Today, the Trump Administration issued guidance to states early Thursday that will allow them to compel people to work or prepare for jobs in order to receive Medicaid. Seema Verma, who leads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has pushed to allow states to link work requirements to Medicaid eligibility. She voiced her opinion on this matter saying “innovations that build on the human dignity that comes with training, employment and independence.”
This is a common thread throughout Republican talking points. Giving someone money for noting creates a dependent class and robs people of their humanity, preventing them from the joys of hard work and the resulting wealth that follows along with independence and self-reliance.
Ask your favorite conservative/Republican if they agree with this. Hint: They will, 100%.
Then ask them about the Estate Tax. Many of our founders, including Franklin and Jefferson, supported an Estate Tax for several reasons and while I cannot find a reference to the creation of a dependent class or robbing individuals of the joys of hard work and the resulting wealth, the founders had a feeling (proven thus far by Piketty), that if wealth is to be handed down from one generation to the next along family lines, it will create a two tiered society of haves and have nots, but I digress.
If giving a working class citizen “money for nothing” creates a flawed citizen, a dependent citizen robbed of “the human dignity that comes with training, employment and independence”, why is this not so with the ownership class, AKA the wealthy class?
Donald Trump received tens of millions of dollars from his father and no doubt his children will each inherit hundred of millions while NONE of them, Donald included, has ever experienced the human dignity that comes with training, employment and independence. Had he been born to a gas station owner, Donald would, at best, own two stations today. As for Don Jr, Eric, and Ivanka, they would be employed at the local mall, or maybe selling time shares in Florida or who knows where, but the POINT is that NONE of these individuals has ever put it all on the line, risked losing it all, worried about a layoff, or had the fear of not getting a promotion and with that enough wages to support the arrival of another child. None of them ever punched a time clock, reported to someone other than family, or was truly independent of that family.
Ask your Republican/conservative friends, does the removal/reduction of the Estate Tax rob the children of the wealthy of the human dignity that comes with training, employment and independence?
And if not, why not?
