I've been thinking a bit about the GOP logic and what they base their ideas on. So much has been written about their policies to help out the very wealthy, but I think we are missing the other 1 percent that drives their agenda, the freeloading 1%.
TANF has the statistics on families receiving benefits. We know the national unemployment rate is 8.2%. We have figures on underemployment. We even have the Heritage Foundation's Dependency Index which includes people on Social Security and Medicare. What I have been unable to determine is the population of purposeful freeloaders.
The purposeful freeloader population is important because it is the second driver of the policies of the GOP. They don't want to provide handouts of any kind and they make the argument that these handouts are what is ruining the economy.
I have a simplistic view of people. They want to survive and for the vast majority, they want to work and provide for themselves. I have seen a lot of circumstantial evidence to support this view and very little to oppose it. Go ahead and determine your own percent of the population that fits the bill of purposeful freeloader. Even if you hold the belief that it is as high as 1%, you have to reach the conclusion that the GOP has policy position that is fully driven by the actions of a minute percentage of the population. How does that make any sense to anyone.