The wealthy are the base for government policy and government programs

Gov. John Sununu laments on President Obama's ability to turnout the vote.

“They aggressively got out the base of their base, the base of their base that’s dependent, to a great extent economically, on government policy and government programs,” Sununu said during a forum with two other Republican former governors, Steve Merrill and Craig Benson, at Concord’s Grappone Conference Center.

Not only is this a rather ridiculous and totally false claim, it strikes at the heart of what Republicans truly believe.  For sure Mitt Romney's "47% comment" is the lede of this line of thinking.  That government moochers are sticking it to the wealthy or even middle class families who work every day and pay taxes are the people Obama is turning out and will benefit the most from his presidency.  But the president got over 51% of the vote from across all demographics, tax brackets and ideologies.  Yet that still misses the simple fact that this Republican line of thinking, a thinking that has morphed their party into a very radicalized caricature of its former self, suggests that only poor people depend on "government policy and government programs."  Nothing could be further from the truth.

As Spinner and I were discussing in this comment thread, wealthy people depend upon the government just as much if not more than the poor.  The wealthy people working and running the financial sector in this country are the most government-dependent people on the face of this earth.  Check this out:

**All of George W. Bush's bailouts from 2001-2009 total more than $1.78 trillion.  All but $43 billion went to the financial sector. [that doubles Obama's stimulus spending by the way]

**In addition, the financial sector received $7.7 trillion in secret loans from the federal reserve in 2008.

Add those two together and it totals about $9 trillion in federal "government policy and government programs" totally designed to benefit the rich.  That is by far more aid, more food stamps, more anything than poor people get in this country. It's the equivalent of three years of government spending on nothing but very wealthy people.  The poor could only be so lucky.

*Editor's note:

In the comment section, Spinner makes a very good distinction as to what he is and is not agreeing to.

"Chris - just as I don't want to equate being part of the 47% with being a moocher, we should not equate being wealthy with being one either. So I did not say and do not agree that "wealthy people depend upon the government just as much if not more than the poor". Most wealthy people do not derive their income and wealth from government assistance or government provided direct advantage."

There was no intention to misrepresent his views.  My wording was confusing and his point is well taken and noted.  Please read my reply also because I do disagree on the substance of utilizing government programs as being any different for the rich as it is the poor.