America's safety net and Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman, who hasn't been right about anything in the last two decades, claims without any evidence, the white working class is due for a rude awakening when the safety net is shredded under President Trump and a Republican Congress. I guess he thinks blacks, Asians, and Hispanics are either too rich or too poor to be included in his bullying of the working class--some members of which earn more than college grads who are paying off their loans.

Speaking of jobs, how does Krugman keep his? If he paid attention, he'd realize that the so called "safety net" has always been bi-partisan but has 80 overlapping programs causing graft and waste. (Obamacare which mandated purchase of insurance or jail and a fine was supported just by Democrats, and not even all of them.) Krugman should know that a job is always better than a government program. And Donald Trump has promised Americans they can keep their jobs. Perhaps it will be an empty promise like "keep your insurance," or "you can keep your doctor," but he's made a good start by promising tax relief to encourage American companies to come home.

The left keeps pouncing on "the white working class" which they've made synonymous with white supremacists even though exit polls show Trump only got about 1% more of the white vote than Romney did, whom the left portrayed as a rich elitist appealing only to the wealthy. Trump picked up the traditional Democrat stronghold in the so-called "rust belt" (ugly name, blue wall is better) which got no relief in 8 years of Obama whom they voted for--TWICE. Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton lost a lot of the most liberal Democrats to spoiler Jill Stein. Plus, people don't like being called racist, homophobic and deplorable just because they want a good job. All the left promises is a bigger safety net, higher minimum wage, and retraining. That doesn't pay the mortgage or the college tuition for the kids.

 A lot of the so called "safety net" programs benefit the middle class most. Welfare benefits going to single parents with incomes less than half of the poverty level have decreased by 35 percent over the 1983 to 2004 period, whereas benefits to single parents making almost twice the poverty level have increased by 80 percent. 

“America’s safety net can sometimes entangle people in soul-crushing dependency. Our poverty programs do rescue many people, but other times they backfire.” Nickolas Kristof.

 https://medium.com/2015-index-of-culture-and-opportunity/total-welfare-spending-63802c3b021b#.oh96ujy43

 http://www.heritage.org/research/testimony/2012/05/examining-the-means-tested-welfare-state

Drank the Kool-Aid

http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-presidents-speech-at-un.html

http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-obama-doesnt-know-didnt-know.html

http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/06/while-iraq-goes-up-in-flames-obama.html

http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/04/un-african-and-un-presidential.html

Obamacare supporters are taking the credit for slowing the rate of increase!

Paul Krugman is an embarrassment to his profession.

“Whatever the cause [slowing of the rate] , it started early on George Bush’s watch—not under Barrack Obama.

Moreover, ObamaCare doesn’t really begin until this coming January. All the changes up to now have been cost increasing—providing risk pool insurance to the uninsurable, forcing private plans to cover more benefits, and adding such extras to Medicare as free “wellness exams.”

So how does Krugman manage to give ObamaCare any credit for a slowdown in spending? He begins by noting that a 2011 letter signed by hundreds of health and labor economists pointed out that “the Affordable Care Act contains essentially every cost-containment provision policy analysts have considered effective in reducing the rate of medical spending.” “

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=4817

Sorry Mr. Krugman, you flunk unionizing 101

Paul Krugman, left wing journalist and Nobel prize in something, has really stepped into it now. He claimed that Texas children were doing more poorly than Wisconsin's who have the benefit of all those rich, well-pensioned, unionized teachers with collective bargaining rights.

However. . .

Texas students beat Wisconsin in every category when ethnicity is taken into account. See Iowahawk, who usually writes a humor column, but in this case is very serious.

"So how to compare educational achievement between two states with such dissimilar populations? In data analysis this is usually done by treating ethnicity as a "covariate." A very simple way to do this is by comparing educational achievement between states within the same ethnic group. In other words, do black students perform better in Wisconsin than Texas? Do Hispanic students perform better in Wisconsin or Texas? White students? If Wisconsin's kids consistently beat their Texas counterparts, after controlling for ethnicity, then there's a strong case that maybe Texas schools ought to become a union shop.

Luckily, there is data to answer this question via the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The NAEP is an annual standardized test given to 4th and 8th graders around the country to measure proficiency in math, science, and reading. Participation is fairly universal; if you've had a 4th or 8th grader in the last few years, you're probably familiar with it. Results are compiled on the NAEP website, broken down by grade, state, subject and ethnicity."

The media bias and terrorists

There certainly are more coverage and media outrage about the murder of abortionist George Tiller and a Holocaust museum guard than there was about the murder of Pvt. Long, the military recruiter by a Muslim terrorist or the women murdered and wounded at a Jewish charity in Seattle in 2006 by Naveed Afza Haq (mistrial in 2008--he's still not convicted). In fact, the buzz in the news is all about right wing extremists and conservative talkers. Well, just to provide a little balance, here's a counterterrorism list which includes the Lakawanna 6, Ali Al-Tamimi, Jose Padilla, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, Iyman Faris and others, as well as white supremists. One of the women Haq shot in the Jewish Federation building was pregnant, but she's the one who called 911 and got him to talk to dispatchers, bringing the crisis to an end. The lefty columnists like Krugman who are now blaming conservative talkers for the museum guard's death and Tiller's death weren't calling out anti-war congressmen like Reid and Pelosi and anti-Bush agitators like Code Pink when those women were shot. Why the double standard?