The grotesque moral atrocity of blaming the poor for being poor

Behind disastrous conservative and Clintonesque policies is a toxic premise: That the poor are bad, irresponsible people who have made stupid, disgusting choices that put them in the place they are today

It's time to stop blaming the poor.
(Image credit: Illustration by Jackie Friedman | Image courtesy Katie Edwards/Ikon Images/Corbis)

The Republican Party has long struggled with how to package its blatantly pro-rich policy portfolio of top-heavy tax cuts and deregulation. Such things are deeply unpopular — even self-identified Republicans are divided on whether the rich pay their fair share of taxes — but the GOP's wealthy donor class demands them.

Thus far in the 2016 presidential race, candidates have basically landed on the George W. Bush formula: Sweeten your handouts to the wealthy with far smaller ones for the rest of Americans, and sell it with utterly preposterous promises of 50 zillion percent growth. Jeb Bush promises a growth rate not achieved since FDR started his term at the very bottom of the Great Depression and ended it at the peak of World War II mega-spending. Donald Trump promises half again as much as that.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.