Census data revealed today that a record 46.2 million Americans were living in poverty in 2010. But in an aptly-timed hearing entitled “Is Poverty A Death Sentence,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) flat out rejected the idea that poverty in the U.S is worrisome. As the Ranking Member of the Senate Health subcommittee, Paul offered a dissertation-length statement on how the correlation between poverty and death is only found in the Third World and to claim such a connection within the U.S. is nothing more than “socialism” and “tyranny.”

Stating that “poor children today are healthier than middle-class adults a generation ago,” he even blamed the poor for their own health problems, suggesting “behavioral factors” like a higher incidence of smoking, obesity, or weak family support structures as the only correlation between poverty and health.

Citing the deficit as a primary priority, Paul questioned whether federal low-income programs are “creating unnecessary and unhealthy dependence on government.” He unequivocally declared that “poverty is not a state of permanence” and that “the rich are getting richer, but the poor are getting richer even faster.”

PAUL: We also need to understand that poverty is not a state of permanence. When you look at people in the bottom 5th of the economic ladder — those at the bottom — only 5 percent are there after 16 years. People move up, the American dream does exist…The rich are getting richer, but the poor are getting richer even faster.

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Summing up his thesis, Paul said, “Rather than bemoan or belabor something [poverty] that is really truly something that is overwhelmingly being treated in our country, we should maybe give more credit to the American system, the American dream, and give credit to what capitalism has done to eradicate poverty in this country.”

First of all, then notion that the poor are getting richer faster than the rich requires an impressive level of ignorance. Currently, income inequality in the United States is greater than that of Pakistan and Ethiopia and higher than at any other time since the Great Depression. Indeed, thanks to exceedingly low tax rates, the rich are getting richer, with the richest one percent earning nearly 25 percent of the total income in the country.

Meanwhile, nearly one in three middle-class Americans is slipping down the income ladder as an adult. And with stagnant wages and the purchasing power of the minimum wage at a 51-year low, it’s hard to see how suddenly “the poor are getting richer faster.”

What’s more, Paul’s overwhelming deluge of pseudo-evidence to downplay the connection between poverty and poor health cannot shake incontrovertible facts. As the American Journal of Public Health found, deaths resulting from poverty, income inequality, and low social support each totaled more than homicide deaths in 2000.

Paul’s claim that Americans now have a greater life expectancy still doesn’t change the fact that low-income individuals can expect to live a shorter life due to poverty. Indeed, a report released at the hearing noted that “this is the first time in our history that children born in certain parts of the United States can expect to live shorter lives than their parents’ generation.”

Three years ago this week, the 2008 financial crisis began in earnest with the Sept. 15 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the $85 billion bailout of insurance giant American International Group one day later. Those events set in motion the spiral that resulted in the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

In the Great Recession that followed this Wall Street-driven meltdown, 14 million Americans lost their jobs and $20 trillion in wealth was destroyed. However, the candidates on stage during last night’s Republican presidential primary debate seem to be suffering from a severe case of amnesia when it comes to the financial crisis, as several of them called for repealing the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, with Texas Gov. Rick Perry going so far as to criticize the Obama administration for its failure to “free up” Wall Street:

RICK PERRY: This president does not understand how to free up the small businessmen and women or, for that matter, Wall Street. You give people the opportunity to risk their capital by lowering the tax burden on them, by lowering the regulatory climate, and you will see an American economy that takes off like a rocket ship.

MICHELE BACHMANN: I know we can do so much better in this country. That’s why I’m the chief author of the bill to repeal Dodd-Frank, the bill to repeal Obamacare. And that’s why I brought the voice of the Tea Party to the United States Congress as the founder of the Tea Party Caucus.

JON HUNTSMAN: We cannot go forward with Dodd-Frank, because businesses in this country are saying there’s no predictability, there’s no ability to see around the bend, we don’t know what costs are going to be, we’re not hiring and bringing new people on.

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It’d odd that Perry think Wall Street isn’t “free” at the moment. After all, Wall Street banks are pulling in record profits. But it’s not only the GOP suffering from regulation delusions: JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon this week criticized higher capital requirements for bank as “un-American.” Evidently, Dimon and the GOP candidates have forgotten — or are blatantly ignoring — that just three years ago their philosophy brought the global economy to the brink of collapse.

