Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Class warfare; racism.]

"The public wants every dime they can be given. Let's face it, once you get them on the dole, they'll take every dime they can. We've got to find some way of getting things under control or this country and your future is going to be gone."—Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, bitterly complaining that repealing Obamacare is difficult, because lazy goodfornothings are used to having healthcare access.

For a moment, let's just say that Hatch's dogwhistled racism about "healthcare queens" is factually accurate. (It isn't. There is virtually no one, even people whose healthcare access through Medicare or Medicaid, who pays nothing out-of-pocket for their healthcare.) Even granting his inaccurate premise, it's still garbage.

The reason things are out of control, to borrow his language, and people are "taking every dime they can," isn't because people are greedily exploiting government hand-outs, but because Orrin Hatch's disgusting party has undercut every single thing—regulations, unions, workers' rights—that protected people's ability to make a living wage.

Listen, Hatch: You don't get to have it both ways. If you and your party want to steal working people's opportunities to provide for themselves, then you can't also take away the meager safety net provided by the federal government.

I mean, you can, but then don't be fucking surprised when people rightly accuse you of wanting to let people die in the dirt so that the already-wealthy can buy themselves another gold toilet.