It's safe to say that one of the top three jaw-dropping moments from the 2009 session of the Missouri General Assembly was when St. Joseph Rep. Rob Schaaf compared health insurance for children to slavery in the 19th Century.
Now, you might think that Schaaf, a Republican, got caught up in the heat of the moment -- the debate about health care expansion certainly got heated. Perhaps, after the outrage from his Democratic colleagues, he felt some twinge of regret about the controversial statement. If nothing else, the ethics complaint filed by Democrats had to be mildly embarrassing for the Buchanan County physician.
So, after nearly two months to reflect, does Rob Schaaf still stand behind his fiery claim that our low-income neighbors have turned us into modern-day slaves?
In a word: Yes.
I caught up with Schaaf on the floor of the House just before the end of the session -- while reporting on this week's feature story, "Scenes From the Health-Care Struggle in Jefferson City," and he was still slinging the "s" word to describe his antipathy for expanding Medicaid for Missouri parents.
"If you're living below 50 percent of the poverty level it's very likely you're not even working full time," he said. "It's wrong to enslave the taxpayers and take money from them and give it to somebody who's not even working full time. We cover the children at that percentage of poverty, but we shouldn't cover any non-disabled adults."
"And to cover only parents," he added, "is just a perverse incentive for people to be irresponsible."
He stopped, hands folded calmly in front of him.
"Um, irresponsible in terms of ...?" I asked, hoping he would finish the sentence to clarify his last statement.
"Having children when they can't afford children and then expecting other taxpayers to foot the bill," he said.
So what about that slavery comment back in March? In retrospect, was that an appropriate comparison, I asked?
"I think it got a lot of discussion going," he said. "And a lot of people feel enslaved by our government. They work and work just to give their money to the government, and they don't see an increase in their own standard of living. They work to pay taxes that then go to take care of people who could take care of themselves, if they just worked a little harder."
Somebody invite this man to a Tea Party.
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When we start calling taxes slavery how far is the backslide into anarchy?
Look: This Schaaf character criticizes government spending but then cashes government paychecks, right? Doesn't that, by some perverse leap of logic, also make me, Johnny Taxpayer, his slave?
If we're going to throw around stupid rhetoric, we may as well go all-in.
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