Postby cowboyjones » April 10th, 2015, 12:18 pm
Whether or not those extra welfare restrictions on steak and lobster, will save the taxpayer money or not I do not know (I suspect, as you believe, that it won't). However, to think that has anything to do with some sort of conjecture that they are subhuman seems to me to be against every experience I've ever had with a Republicans, and I've been around Republicans far more than Democrats. I came from an area that was mostly conservative, and also mostly poor. Something like 70-80% of all of the elementary/high-school students in my county had some form of public assistance. I don't think they thought of themselves as subhuman. Even most of the Republicans that I know now, which are mostly middle-class, don't view the poor as subhuman. Those kinds of welfare policies are born, from what I can tell anyway, more out of misconceptions of why people are poor, than a hatred of them, or perhaps a reaction against what they view as socialistic, even if it does cost more. I've never once encountered someone who hates the poor, though perhaps a slight mistrust on behalf of some people, because, unfortunately, it is true that poverty is correlated with crime.
To remain at least partly on topic, would it be possible for the Minneapolis and/or St. Paul proper to pay an amount up front to allow some of the local routes to be free? I understand that there would be a free-rider problem for bus routes that go into the suburbs, but if it were to reduce the need for parking minimums, wouldn't it make it worth it?