The EPA was also created under Nixon, good luck arguing that today's republicans don't hate it

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-trump-administration-has...

How does changing the purview of the EPA say they "hate" it? Seems like few argue that it has no utility, and many of the complaints are legitimate, particularly complaints about ludicrous misapplication of WOTUS to small agricultural ditches and artificial pools.

I might have somewhat agreed with your assessment 10 years ago, but now?

I'd say that the EPA is doing roughly the right things right now, and they've been doing some groundbreaking stuff lately in collaboration with NASA. It's not like they've been shut down. The CAFE regulation schedules are being reviewed, might be a good opportunity for somebody to improve the model for them to benefit good actors in the broad public and in industry, while it's up for grabs; even if in the short run the targets are less aggressive.

Obviously the President has said some broad, sweeping things about the EPA, but in practice has not done anything near what he said he was interested in. I think at one point he literally said he'd abolish the whole agency, but that was before he'd been nominated, and obviously no such attempt has been made. At the end of the day, if it doesn't get in the way of the populist policies, it seems like the President and his administration are not interested in gutting the EPA; but if you push the EPA into the line of fire, sure, they'll take some hits.

I don't think anyone would be that far out of order arguing that the Republican party of today and its principals are very different than those of a decade ago. Your mileage may vary on a case by case basis.

> “Since the 1990s, Republicans in Congress have put a lot of pressure on IRS to prevent payments going to people who didn’t deserve the credit or who didn’t qualify for the credit,” Kiel said

It's part of the war on "Welfare Queens".

What do you mean war? Are you suggesting that the IRS should target people who "don't deserve or qualify for the credit"?

Maybe just let people claim it who shouldn't be getting it?

It would be easier to condemn this crusade if the examples of actual welfare queens weren't so infuriating. It is a phenomenon dripping with palpable entitlement, at a scale that most people are familiar with.

The myth of the "welfare queen" is an ugly racial stereotype based on a single person, and bears very little relationship to the reality on the ground.

https://newrepublic.com/article/154404/myth-welfare-queen

It's not a myth, it's just that the extreme cases people are thinking of are relatively few and far between.

I'm not making any case for it being somehow common, just that when people see the genuine article, which obviously exists, it's pretty repulsive. It's not that they're all getting rich or even middle class, and you can't really get rich off this stuff, it's that they get off on getting something for nothing. "The Queen" is not the only welfare queen because New Republic wrote a story about one lady.

There are also far less repulsive, but very disappointing misuses of public welfare systems. I know a lady in my city who receives a housing benefit which could buy her a rental unit here, but she spends it on hard drugs instead. You can follow the money from these programs from the public coffers to the wallets of illicit drug dealers and traffickers. An argument could be made that paying more attention to how that benefit is paid out, would give some people a better chance of seeking treatment rather than buying more drugs.

And no, it's not based on "a single person"; it takes a profound kind of class ignorance to say something that ridiculous.