Yup, thanks to BP, we all had to see it. In case any of you were still wondering, conservatives really do think this way:

The poor do spend out of proportion on cigarettes and on lottery tickets and in the cold calculations of the state, that is a good thing.  The cigarette companies hand over billions to state governments and the lottery, as we are constantly reminded, helps fund education.

Here we go . . .

Another Driftglass original

Once more for fun . . .

The poor spend a lot of their money on cigarettes and lottery tickets, which floods our State treasuries and funds education, respectively.

Of course that fiscal analysis is complete bullshit. But, for the sake arrogance and the self-satisfaction gained from shitting on the less fortunate, let’s assume this conservative tripe holds water. So what does it really say when conservatives claim that the great unwashed’s cigarettes are good for balance sheets and their gambling is good for education?

Well, it works like this. First take the “poor’s” disproportionate education contribution, throw in the hefty cigarette taxes they fire into the General Fund (remember, this doesn’t actually happen, but let’s humor the Tigernistas). Next, top it all off with a regressive 17% FICA shell game (now that‘s painfully true). So here is what that inane, apologetic observation really tells us about those “poor” and what the Tigernistas are actually highlighting is:

The poor “pay a disproportionate amount on taxes.”

The poor “pay a disproportionate amount of the overall upkeep of our State.”  

The poor “do spend out of proportion” due to their heavy burden of subsidizing the wealthy.

& from further upstream in the comments to Julie’s post on CVPS’s Piss.On.The.Poor.Party, we are told that maybe it’s “hard” for the folks at CVPS who receive:

. . . $465,285.00 per year [giving them] different sets of lifestyle choices [than smoking menthols or buy scratch tickets].

Here is the problem, and this is what regressive conservative fiscal mismanagement and conservative economic malpractice committed against the U.S. economy has done for a generation now. Show me a working family making $46,525.50 a year, and I’ll show you a working family that pays out a greater proportion of their income, in taxes & infrastructure upkeep, than does an attorney making $465,285.00.

Workers who earn less than approx. $100K annually – in 2010 dollars – have subsidized the ultra wealthy since Reagan and a conservative Congress imposed the FICA flat-tax. This 17% is a flat-tax on wages that only working people/middle class families pay. The Millionaire/Billionaire set pay a negligible amount of this tax – if any – on their annual resources. Shit, even dead people don’t pay this tax – only working people do.

This is problematic on many levels. Regardless of its intent, the FICA Flat Tax has been economically disastrous to the U.S. economy and it has played a government enforced role in decimating the middle class. For the past 25 years, the result of this approach to taxing wages has been a massive transfer of wealth, from an entire generation of workers, to the wealthiest persons and corporations in the world.

The huge surpluses paid into the alleged FICA/Social Security “Trust” fund by the middle class has justified massive tax breaks for corporations and the ultra-wealthy. The trillion$ in FICA working class taxes have been transferred to and used to subsidize the wealthiest U.S. citizens. These middle class and working class government enforced welfare payments to the wealthy have also been used to hide the magnitude of the U.S. budget deficit, hide the need to cut programs benefiting the wealthy and/or the theft of the middle’s class’s social security taxes has protected the wealthy from paying their fair share of taxes to support the services and government in the same way that the middle class and working poor have been forced to do.

Conservatives have used the FICA Social Security “surplus” as a worker generated trough to lather trillion$ in bailouts and bonuses to bankers, to $hell out trillion$ more in defense contractor welfare and to grease Big Oil with $ub$idizes that will drag down the U.S. economy for decades to come.

The result of this has been a massive transfer of wealth from workers to bankers/defense contractors and industries that have systematically destroyed the U.S. economy.  

So whether it’s a lottery scam in Vermont or a FICA transfer out of D.C., the Poor have the privilege of paying more than the Privileged have the obligation to pay.

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Oh, and BTW Mr. Empathy Patrolman, the issue was never about attorneys “worrying about being sensitive.” No one is dialing 911-Empathy Squad.  The issue is whether an attorney, representing a State protected utility monopoly, who happens to be

(1) charged by his client with

(2) championing a billing policy at

(3) the expense of poor people  

(4) in front of a regulatory agency, could

(5) tell the difference between

— (A) being a relevant and effective advocate; as opposed to

— (B) being ineffective, irrelevant and an asshole.

Guess what? The jury came back on the question of effective advocacy with an unambiguous verdict. Even CVPS’s President and its Gen. Counsel – the clients – called the attorney’s advocacy “careless and insensitive conduct.”

Blah, blah, blah, . . . “the poor do spend out of proportion on cigarettes and on lottery tickets” — so, speaking of being an effective advocate vs. being an irrelevant asshole . . .