J. K. Rowling acknowledges the support structure

That saved her when she was a desperately poor single mother. And she'll never vote Tory even though she's now one of the richest people in Britain:

But wait, some will say. Given that you have long since left single parenthood for marriage and a nuclear family; given that you are now so far from a life dependent on benefits that Private Eye habitually refers to you as Rowlinginnit, why do you care? Surely, nowadays, you are a natural Tory voter?

No, I’m afraid not. The 2010 election campaign, more than any other, has underscored the continuing gulf between Tory values and my own. It is not only that the renewed marginalisation of the single, the divorced and the widowed brings back very bad memories. There has also been the revelation, after ten years of prevarication on the subject, that Lord Ashcroft, deputy chairman of the Conservatives, is non-domiciled for tax purposes.

Now, I never, ever, expected to find myself in a position where I could understand, from personal experience, the choices and temptations open to a man as rich as Lord Ashcroft. The fact remains that the first time I ever met my recently retired accountant, he put it to me point-blank: would I organise my money around my life, or my life around my money? If the latter, it was time to relocate to Ireland, Monaco, or possibly Belize.

I chose to remain a domiciled taxpayer for a couple of reasons. The main one was that I wanted my children to grow up where I grew up, to have proper roots in a culture as old and magnificent as Britain’s; to be citizens, with everything that implies, of a real country, not free-floating ex-pats, living in the limbo of some tax haven and associating only with the children of similarly greedy tax exiles.

A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism. On the available evidence, I suspect that it is Lord Ashcroft’s idea of being a mug.

Child poverty remains a shameful problem in this country, but it will never be solved by throwing millions of pounds of tax breaks at couples who have no children at all. David Cameron tells us that the Conservatives have changed, that they are no longer the “nasty party”, that he wants the UK to be “one of the most family-friendly nations in Europe”, but I, for one, am not buying it. He has repackaged a policy that made desperate lives worse when his party was last in power, and is trying to sell it as something new. I’ve never voted Tory before ... and they keep on reminding me why.

Bush's legacy of neglect

Is working so well, don't you think?

JACKSON, April 22 Cuts in welfare and poor medical care may be responsible for a sharp increase in infant deaths in Mississippi and neighboring states, doctors said.

"I don't think the rise is a fluke, and it's a disturbing trend, not only in Mississippi but throughout the Southeast," said Dr. Christina Glick, a neonatologist in Jackson, Miss. The trend reverses decades of progress in reducing infant deaths in southern states with large black populations and extensive poverty, the New York Times reported Sunday.

Contributing factors may include cuts in welfare and Medicaid, poor access to doctors and a growing epidemic of obesity among potential mothers, the Times said.

Mississippi's infant mortality rate rose from 9.7 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2004 to 11.4 per 1,000 births in 2005. The national average in 2003, the last year for which such information was compiled, was 6.9.

Smaller increases also occurred in 2005 in Alabama, North Carolina and Tennessee. Louisiana and South Carolina saw increases in 2004 and have not yet reported for 2005.

The rich get richer

And the poor get poorer.

WASHINGTON - The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line and the gulf between the nation's "haves" and "have-nots" continues to widen.

A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 - half the federal poverty line - was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year.

But that's obviously the way it is supposed to be, right?

Membership of the world's billionaire club has swelled to almost 1,000, while members' net worth has risen by 35% on last year, according to Forbes.

A record 946 billionaires - worth a total of $3.5 trillion (£1.82 trillion) - now exist, up from 793 last year.

[snip]

"In the last five years... despite all the turmoil in the world, all the conflict in the world, the global economy in real terms expanded over 25%," said Steve Forbes, the magazine's editor-in-chief.

"Never in history has there been such an advance."

Or as Georgie calls them, his base.

Update: Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors has the pictures.

Update: Steve Bates of The Yellow Doggerel Democrat points out an article from the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, March 11 — A new federal rule intended to keep illegal immigrants from receiving Medicaid has instead shut out tens of thousands of United States citizens who have had difficulty complying with requirements to show birth certificates and other documents proving their citizenship, state officials say.

Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Ohio and Virginia have all reported declines in enrollment and traced them to the new federal requirement, which comes just as state officials around the country are striving to expand coverage through Medicaid and other means.

Under a 2006 federal law, the Deficit Reduction Act, most people who say they are United States citizens and want Medicaid must provide “satisfactory documentary evidence of citizenship,” which could include a passport or the combination of a birth certificate and a driver’s license.

Some state officials say the Bush administration went beyond the law in some ways, for example, by requiring people to submit original documents or copies certified by the issuing agency.

“The largest adverse effect of this policy has been on people who are American citizens,” said Kevin W. Concannon, director of the Department of Human Services in Iowa, where the number of Medicaid recipients dropped by 5,700 in the second half of 2006, to 92,880, after rising for five years. “We have not turned up many undocumented immigrants receiving Medicaid in Waterloo, Dubuque or anywhere else in Iowa,” Mr. Concannon said.

Steve then says:

Is this an instance of the strangely named Law of Unintended Consequences at work? No. I say this rule is working precisely as the Bush administration intends. If you think this denial of legitimate benefits to American citizens is only a side-effect of the GOP's use of immigration as a wedge issue, you are not attributing enough deep-seated meanness of spirit to George W. Bush and his handlers.

In forty years, our government's moral position on poverty has declined from "poverty in America must be eradicated" to "the American poor must be eradicated." I'd use some liberal potty-mouthed words to describe the perpetrators of this transition, but I cannot find any words strong enough. Suggestions are welcome, but remember, I know just about all the obscenities and profanities in the English language, and have already considered and dismissed them as insufficient.

It really is black-hearted and unbelievable. The ugliness of the neocons is truly stunning.

Update: Vanity Press sees the same article and reminds us how much we are wasting of our treasury in Iraq.

The gap between the rich and poor grows wider

Which is obviously a good thing. Who wants those poor people looking in your windows?

Washington, DC (AHN) - A new report released on Saturday says the gap between rich and poor is growing even wider and the number of poor is at a 30-year high. An analysis of census data from 2005 found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in "deep to severe poverty."

The study found that although worker productivity has increased, job and wage growth has not.

"Severe poverty" was defined as a family of four with two children earning less than $9,903, and "deep poverty" was a family of four living with an income under $5,080.

McClatchy newspapers analyzed the Census data and found the number of poor Americans rose 26 percent from 2000 to 2005.