Priority Number One: White House Tours

Funny, I don't remember where "White House Tours" fits on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, but the implication of all of this pout-rage is that it belongs before security of employment, security of resources, health, respect of others, respect by others, problem-solving, lack of prejudice, and acceptance of facts.


Ezra Klein:

There’s bargaining power for Republicans in upholding the convenient fiction that we can make these cuts and no one will really hurt, because government spending is just wasteful and unnecessary. But the effort here isn’t to make sure no one hurts. It’s to make sure no one with the political capital to do something about it hurts. As such, the minor inconveniences of the politically powerful have become a national crisis, even as some of the politically powerless are losing not just a White House tour, but the very roof over their heads.

...in which he quotes...

Marty Gilens:

When preferences diverge, the views of the affluent make a big difference, while support among the middle class and the poor has almost no relationship to policy outcomes. Policies favored by 20 percent of affluent Americans, for example, have about a one-in-five chance of being adopted, while policies favored by 80 percent of affluent Americans are adopted about half the time. In contrast, the support or opposition of the poor or the middle class has no impact on a policy’s prospects of being adopted.