Quote of the Day, The Left Loves Poor People Like I Love Ribeye Steak edition.

Megan’s showing some dislike for free trade* in this Bloomberg piece; but it was this that stood out for me.

A disability check is a poor substitute for a job, from both the recipient and the taxpayer’s perspective. The sort of person who prefers a disability check to a decent job is the only person we don’t want to help.

Megan needs to define that ‘we.’ The federal government is apparently ready, willing, and able to subsidize people who prefer disability checks to decent jobs; and she also knows as well as I do that if you want more of something, you subsidize it.  More to the point, so does the federal government – or, more accurately, the political party running the government’s executive branch. Some day I’d like to hear why LBJ hated poor people this much…

Via Instapundit.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*What do I think about free trade? To mangle Ghandi: I think that it’s a great idea; we should try it some time. From where I’m sitting we’ve got far too many regulations, carve-outs, and extraneous checks on manufacturing** as it is; and this administration is apparently driven to throw as many anvils on the back of business as it can possibly manage.

**Careful use of the adjective, there. I like clean water, air, and soil as well as the next person – particularly when I’m living on the same planet as my society’s manufacturing base.

Maryland planning more stealth tax hikes on poor?

In a socially-acceptable way, of course: ie, via another hike in the tax on tobacco.  The “Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative” – a name whose hint of subtle menace should make small-government types involuntarily shiver – looking to raise it by a buck a pack, because… well, pretty much because they want people to quit smoking, and taxing it through the ceiling is supposed to accomplish that.  And it might… except for one minor little detail.  You see, Maryland’s state sales tax on tobacco is currently two dollars; over in Virginia it’s thirty cents.

You do the math.
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