Teenage Unemployment Rate Minus the Overall Unemployment Rate vs. Minimum wage increases, which refutes the point Jonathan Chait cutely thought he was proving.
Like I’ve said, conservatives believe that 1+1 = 3, and they’ll twist graphs into knots to “prove” it. So the failed economy is now because we had the nerve to give poor people a slight raise. Better they should have waited for scraps from the upper crust, I guess.
Golly, you mean a downturn in employment disproportionally affects those who have the least seniority and qualifications? Never woulda thunkit!
Only a fool would think that the relationship between unemployment and excess teen unemployment should be linear.
And still, Dennis, your source provides no long-term correlation between minimum wage increases and unemployment.
So the failed economy is now because we had the nerve to give poor people a slight raise.
I don’t know who you’re referring to that said that; it wasn’t me, and SF didn’t say that either. I’m baffled as to why you think you need to argue that way. The graph clearly shows teens being disproportionately harmed by the minimum wage increase.
The WSJ editorial makes a suggestion to lower the wage for teens in order to get them at least employed instead of being shut out altogether from jobs that benefit them much more in long run by virtue of experience and lessons learned than the money they make. A good point.
And the second article, the one I linked to, asks a very pertinent question:
Maybe you could answer that, Oliver. Why stop at $7.25 an hour?
And there was no “twisting of graphs” whatsoever there. It was from the BLS. Which is saying more than the graph that the student used that Jonathan Chait referred to.
Nobody’s “harmed” by a minimum wage increase. What a ridiculous argument.
Nobody’s “harmed” by a minimum wage increase. What a ridiculous argument.
If you’re 16-21 and you can’t find a job for the summer because small businesses can’t afford to pay you $7.25 an hour, then you’re being “harmed”. Which is what’s going on.
Of course teen employment fell disproportionately during the Bush recession. Jobs that would have been staffed by young adults are staffed now by adults riffed from better jobs.
Only a fool would think that the relationship between unemployment and excess teen unemployment should be linear.
Well, you’ve come to the right place. We apparently have some in stock.
Kind of hard to have a serious discussion about important public issues when the other side doesn’t bring their brains to the table.
Dennis claims that Newsweek is a “very liberal” publication. He should not be taken seriously about anything.
SF: yes or no: Do you agree with what DeLay said? Just a simple yes or no please.
Let alone acknowledged at all (for a shitload of other reasons too).