About a week ago my parents sent me the following email. Some of you may know that I come from a conservative family who watches Fox News all the time. If you didn't know that before now, well you do.
As much as I love my family and I know they love me I don't hold back when it comes to politically driven junk like what follows. I never really think that I'm directing any ire I express at my family members and they seem to realize that as well. I direct my ire where it belongs, the originator of crap-mail like this and the important facts that surround it. I don't expect them to become liberal. I do expect them to become informed.
(A friend sent this to me - interesting...)
Bread Winner...
I was speaking to an emergency room physician this morning. He told me that a woman in her 20s came to the ER with her 8th pregnancy. She stated, "my momma told me that I am the breadwinner for the family."
He asked her to explain. She said that she can make babies and babies get money for the family. It goes like this: The grandma calls the Department of Child and Family Services and states that the unemployed daughter is not capable of caring for these children. DCFS agrees and states that the child or children will need to go to foster care.
The grandma then volunteers to be the foster parent, and thus receives a check for $1500 per child per month in Illinois .
Total yearly income:
$144,000 tax-free, not to mention free healthcare (Medicaid) plus a monthly card entitling her to free groceries, etc, and a voucher for 250 free cell phone minutes per month. This does not even include WIC and other welfare programs.. Indeed, grandma was correct in that her fertile daughter is the "breadwinner" for the family.
This is how the ruling class spends our tax dollars.
Sebastian J. Ciancio, M.D. Urologist, Danville Polyclinic, LTD
Is this a GREAT COUNTRY or what...
Don't forget to pay your taxes!!!
There are a lot of “Breadwinners” depending on you & me
So yes, the terror of the welfare queen is still out running out there. I found this email interesting mostly because of its timing though. GE not paying taxes but getting something of a tax refund? Bank of America? The House GOP pushing to cut social service fundings while cutting the tax rates for corporations even more? I'm sure the email or this specific myth is an old one but that it's making the rounds in the current economic/political climate is rather telling.
My response is below:
So what does that make GE CEO Immelt? That's a hell of a bread winner. Not only did GE not PAY taxes this year they filed and got a refund into the billions. Same with Bank of America. What is even better is that under the tax loopholes carefully preserved by the House GOP and Senate GOP last year, GE gets those tax refunds for sending jobs over seas. So which ruling elite did you mean? The one that pushes socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor?
The myth of the welfare queen is busted by anyone who has been paying attention to news and not propaganda over the last decade. America faces a revenue problem, not a deficit problem. Along with the myth that tax cuts stimulate the economy or jobs. The last decade alone washed that one out. Biggest deficit in history, biggest tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations in history and one of the highest unemployment rates in history because companies get rewarded for sending jobs overseas. Meanwhile, the Chinese work 36 hour work days with few breaks and little money. And they're not allowed to unionize. A tax loophole John Kerry campaigned on closing and a tax loophole House Democrats voted to close and the GOP in the Senate wouldn't even let it come to a vote. YOUR ruling class of carefeully coddled billionaires has decided to spend YOUR tax dollars on their own tax rebates and refunds and dodging practices and wants to cut YOUR Social Security and make me, DeWayne and Kirah work until we're 70 so that they can keep on dodging taxes. Oh, and hopefully they'll get to take the Social Security I worked to pay into and gamble it on the stock market for their own benefit and maybe mine if they don't mess up too much.... Yay.
Let's see a mythologized $144K versus a provable $3.2 Billion dollar tax refund to a company (GE) that didn't pay taxes and uses veritable slave laobr in another country because that's what they think the non-wealthy are good for...... Yeah, I'm pretty sure this corporatized conservatism is what's breaking this country, not poor white trash who has inadequate access to birth control and a systemized poverty that leaves them with getting paid for breeding a cheap labor force for the real wealthy, elite ruling class.
I love you but if this isn't an argument you want to have please don't send stuff like this to me. It makes me really really angry that things like this go around to "enrage" people but I've heard nary a peep about the real outrages of the Marianas Islands, Union Busting to destroy the American worker and the middle class and now the GOP governor in Maine is trying to throw out child labor laws?!? There's plenty of REAL news to get angry about; not made up and mythologized junk.
So this diary is for a couple of reasons. Pats on the head and back from my fellow Kossacks. ;-) And for you to know what may soon be making the rounds to your email box; provided you haven't been completely eliminated from the lists of every single conservative you know. And if you have been eliminated, share your secret with others.