Tom Purcell’s bio blurb at the end of his columns states that he is a humor columnist. Far be it from me to wonder where exactly the humor is in his columns, unless you count bigotry and ignorance with a heaping helping of right-wing baloney humor? Not only that, but the vast majority of his output seems to be these columns written as conversations wherein he espouses more GOP right-wing idiocy read as policy breakdown. He, or an ideological representative, sets about educating a caricature of a right-wing bogeyman to the great wealth of conservative thinking. I can’t tell if he’s patronizing his readers, is actually trying to educate them on policy, or is attempting this “humor” that is spoken of in his bio.
The GOP right-wing is currently obsessed with proving that Obamacare is costing Americans their jobs. The Congressional Budget Office released a report showing that, because of Obamacare, about 2 million Americans will leave the work force. The GOP right-wing pretends it doesn’t understand the difference between a person willfully leaving their job versus actually not having a job. Tom Purcell chimes in with his “humor” filled "thoughts".
Working is just no fun! Seems to be the crux of his "humor" piece. So why wouldn’t millions of Americans just line up to get all those free goodies, that Mr. Purcell has to pay for with his rising premiums? Again, this notion that the GOP right-wing uses as evidence of Government overreach is absurd. Their premiums went up, and it’s because they have to pay more so more and more “others” can take needed healthcare. The nerve! But everyone’s premiums went up! They’ve gone up every year at ungodly leaps and bounds. This is the downside of the lack of a single payer option, and giving over our healthcare to for-profit corporations. Of course they’re going to squeeze everybody!
But that is just no fun, Mr. Purcell doesn’t feel like doing it. He doesn’t even get going with his job - being a “writer” - till about 11 a.m.! And his nugget for the day: pull yourself up by your bootstraps…blah blah blah. It’s so easy! See, he and his other like minded conservative friends have done just that! Never mind the conservative welfare state of writing books, that are bought up by right-wing think tanks to be foisted on to their members, speaking engagements, and sometimes you get called up to the Fox News and are paid to yell over other people on a television program.
Or you could do as Mr. Purcell puts it: “you can go the other direction and find ways to avoid work and minimize your income on paper, so that others will help cover your costs.” Then he reaches in to his right-wing pundit cliché bag and pulls out the “I met an ‘other’ that is cheating the system” card.
I can’t stand this antiquated bullshit. At least I would respect the right-wing punditry more if they could just spice it up a little from time to time. If you’re going to invent somebody to help make up your lie/point, at least give them a name. That’s always been the big red flag for me when reading right-wing tin foil hat paranoia fanning articles. The writers can ring out entire oral histories from these “others” yet can’t be bothered to grab a first name? Give me a break.
Mr. Purcell took a cab from the airport recently and just so happened to strike up a conversation with his driver…a native of Africa! So that dog whistle gets to make the cut, but no name…oh well! This African man had just so happened to have signed up for Obamacare and of course qualified for all the subsidies ever, so that his premium was low enough to be affordable. Which of course it is, because as Mr. Purcell relates, his premiums doubled because he has to subsidize the man! What’s more: “He also told me he has a nice suburban home and he and his family are living very well in Pittsburgh.” The temerity of this “other” to live in a good home with his family, how dare he! He’s a cab driver for Pete’s sake, he has no right!
Mr. Purcell wonders how this “other” came to be in this great, fortuitous situation. Well, he cheated the system of course! You see, the driver is paid in cash, and he keeps the vast majority of it off the books! Pure genius! According to Mr. Purcell this is two-fold harming America. One, it is keeping much needed tax revenue away from the government. Two, this much needed revenue is what is necessary to pay for this "other"'s subsidy. So this “other” is not only damming himself, but the entire American society! For shame!!!
This new “entitlement” is going to now make countless millions of other Americans discover this new vaunted secret of freebies. No more tax revenue…no more God fearing America to love! Mr. Purcell sums it up nicely “[…] policy that is helping put nails in the coffin of the American dream.”
Much like most of his punditry brothers and sisters, he’s misusing causality to make a right-wing talking point. Like the assumption that the welfare state is part of the reason why the government is running a deficit every year. What about bloated defense budgets? Which can allow for a blank check welfare state for our military: to build planes it doesn’t need and bases in foreign countries that no nation desires on their soil is beyond me. That the CBO clearly states that people are LEAVING the work force, citing the freedom from “job lock” as the main reason for this. Too many people, baby boomers mostly, are staying at their job because they desperately need the health care. They can ill afford to be jobless at a time when their health is in fast decline. With Obamacare people can now have the freedom to find better employment opportunities, and do this whole “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” right wing fallacy they keep parroting as some fix-all for a lagging economy being weighed down by fear of loss of health insurance and job insecurity.
Mr. Purcell, and his right-wing pundit ilk, have been railing this “my premiums doubled under Obamacare” argument a lot recently, but they fail time and again to provide context. How much is double? What amount of increase will your premiums undergo before you yourself decide to drop your own coverage? What kind of coverage do you have? I’m assuming it’s a Cadillac plan, and that it’s wroth every penny paid in to it.
I’m also assuming people like Mr. Purcell can get sick and not have to worry about losing his cushy not having to get started till 11 a.m. writing job because Cagle Cartoons could just hire someone to take his place. Hell, he could just run reprints of old columns and not miss a beat. Perhaps this is the “humor” of his bio, the sick joke he’s playing on his readers.
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