The Democratic Party used to call itself the party of working people and hail the “dignity of work.” No more. Now Democrats want to guarantee people who choose not to work an income funded by the suckers who do the right thing by showing up for work, caring for their family and paying taxes.
Fortunately, these self-supporting Americans just dodged a bullet. The failure to pass Build Back Better in Congress, thanks to holdout Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) means that the monthly checks or automatic bank deposits to parents with kids, sometimes dubbed Biden Bucks, come to an end this month.
For working people, the monthly payments were merely an advance on their tax refunds — but parents who choose not to work have been getting no-strings money to support their nonworking lifestyle.
Using the pretext of pandemic relief, Democrats enacting the American Rescue Plan last March changed a feature of the tax code — the child tax credit available to adults who work and pay taxes — into a grant paid unconditionally and monthly to almost all adults with kids, whether they work or not.
Democrats have been pushing to extend the monthly payments through 2022 as part of the Build Back Better Act, with a plan to make them permanent.
Manchin saw right through what his party intended: a socialist-style universal basic income. Manchin objected to the unconditional monthly cash grants: “There’s no work requirement whatsoever.”
“Don’t you think if we’re going to help the children,” Manchin asked, the parents “should make some effort?”
So what about the Democratic Party that represents working people? President Joe Biden still talks the talk. “My Dad used to say, ‘Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about your place in the community.'”
But Biden’s party is no longer walking that walk. As Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wisconsin) told the House Ways and Means Committee during a debate over Build Back Better, “the so-called dignity of work — that’s like hearing a fingernail on a chalkboard.” New York Magazine’s Eric Levitz calls Manchin’s work ethic convictions “contemptible.
Sorry, but most Americans don’t want to support the moochers.
Supporters of the monthly payments hail them as “already a huge success” for lifting millions of children out of poverty. Nonsense. That’s what a working parent does. The national poverty rate fell temporarily, but the payments didn’t solve the problem of parents without the mindset to support their children.
This is deja vu. Before the 1996 welfare reform enacted by a Republican Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton, Uncle Sam used to send checks to nonworking parents. Welfare reform changed that, requiring parents to work or train for work in order to receive cash benefits. It succeeded, reducing the welfare rolls, ameliorating child poverty and helping single mothers become self-sufficient.
Yet, today’s Democratic Party spurns that model. Democrats tend to blame unemployment on racism or a rigged economy and argue that people deserve dignity, whether they choose to work or not.
Of course, all human beings deserve dignity — but not a seat on the couch in front of the TV funded by people who toil.
Democratic politicians all over the nation are pushing to provide a monthly basic income to the nonworking poor, courtesy of taxpayers. They’ve formed Mayors for a Guaranteed Income. Los Angeles is sending out monthly $1,000 checks to 2,000 residents.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is using millions in federal pandemic relief funding to distribute $500 a month cash stipends to randomly chosen low-income recipients. That ought to enrage anyone who works and pays taxes.
Jobs are plentiful. The National Federation of Independent Businesses reported that over half of small business owners cannot fill positions. Small businesses are posting “Help Wanted” signs in windows.
Every time you pass one of those signs, you can thank Manchin for holding the line against making taxpayers into suckers supporting the freeloaders.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and author of “The Next Pandemic,” available at Amazon.com. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey.
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The real question is: How many people will get off their behind and get a job. The economy is so fragile now that it won’t take much for its collapse to come. There are still more people on welfare than there are working. All the free subsidiaries that are being given needs to end. Unfortunately, it has been going on for such a long time that it is probably too late. Welcome to what happened to the western Roman empire.
With regards to the above story’s mention of “California,” some may wonder why the state is in such a mess. The answer is simple. “California” is an acronym: “Calling All Liberals Incestors Fornicators Ornery Runts Needed In Area!”
I escaped from CA 20 years ago!
Democrats are the LAZIEST people on the planet. They always want everything FREE on the Back of those that do take RESPONSIBILITY and WORK.
Look who is the LAZIEST sitting in the WHITE House.
The biggest problem is the dumbocrats don’t know that they don’t know!
I’d love to read more articles by Betsy McCaughey.
Only in America can those who are not working for any reason still “get paid” as if they were. Because of liberal bleeding heart policies, millions of them have adopted a new work “ethic”, and it’s not the one held by hard-working tax-paying citizens. It seems to have been woven into the fabric of American society, but this is one cloth that is overdue for the Great Unraveling.
I am literally at a loss for the appropriate words! I do know that in the New Testament of the Holy Bible, it says that if you don’t work, you don’t eat. I can respect that…
This is the first step to Communism.Free Enterprise gone.Liberty Gone!Individual Rights Gone! Anyone who buys into there Doctrine is a fool.
A people get the government they deserve/
-Thoreau-
With biden’s plan there won’t be nobody left the freelo because nobody will have a job
Stay home, eat donuts, watch TV, never fear Uncle Joey said the check is in the mail & he says, oh by the way, don’t forget who buttered your toast, vote for me… The Democrat mantra… :~(
Thank you, Bill… :~)
Why aren’t we reporting their new proposal of re-writing the 1st and 2nd Amendments? That surely put an end to “comments”
So many “kids” are depressed now. Could it be because they have nothing to look forward to? We used to work
Democrat politicians want their people to be just like themselves. Greedy and lazy. After all, socialism doesn’t require a solid work ethic. Only a reliance on freebies from big brother. If they can only get that darn Constitution thing out of the way…..
We the working people do not want socialism. If you want to be here. WORK
If that had passed , it would have been short lived for Americans The dems would have only done it long enough to get people where they wanted them. Then they would be starving and homeless.I raised to boys on my own. 3 jobs and the pay wasn’t great. My boys went without a lot of things, but grew up with great work ethics , they were taught that if you want something you got to work for it.Nothing is free without some kind of price tag. What you teach your children is what you get in the future. Freeloaders = freeloaders.
Not the Democratic party. It is correctly the Democrat party. Just a minor correction to an otherwise very on point article. Thank you.