Newt Gingrich Reaches Another New Low; Just When Everyone Thought He Couldn’t Do Itw

We Have to Face Facts – There May be No Depth to Which Mr. Gingrich Will Not Sink

Newt Gingrich reached what many observers was a new low in public policy recently.  This conclusion derived from his policy statement on poverty, public employee unions and child labor.  Basically Mr. Gingrich said that a correct policy for combating poverty was to (1) fire all the school janitors, particularly the union ones, (2) repeal the child labor laws and (3) hire the children to clean and maintain the schools.  While Mr. Gingrich calls himself a 21^st century person, it appears he has a 19^th century mind.

Now Mr. Gingrich has gone further, he has determined what the cause of poverty among children is.  Here is the scoop from Fox News.

"Really poor children, in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works so they have no habit of showing up on Monday," Gingrich claimed.

"They have no habit of staying all day, they have no habit of I do this and you give me cash unless it is illegal," he added.

The interesting thing about these statements is not how offensive they are, or how unreal they are, or how totally lacking in intelligence, sensitivity and understanding they are.  No the interesting thing about statements like these and his previous statements is that they are accepted by the Conservative Republican voters.  The can only mean that those voters agree with these sentiments.  And that speaks volumes about where Conservative Republicans are.

As usual, someone else has far greater eloquence than The Dismal Political Economist in describing these statements, in this case Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post who reported on the story.

Gingrich’s blanket condemnation of “really poor children, in really poor neighborhoods” is unbelievably disgusting. And it’s disrespectful of the overwhelming majority of those children and their families who live their lives with far more integrity and far less cash than Gingrich ever will.

Yep, that says it all.