At a press conference today unveiling the stimulus proposal, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) justified the conservative plan to give tax breaks to corporations — instead of working Americans — by arguing that people actually like working long hours:
I am so proud to be from the state of Minnesota. We’re the workingest state in the country, and the reason why we are, we have more people that are working longer hours, we have people that are working two jobs.
Bachmann’s version of the American Dream is apparently working two full-time jobs and struggling to get by.
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Bachmann may be taking her cues from President Bush, who on Feb. 4, 2005, told a divorced mother of three: “You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that.”
I don’t know a single American who thinks that America is GREAT because you have to work multiple jobs in order to get by. That’s not what one would expect from a country which supposedly has the highest standard of living.
Another thing though. How can the Republican party talk this blather and still represent itself as the party of "family values"? How can parents instill values when they have to be away from it working so many jobs just to make ends meet?