During his first US Senate campaign, Rick Santorum warned voters of a growing menace that was "breeding more criminals" and threatened to destroy America from within: single mothers.Huh?
"Most people agree a continuation of the current [welfare] system will be the ruination of this country," Santorum told a town meeting in Clairton, Pa., in February 1994, according to transcripts of the appearance obtained by Mother Jones. "We are seeing it. We are seeing the fabric of this country fall apart, and it's falling apart because of single moms."
"Open up the current periodicals—study after study, article after article, children having children is destroying the fabric of our country," Santorum said. "If you want to close your eyes to it, if you don't care about it, if you don't want to solve it, if you want to continue the system, to let people stay and spiral—go ahead. Not with me." Single mothers, Santorum argued, needed politicians who weren't afraid of "kicking them in the butt."You can just see the desperation on the frothy one's mug. In a close race with front-runner Mitt Romney, he's doing and saying anything he can to put himself over the top.
Or at least that's what most people think. Nah, he couldn't be this stupid to believe the above quoted, could he?
It wasn't just single moms that came under assault from Santorum. He told his audience in Clairton that the welfare program's ballooning costs were also due to "aliens," "drug addicts," and children "who have learning disabilities" as well. Santorum went on to suggest that cases of attention deficit disorder were being faked to bilk the government. "[Y]ou have a lot of testimony indicating that parents are coaching their children to stay in that situation in order to receive benefits," he said.
Nah, no one could be this jaw-droppingly stupid.
Santorum, who as a second-term congressman described his views as "moderate," made single mothers a focal point of his welfare policy. He introduced legislation that would have required single mothers who had been on welfare for more than two years to work at least 35 hours a week in order to receive benefits. They would also be denied benefits if they could not identify their child's father. "If they don't give the name, they don't get any welfare," Santorum told the Inquirer. Under his plan, which did not pass Congress, unwed teen mothers would not be eligible for welfare at all.
All of this rhetoric appeals to people who see out-of-wedlock births, birth control and sexual freedom as absolute sins that must be punished with children and poverty as consequences. Somehow, it makes them feel better than the single and teen parents, plus it gives them affirmation that their own choices in life were the "right" and "proper" ones.
In an effort to encourage people to get married, Santorum has proposed eliminating head-of-household exemptions for unmarried parents, while tripling their value for married parents. "We shouldn't have incentives for people not to be married," he said in October.
Ricky baby, marriage is not the magic bullet that suddenly solves a single mother's problems. In fact, it could very well compound them. It's as though this guy never heard of stepparents or biological parents being abusive to one another or abusive to their kids or anything.
Rick, I think you've proved to the people that you are nowhere near worthy of the Oval Office. Sit down.
