On Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, Dec. 7, a national television station carried the perfect definition of the U.S. welfare problem on its home page. A Seattle, Wash., chiropractor and his wife received more than $100,000 in welfare benefits while living in a $1.2 million home with their two children and flying all over the world in the past eight years.
Meanwhile, in Laredo, Texas, a woman shot and critically wounded her two children in a Texas Department of Health and Human Services building and then killed herself after being denied food stamps for the past five months because she didn’t provide enough information. She was required to complete an 18-page application and provide proof of employment and residency.
Texas welfare officials didn’t know what required information was missing, or whether she would have qualified if whatever was missing had been supplied.
Now, Gov. Paul LePage wants to fix the state budget by taking 65,000 poor and disabled people off the Medicaid eligibility rolls. That is the arrogance, stupidity and pure heartlessness that motivates the Republican Party elite. While the 1-percenters loot the treasury and the 99-percenters are denied even the smallest bit of respect, Republican politicians in Washington and Maine take their marching orders from the Koch Brothers and the Heritage Foundation.
Stop the looting. Pass an income tax surcharge large enough on those earning more than $100,000 a year to balance the Maine budget.
No cuts, no new restrictions on eligibility in Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security are morally acceptable.
Jonathan Albrecht, Dixfield
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