–Are poor people really as stupid as they vote? PART I

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor,
which leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive.

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Most of the citizens of North Carolina are relatively poor.

The state ranks 39th for Median Household Income. Only 11 states are poorer than NC — MS, WV, AR, KY, AL, TN, LA, NM, SC, OK, ID – and all but one (New Mexico) voted conservative in the 2012 presidential election.

monetary sovereignty

Washington Post
In North Carolina, unimpeded GOP drives state hard to the right
By Michael A. Fletcher, Published: May 25, 2013

Since the recession hit, North Carolina has been saddled with one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates. The bad times helped prepare the way for a carefully executed strategy, with big financial support from a major conservative activist, that helped the GOP win control of both chambers of the state General Assembly in 2010.

Those victories were capped last year when Republican Pat McCrory was elected governor, giving the party control of all levers of state government for the first time since 1870.

The victories were aided by the strong financial support of Art Pope, a multimillionaire who spent heavily in support of the state’s GOP candidates. Pope’s advocacy network spent $2.2 million on 22 legislative races, winning 18.

One of McCrory’s first acts after being elected governor was to install Pope, a former legislator, as the state budget chief.

For only $2.2 million, the poor people of North Carolina sold their state to right winger, Art Pope. Here’s what he’s doing with it:

Legislators have slashed jobless benefits. They have also repealed a tax credit that supplemented the wages of low-income people, while moving to eliminate the estate tax.

Three quick steps to widen the gap between the rich and the rest — and that’s just the beginning:

[The right wing legislature has] voted against expanding Medicaid to add 500,000 poor North Carolinians to the Medicaid rolls.

Lawmakers are also considering proposals to reduce and flatten income tax rates while expanding the sales tax, perhaps to even include groceries and prescription drugs — which some advocates see as a first step toward eliminating the state income tax.

Two more steps to widen the gap between the rich and the rest.

But, there’s even more:

There are also measures pending to require drug testing for low-income people applying for job training and welfare benefits.

The sole purpose is to reduce the number of poor people receiving benefits — more widening of the gap.

And if all that weren’t enough, the beating of the poor expands further:

The North Carolina House has passed a law requiring voters to have a government-issued identification card, and legislators are considering bills to roll back the state’s law allowing same-day voter registration and to sharply limit early voting — measures that supporters of the current law say were integral to the high turnout of minority voters in the past several elections.

When you add up all these measures, you have a picture of a state that is expanding the gap – no, not the gap, the GULF – between the rich and the rest – in essence a return to the days of slavery.

And this time, it isn’t restricted to black slavery. The poor whites are being enslaved, too.

Why did all those poor voters — poor blacks and poor whites — in one of the poorest states in the union, vote to make themselves even poorer?

It’s not as though the right wing has hidden its intentions:

Other GOP-controlled legislatures have passed or considered similar measures. Florida, Missouri and Michigan have slashed jobless benefits. Texas, Louisiana and Wisconsin are among at least 15 states not participating in the Medicaid expansion called for in the Affordable Care Act. And West Virginia, Kansas and Texas have proposed bills requiring drug testing for welfare recipients.

After the (NC) state Senate unveiled its tax reform plan this month, the state chapter of Americans for Prosperity released a poll that it said showed widespread support across the state. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said the state tax code is in need of reform, and nearly half backed moving to totally eliminate the personal income tax within four years.

Eliminating the personal income tax helps the rich. And since the lost tax money needs to be replaced, the resultant increase in sales taxes will hurt the poor. And this is what the poor people of North Carolina want!

“Most of the laws that take us backwards do not come out of Congress but out of state legislatures,” said the Rev. William J. Barber II, head of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP. “Conservative forces here have gone all out to implement these policies and to lock in their power by changing the voting laws.”

“This leadership wants to make our state a place of deeper stratification and inequality,” Barber said.

Well, duh, Reverend, but this is what the poor people of North Carolina voted for.

There is very little opponents can do to alter the will of the governing majority — something many of the protesters acknowledge.

“My hope is two-pronged,” said Derick Smith, an instructor at North Carolina A&T University who was arrested several weeks ago during a protest. “You want to bring attention to what’s happening. And you’ve got to hope that the governor will listen and back away from some of the more divisive provisions.”

In summary, the poor people of North Carolina have attempted suicide, and succeeded with self-mutilation, by voting for the rich. Now, some of them hope the rich-biased Republican governor, whom they intentionally elected, will take pity on them.

The rest of these poor people are perfectly delighted to continue voting conservative and have the rich continue to beat them down, down, down.

Are poor people really as stupid as they vote? It boggles.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Medicare — parts A, B & D — for everyone
3. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here)
4. Long-term nursing care for everyone
5. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
6. Salary for attending school (Click here)
7. Eliminate corporate taxes
8. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
9. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99%

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

11 thoughts on “–Are poor people really as stupid as they vote? PART I

  1. The NC voting has a wee bit to do with racism. Rage against Obama is the theme of the Ne0-Confederate south and their allies in the north. Any candidate who hates Obama is just fine.

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  2. Your bias is showing.

