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by jandrese 2414 days ago
> “Since the 1990s, Republicans in Congress have put a lot of pressure on IRS to prevent payments going to people who didn’t deserve the credit or who didn’t qualify for the credit,” Kiel said

It's part of the war on "Welfare Queens".
2 comments
refurb 2414 days ago
What do you mean war? Are you suggesting that the IRS should target people who "don't deserve or qualify for the credit"?

Maybe just let people claim it who shouldn't be getting it?

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microcolonel 2414 days ago
It would be easier to condemn this crusade if the examples of actual welfare queens weren't so infuriating. It is a phenomenon dripping with palpable entitlement, at a scale that most people are familiar with.
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duskwuff 2414 days ago
The myth of the "welfare queen" is an ugly racial stereotype based on a single person, and bears very little relationship to the reality on the ground.

https://newrepublic.com/article/154404/myth-welfare-queen

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microcolonel 2413 days ago
It's not a myth, it's just that the extreme cases people are thinking of are relatively few and far between.

I'm not making any case for it being somehow common, just that when people see the genuine article, which obviously exists, it's pretty repulsive. It's not that they're all getting rich or even middle class, and you can't really get rich off this stuff, it's that they get off on getting something for nothing. "The Queen" is not the only welfare queen because New Republic wrote a story about one lady.

There are also far less repulsive, but very disappointing misuses of public welfare systems. I know a lady in my city who receives a housing benefit which could buy her a rental unit here, but she spends it on hard drugs instead. You can follow the money from these programs from the public coffers to the wallets of illicit drug dealers and traffickers. An argument could be made that paying more attention to how that benefit is paid out, would give some people a better chance of seeking treatment rather than buying more drugs.

And no, it's not based on "a single person"; it takes a profound kind of class ignorance to say something that ridiculous.

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