Nikki Haley, who wants to be president, believes if you’re a single working mother juggling parenting with two or three low-wage jobs and need Medicaid and food stamps to make ends meet, you’re a lazy couch potato.
Haley wants to slash funding for those programs, which also help seniors and disabled people. She has previously called for raising the Social Security retirement age to 70, which would push old people back into the workforce regardless of their health or ability to keep working.
“This is going to have to be harsh,” Haley said. Read story here. Not if she isn’t elected.
She also called out recent graduates struggling under a student debt load. Referring to them as “kids in their 20s,” she proclaimed that “those are the ones that need to go and know that things are going to be changed.” It’s not clear what she intends to take away from them, as they don’t typically get benefits from government social programs, but this indicates she feels life isn’t tough enough for them yet.
Maybe she thinks everyone in their 20s is living with their parents and getting Medicaid and food stamps. If you’re a twenty-something, she insulted you, too.
“We’ve got to start doing things like that,” she added, meaning gutting the social safety net. No, we don’t. We can elect someone with compassion and empathy, who understands the struggles of young people, the working poor, single parents, seniors, disabled people, and disadvantaged children. In fact, we already have; his name is Joe Biden, and he’s apparently going to seek reelection.
Haley, who’s an announced candidate but is struggling to find her footing, is a poor replacement for him. She’ll remind voters of Mitt Romney, who insinuated the 47% of Americans who don’t earn enough to owe federal income taxes are freeloaders. That remark, made in private to rich political donors but recorded by a waiter, may have cost him the 2012 election.
Haley isn’t so shy about her disdain for the majority of Americans. She’s making similar remarks in public, brazenly, and either she figures anyone who needs Medicaid and food stamps to survive isn’t going to vote for her anyway (she’s probably right), or she’s trying to out-Republican other Republicans. There’s nothing new or creative about what she’s saying; attacking the poor has been a Republican campaign staple for decades.
Haley won’t get very far. At this point, she isn’t even running for vice president.