Keeping the poor poor: Michigan State Senator wants State cash to go to thrift shop sales only

From michiganradio.org:

Plan would require foster children to shop for clothing in thrift stores

By Rina Miller Enlarge imageState Sen. Bruce Caswell suggests foster and poor children should use their state-funded clothing allowance only at thrift stores.

Foster children in Michigan would use their state-funded clothing allowance only in thrift stores under a plan suggested by State Senator Bruce Caswell.

Caswell says he wants to make sure that state money set aside to buy clothes for foster children and kids of the working poor  is actually used for that purpose.

He says they should get “gift cards” to be used only at Salvation Army, Goodwill or other thrift stores.

First: so, you want to make sure funds for clothing get spent on clothing—is their an epidemic of wasted clothing money in Michigan? You know they sell video games in thrift stores, too, right? And toys? And other things that aren’t clothes, right?

Second: I’m getting pretty tired of this “guilty until proven innocent” shit in America today. Was their ever a time when we trusted our fellow American to not be a liar and a criminal? Because that time sure as hell isn’t now.

Third: you Republicans use our economy to excuse all sorts of things (like for NOT fighting Global Warming), yet, by forcing kids to buy from thrift shops not only are you inadvertently encouraging kids to recycle, but you’re taking money away from Walmart and Best Buy. 

In other words: by playing paranoid and assuming foster kids and their parents are all liars, you’re harming two things you love more than anything: the economy and the Republican quest to destroy responsible consumerism.

I’d like to see one reason why we should trust any politician these days.  I used to joke about feeling like I was in Bizarro America. But I think it’s just Braindead America, now, with idiot politicians thinking about something for thirty whole seconds before making a snap decision based on paranoia and classism.

That’s what this really is, by the way.  Classism.  Poor foster kids and the foster parents that take them in don’t often have a lot of choices open to them and this new “plan” takes away even more of their choices. 

Thanks to @KM_Zencat on Twitter for tweeting about this. I hope I’ve explained my point better than I did in a handful of tweets earlier today.

I’ll be talking more about this in today’s 666cast, I think.