The Democratic Party, which used to brag that it represented working people, is now the party for freeloaders and the uber-rich who don’t mind supporting them.
That’s the major reason Democrats and Republicans in Washington were locked in a stalemate over hiking the debt ceiling.
A sticking point was whether people should be allowed to collect government assistance indefinitely to finance their nonworking lifestyle.
House Republicans pushed for work requirements but failed to secure more than minor changes to the nation’s fast-expanding welfare-industrial complex.
Wednesday night more House Democrats voted for the final compromise than House Republicans.
The same was true of Thursday night’s Senate vote.
The debt-ceiling showdown is a preview of the bigger fight working Americans must wage soon, or holding down a job and supporting a family will become things only suckers do.
House Republicans proposed requiring food-stamp and Medicaid recipients to work 20 hours a week or participate in some job-readiness activity such as training, high-school-equivalency courses or substance-abuse treatment.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy explained that government-assistance programs are supposed to be “temporary, not permanent” and “a bridge to independence” rather than a lifestyle.
This isn’t about denying benefits to children and their mothers or the disabled or pregnant women.
This is about childless adults who are do-nothings.
“Remember what we’re talking about: able-bodied people with no dependents,” McCarthy said.
Yet Democrats like Rep. Ro Khanna bashed the work requirement as “just cruel,” even claiming it would “deprive folks who need the help to put food on the table for their kids,” a lie.
The two parties struck a compromise.
Food-stamp recipients up to age 55 will have to work or participate in work readiness for 20 hours a week.
A new exemption for veterans and the homeless means the overall number of recipients will likely not change.
Medicaid is untouched in the deal, but count on Republicans to fight for it another time.
Half of all Americans — 156 million — get their health insurance through a job.
They or someone in their family has to work for it, and many stay in jobs largely for the health coverage.
So why should able-bodied adults who choose not to work be handed Medicaid?
It makes people who punch a clock for their coverage look like saps.
The new Democratic Party is junking the work ethic that has made America a land of opportunity even for people who start out poor.
Democratic President Bill Clinton signed a 1996 reform that required welfare recipients to work or participate in work readiness.
Sen. Joe Biden voted for it.
That reform slashed poverty among single-parent households by a staggering 62% by 2016.
Childhood poverty was slashed more than 75%, proving that the best anti-poverty program for children isn’t a handout — it’s a working parent.
But in recent years Democrats watered down Clinton’s reforms, making it easy to collect federal handouts worth more than what unskilled jobs pay.
A nonworking parent with two kids can get $24,000 or more in federal benefits. Work doesn’t pay.
Last year Democrats pushed for even more.
The Build Back Better bill would have made monthly checks to parents — $300 per child — a permanent benefit with no strings.
Thanks to holdout Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va), it didn’t pass.
Manchin objected that “there’s no work requirement whatsoever.”
Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) denounced Manchin’s emphasis on the “so-called dignity of work — that’s like hearing a fingernail on a chalkboard.”
Millions of migrants are coming across the southern border looking for a chance to work.
But how long will their work ethic last?
New York’s Eric Adams and other Democratic mayors are offering them free hotel rooms, meal service, health care and legal assistance for up to six months.
That’s sending newcomers the wrong message — that in this country there are two options: work hard and succeed or mooch off the welfare-industrial complex.
Even worse, Democratic mayors in dozens of cities are pushing for just that — a guaranteed monthly income for the nonworking poor.
Literally sending out checks to people for merely breathing.
Time to stop the lunacy.
Tell Democratic politicians that working people are fed up supporting moochers.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York.
Twitter: @Betsy_McCaughey
