We all know how Republicans like to blame individuals for their own economic misfortunes. We're all familiar with the odious bankruptcy bill and in Ohio, gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell has been open about how he'd like to destroy any and all safety nets -- for kids, elderly, handicapped, you name it.
There's a story you must read:
http://www.buckeyestateblog.com/...
State Senator Joy Padgett is one of the candidates angling to replace Bob Ney as the congressional candidate in Oh-18, after Ney withdrew last week (likely due to pending indictment). Padgett and her husband have filed for bankruptcy due to their failing office-supply business.
Padgett, a vile piece of Republican scum, was Jim Petro's running mate when he opposed (and lost to) Blackwell in the primary.
So are the Padgett's saying "I guess we're a couple of morally deficient losers who need to learn to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps?"
Uh, no.
Rather, this:
"With the economy the way it is right now and companies moving out of the area, or merging, or going out of business, we've seen our business hurt by that," company president Don Padgett said Tuesday. "
The article goes on to say that they knew they've been in trouble for six years but hoped things would turn around but, says Padgett , "the economy wouldn't let us."
Now, this woman is a state senator in a legislature that has shown itself more interested in discussing how far a lap dancer should stay from her client than in fixing school funding declared unconstitutional by our state supreme court, thereby giving children the basic tools of economic survival.
Who does she think is responsible for the current state of the economy? And isn't she getting way off message here since, according to the Republicans, the economy is doing just great?
I think this is a fascinating story that the Democrats can use, not to slam Padgett herself, but to point out the sheer hypocrisy of the Republicans' blaming individuals for all their own hardships and their insistence that society has no obligation to help anyone. It demonstrates that, as Sherrod Brown;'s campaign slogan has it, "We're in this together." Refuse to fix the schools, refuse to raise the minimum wage, lead the country in bankruptcies (join a huge and growing club in the state, Joy) and foreclosures and job loss and unaffordability of higher education, be dead last in job and small business starts, create more poverty and eventually that poverty creeps up the ladder and affects everyone. This should (but probably won't) be a lesson to Republicans who think they can isolate the great unwashed masses and hide in their gated communities because they can't forever.
They'll probably try to claim this is why they need to cut taxes, but I think at this point, people see through that. I think people here finally understand that cutting taxes means cutting everything: schools, parks, libraries, social services. Once you cut all that stuff, and lay off tens of thousandds of middle-class workers, then businesses like the Padgetts' suffer too. You can run, GOP, but you can't hide.