The Empathy Gap

A little something from Dr. Krugman's blog. Please follow link to original.
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The Empathy Gap

In general, I’m a numbers and concepts guy, not a feelings guy; when I go after someone like Paul Ryan, I emphasize his irresponsibility and dishonesty, not his evident lack of empathy for the less fortunate.

Still, there are times — in Ryan’s case and more generally for much of his political tribe — when that lack of empathy just takes your breath away. Harold Pollack catches Ryan calling his proposed cuts in Medicaid, food stamps and more welfare reform round two, and suggests that our current suite of safety net programs is “a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency”.

Oh. My. God.

First of all, if you think that welfare reform has been just great, read this extended Times report on the desperation of many poor Americans trying to survive in a depressed economy with a shredded safety net. It takes a monumental inability to imagine other peoples’ lives to blithely praise welfare reform’s results at a time like this.

And if you look at how desperate you have to be to qualify for food stamps and Medicaid, the notion that these programs encourage “complacency” is breathtaking.

Oh, and of course, being “able-bodied” in the current economy does not, remotely, ensure that you can actually find work no matter how hard you look.

Ryan, we’re told, is a nice guy. And maybe he is, to people he knows. But he evidently has no sense of or interest in the lives of those less fortunate.