The Republican Party’s rhetoric about poverty may have shifted in recent weeks, but their punishing policies remain the same. Paul Krugman details how the GOP is an enemy of the poor in a sharp New York Times column today.
Krugman writes that Republican efforts to harm the poor are “deeply rooted in the party’s ideology.” Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan’s recent moves to address poverty are nothing more than rhetorical shifts to mask their ideology.
Krugman points to a number of GOP policies that are aimed at punishing the poor. There’s the refusal of Republican governors to expand Medicaid as part of Obamacare, which denies health coverage to millions of poor Americans. Then there’s Republican-controlled states that slash unemployment insurance and the education budget. And the GOP constantly offers budgets that “involves savage cuts in Medicaid, food stamps and other antipoverty programs,” Krugman notes.
This anti-poor ideology is at the core of the Republican Party. The GOP still thinks that government aid provides incentives for people not to work.
And for now, that view isn’t changing. The GOP will continue to punish the poor.