    In your comments it seems as though you are saying that most of the people in these states are poor when in fact the opposite may be true. Being a poor state doesn’t mean that the majority of the residents are poor, especially those that vote.

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    1. Depends how one classifies “poor.” They certainly are relatively poor.

      Per capita money income in the past 12 months, 2007-2011:
      NC: $25,256 USA: $27,915

      Median household income, 2007-2011:
      NC; $46,291 USA: $52,762

      Persons below poverty level, percent, 2007-2011:
      NC: 16.1% USA: 14.3%

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      1. There are other factors that you haven’t factored into your claim of these states being poor. What is the price of housing statewide for instance. Is the overall cost of living higher or lower or about the same as other states or the nation.

        It’s easy to claim that a state is poor but I see no evidence that that has factored in to the voting process, or that their standard of living is lower than anyone else. I disagree with your claim that these states are “poor”, relative or not, and because of that the voted for conservatives. If they did vote for conservatives then they were probably tired at the way the state economy was being handled by the other party.

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        1. The economic trend is not income inequality. It’s the wealth, opportunity and power gaps, plain and simple. What better way to continue this trend? Crush the middle class and poor via legislation that continues to favor the already at an advantage rich.

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      1. Thanks for those links, Rodger. So Republican Senator David Vitter wants to deny food stamps to anyone convicted of “murder, rape, aggravated sexual assault.” The lifetime ban is retroactive, and applies to anyone convicted in the past. The ban also denies benefits to dependent children or family members.

        Because the standard is merely “conviction,” we will ban people who may have been innocent – perhaps Blacks from the south convicted decades ago by segregated juries. And while the ban starts with the crime of “murder, rape, aggravated sexual assault,” the crime list will be expanded.

        MY PROBLEM is that Senator Vitter’s amendment is austerity. To deny benefits from anyone is to remove money from the economy, which will worsen the depression, while encouraging desperation and crime. And if I own a small grocery store that accepts EBT cards (i.e. food stamps), then Vitter’s amendment will reduce my clients and my profits.

        All this is doubly insane because the US government creates benefits out of thin air, simply by crediting bank accounts.

        Of course, most people don’t want to hear that. Most people prefer to cling to their self-righteous hate. Starve people convicted of “murder, rape, aggravated sexual assault”? Hell yeah!

        Senator Vitter’s amendment was added to S.954, the Senate farm bill that seeks to cut $24.4 billion from farm subsidies and food stamps. (The House version, H.R. 1947, crafted by Republican Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, seeks to cut $20.5 billion from food stamps alone, while not cutting any subsidies to rich farmers. It has passed committee, and will go to the House floor for debate and voting next month.)

        Sen. Debbie Stabenow [D-MI] heads the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. As committee chairperson, she decides whether to let the committee vote on a bill, or else just let it sit and die. Ms. Stabenow introduced S. 954 on 14 March, and got it passed through her committee the same day, with Vitter’s amendment attached to it. The Senate began debating S.954 on 20 May.

        Obama’s own proposed budget for FY 2014 includes $37.8 billion in cuts to farm subsidies and conservation programs over 10 years, but no cuts to food stamps.

        However, Obama also supports S.954, which means cuts to food stamps.

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  3. Interesting responses.

    It cannot be denied that Republicans, as a party, favor the rich more than do the Democrats (although the Obama administration has drifted far to the right of traditional Democrat liberalism).

    And from a voting standpoint, there are precious few rich people. So the only way Republicans manage to win a state is to convince the middle- and lower-income classes to become one-issue voters (abortion, guns, racial or other forms of bigotry, etc.) and to vote against their own best financial interests.

    Republican lawmakers are stronger for cutting Social Security, cutting Medicare and Medicaid, cutting government employment, cutting unemployment compensation, cutting food stamps and other poverty aids, cutting the myriad other benefits to the non-rich. Republicans are stronger for widening the wealth gap.

    Republicans also favor cutting income taxes while increasing sales taxes, the two tax wedges that widen the wealth gap.

    So one would expect those states having the lowest income to vote left, while those states having the highest income to vote right. But based on Per Capita Income, Median Family Income and Media Household Income, the opposite occurs far more often.

    Yes, some argue that seemingly poor states really aren’t poor, because their cost-of-living is low, or their lifestyle is better or they are happier or spiritually richer or have a better high school football team — or something.

    And by some selected measure, Mississippi may be the richest state in the union.

    So, I’ll amend my wonderment to the fact that states with the lowest Average Income are more likely to vote for candidates who most favor those with the highest Average Income.

    In short, those states are more likely to vote against their own best financial interests, i.e vote stupidly.

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  4. Then again, ignorance is not limited to the poor, though they seem to have more of it:

    http://econintersect.com/b2evolution/blog2.php/2013/05/28/are-americans-apathetic-and-ignorant-what-surveys-tell-us

    While Americans are intelligent, they don’t care to be informed on issues of great consequence to them. If they have views, they often reflect the simple-minded polar views of their favorite entertainment news TV station. Americans are willing to leave public policy issues to their elected officials to work out with the assistance of special interest groups.

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