Pulling the Football, and Why it Keeps Happening

DocJess — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 00:11:36 GMT

Crossposted from DemConwatch

Boehner said no to the Obama "compromise." Boehner caved to pressure from the far right. You shouldn't be surprised. Obama shouldn't be surprised. Then again, Charlie Brown shouldn't have been surprised after the first 50 times.

The reason this keeps happening is NOT because the president is stupid. But because he, and the rest of the Democratic Party are seemingly oblivious to the cognitive dissonance that affects America. That is, most people do not come close to understanding what the truth is, nor what the potential ramifications of certain proposals can be.

To wit: most people who receive government money don't know that they receive money from a government program. Here's the chart:

Now, that chart is from a 2008 study, but it's unlikely the percentages have changed much. Face it, people can't value something they don't know they have. Further, the higher up on the income ladder a taxpayer is, the more likely he/she has received a tax subsidy of some sort. If you want to read the full, fascinating report, it's after the jump.

And there's something else that people don't know: if you add together the TOTAL cost of early childhood programs, low income housing programs, WIC funds, teacher training and afterschool programs, job training for the unemployed, LIHEAP, community health centers, homeless assistance grants, legal services for the poor, and Title X family planning, you get $44 billion dollars. Want to guess how much it costs each year for extending the Bush tax cuts for JUST the top brackets? $42 billion. Full breakout in chart form here, which includes some other eye-popping dollar amounts only for the rich.

The next time you're out driving in real traffic, watch the people who only see what's ahead of them, never on the side, nor behind them. Most people don't have a sense of what's around them. They can only look right in front of their noses. The Democrats, and ESPECIALLY the president, need to put these sorts of data right in front of people, as many times as it takes, until they understand.

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Pulling the Football, and Why it Keeps Happening