The Audacity Of Hypocrisy

I was thinking about several recent events that took place in Wisconsin, and in putting the pieces together, I came to a stunning and disappointing conclusion.  You’ll have to stay with me here- this is not a quick, easy point.

The two events I was pondering are the voter ID bill and the recent Social Security check scam that was uncovered.  A little background- the voter ID bill would have required an ID to vote in any election.  Voter ID was not allowed to come up for a vote and a press conference on the subject held by Republicans from the state legislature was literally shouted down by Democrats.  The Social Security scam involved double cashing of checks- simply claiming that the first check never arrived and then cashing both when the second check came in the mail.

What do these two issues have in common?  I think that together, they serve to illustrate the shameless hypocrisy that plagues the Democratic party.

The Democratic party has always claimed to be the party of the lowly, the downtrodden- those who have been chewed up by the gears of industry, spat out, and left behind.  Both the voter ID bill and the potential reform for the Social Security scam contain provisions that one would think would be very beneficial to this demographic that the Democrats claim to care so much about.  The voter ID bill would have provided for a free ID to anyone who could get to the DMV to ask for one.  No financial statements required- just ask.  The Social Security reform proposed to prevent the double-check cashing scam was simple- require direct deposit of Social Security funds to a bank account.  It was also proposed that the government require banks to provide easy setup for these accounts- meaning no minimum balance, no fees, and the issuance of an easy-to-use bankcard.

This is where it gets interesting.  If you are a screw-up, or down on your luck, or perhaps you’ve endured a catastrophe in your life, there are several things you need to get taken care of immediately in order to get your life back on track.  First and second, you need food and shelter.  You could satisfy both of these human requirements by visiting your local Salvation Army shelter.  I would argue that third on the list is getting a state ID if you don’t already have one.  Why?  A state ID will make it easier to receive government aid payments, apply for a job, get a lease, and ultimately get credit or a mortgage.  The fourth step would certainly be to find a job.  Fifth, once you have a job, I’d argue that a bank account is essential for the long-term climb back up the economic ladder.  A bank account will aid you in many of the same ways that an ID will- getting credit, signing a lease, and more importantly, saving money- the only way to truly get ahead in life.  I would also argue that a bank account and direct deposit of Social Security checks would prevent the elderly from having to make a trip to the bank and travel through the city with large sums of money, and make it unnecessary to store those funds in the home- a very bad idea for an elderly person in one of America’s inner cities.

So here you have two measures meant to prevent crimes- voter fraud and Social Security scams- that would also help people get their lives on track.  And yet Jim Doyle vetoed the voter ID bill and the Dems in the state legislature are blocking a vote on it- all on the grounds that it is difficult to get a state ID.  Democrats won’t even consider the idea of requiring bank accounts for Social Security recipients, on the grounds that it would discriminate against those unable to get a bank account.  Well, together the solutions to these issues would make it simple to get an ID and a bank account.

The question is- who are the Democrats helping by blocking these two measures?  Simple- they are helping themselves.  If the downtrodden, ground-up and left-behind are an important electorate for the Democrats, isn’t it logical that they’d oppose anything that would shrink that electorate or prevent more eligible voters from entering it?  For that matter, why would Democrats oppose voter ID even though getting an ID would benefit anyone who doesn’t have one?  The logical conclusion is that Democrats must benefit from voter fraud and have a vested interest in seeing it continue.

I suppose in the Clintonian era of “that depends on what you mean by ‘is’” I shouldn’t be surprised by this level of hypocrisy.  But I’m not that jaded.  It does surprise and disappoint me, and I hope I never get to the point where I accept hypocrisy as a palatable political tactic.