By Steve Levy
Comedian Bill Maher, the host of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO and CNN, had an interesting monologue at the end of his show last week.
He criticized Trump’s efforts to beef up manufacturing in America because he claims American workers will not take factory jobs. Maher went further to astutely note that there are an alarming 7 million American men who have just stopped working and are no longer looking for work. They are not the traditionally unemployed. They’ve just decided that they’re going to get by on family handouts and whatever public assistance they can dig up.
Conservatives have long discussed this dangerous trend in our nation where people have just stopped working.
So Maher concludes that we therefore can’t bring manufacturing back to America unless we continue to allow illegal immigrants to come into the country and make up our workforce.
Maher is unintentionally making a clear distinction between how liberals and conservatives deal with this issue.
Liberals created the problem by building up a welfare state and telling these young people that they can stay home and collect Social Security Disability, Medicaid and welfare benefits without having to go to work. The Obama and Biden administrations eviscerated Bill Clinton’s successful workfare policies.They then lament that we don’t have enough Americans in the workforce.
Conservatives, on the other hand, say it is ridiculous that we’ve allowed dependency to grow to such an extent that 7 million men are now sitting home playing video games and eating potato chips from 9 to 5.
The conservative approach is not to import more illegal aliens to do these jobs at low wages. That’s what liberal Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) believes should be done. She doesn’t want African-Americans doing these jobs anymore because, she said, “We’re done picking cotton.” https://abc3340.com/news/nation-world/jasmine-crockett-says-us-needs-migrants-because-were-done-picking-cotton
She was suggesting that it’s totally fine to import Hispanics to come in and do this dirty work. It’s perfectly fine to her that they are the new exploited class.
Conservatives, however, have a different approach. Stop illegal immigration. Bring back manufacturing jobs and then tell the 7 million people sitting on their asses eating chips that the party is over. We have a job for you and, if you don’t want it, we are going to cut off the gravy train. No more welfare, no more Medicaid, no more handouts if you’re not willing to work for it. Just like Bill Clinton said three decades ago.
So, thanks, Bill Maher, for getting across to your audience how horrible indeed it is that so many able-bodied American men, especially of the new generation, have just stopped working. But thanks also for inadvertently proving that liberals are the cause of this rot and laziness, and conservatives have the right approach in forcing them to get off their duffs if they want to get a check.
Steve Levy is President of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as a NYS Assemblyman, and host of “The Steve Levy Radio Show.” He is the author of “Solutions to America’s Problems” and “Bias in the Media.” www.SteveLevy.info, Twitter @SteveLevyNY, steve@commonsensestrategies.com