Facing a potential electoral challenge from consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren next year, Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) appears to be trying to portray himself as a stronger Wall Street reformer than she, telling NECN this month that he “worked very hard” to ensure the passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law:

BROWN: I worked very hard to make sure that banks didn’t act like casinos with our money. So the bill that she was apparently working on, I mean was able to work through as a result of [Warren's] position, you know, I worked on it, I voted on it, I pushed it through. [...] So, who doesn’t want to protect the Middle class? But there’s a big difference between talking and actually doing it.

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As the Boston Globe’s Alex Katz notes today of the comments, “By painting himself as a strong supporter of Wall Street reform, Brown appears to be trying to neutralize Warren,” who was a leading advocate of Dodd-Frank and went on to help establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which the law created.

Contrary to “push[ing] it through,” Brown dragged his feet on supporting Dodd-Frank and only did so after his demands to water down the bill were met. After his upset election in January 2010, he became the key vote on the bill and leveraged that position to extract big concessions favored by banks, who had given generously to his campaign. First, Brown forced Democrats to strip from the bill a $19 billion bank tax. He also successfully pushed to water down a key reform — the so-called “Volcker rule” — that was aimed at preventing banks from making risky trades with dollars backed by the government. The carve out helped large mutual funds in his state.

In fact, Brown initially opposed the entire Wall Street reform bill and threatened to join the Republican filibuster of the legislation, which would have prevented it from even getting an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.

Meanwhile, as “Brown and his Senate staff were working both publicly and behind the scenes to scuttle” these reforms, the senator took in $140,000 from financial firms — 400 percent more than the average received by other GOP senators over the same time period — according to the Boston Globe. A ThinkProgress analysis revealed that during his campaign, banks and their allies gave Brown’s campaign huge 11th hour contributions and helped with a significant get-out-the-vote effort. He was also supported by outside groups friendly to Wall Street like the Club for Growth. Overall, the financial industry is Brown’s second largest contributor.

Warren, on the other hand, has devoted her entire career to making the world of finance work better for consumers. She had previously chaired the TARP oversight panel and has a distinguished academic career focusing on these issues. Yet Brown suggests that she’s been merely “talking” while he’s been “actually doing it.”

During last night’s GOP presidential primary debate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry tried to walk a fine line between sticking to his characterization of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme,” yet reassuring seniors that he doesn’t actually want to eliminate the program upon which so many of them depend. However, he ultimately fell back on the position espoused in his book, which is that Social Security was a unconstitutional overstep:

But the idea that we have not had the courage to stand up and look Americans in the face, young mid-career professionals or kids that are my children’s age and look them in the eye and said, listen, this is a broken system. It has been called a ponzi scheme by many people long before me. But no one’s had the courage to stand up and say, here is how we’re going to reform it. [...]

If what you’re trying to say is that back in the ’30s and the ’40s that the federal government made all the right decision, I disagree with you. And it’s time for us to get back to the constitution and a program that’s been there 70 or 80 years, obviously we’re not going to take that program away. But for people to stand up and support what they did in the ’30s or what they’re doing in the 2010s is not appropriate for America.

That program that Perry deems inappropriate for the federal government, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, kept nearly 14 million seniors out of poverty last year, as well as 1.1 million children:

The poverty data released today presented a sobering picture of the economic struggles Americans face. A record 46.2 million people were in poverty last year and median incomes are lower today than they were in 1997. But Perry, and many other Republicans who want to do everything from raise the retirement age to privatize Social Security, would take away yet one more piece of the social safety net that has helped millions of Americans stay economically afloat.

After months of partisan wrangling and GOP threats to let the U.S. default for the first time in history, Democrats and Republicans reached a budget deal in August to raise the nation’s debt ceiling. As Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) himself conceded, the deal was a lopsided victory for Republicans, consisting entirely of cuts with no revenue increases. “I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I’m pretty happy,” Boehner said afterward.

But apparently 98 percent is no longer good enough, and the Republican House leadership is gunning for the last 2 percent. Politico reports that the GOP is considering reneging on the compromise to force even deeper budget cuts:

In a surprising bit of hardball, House Republicans confirmed that they had been actively considering a plan to tamper with the August budget agreement by cutting even more from 2012 spending in order to put pressure on Senate Democrats to come to terms faster on domestic bills for the coming fiscal year.

Instead of the agreed-upon appropriations target of $1.043 trillion, a stopgap continuing resolution or CR this week would be calibrated at a lower $1.035 trillion level. The idea – promoted by Speaker John Boehner — was to effectively withhold about $8 billion for the first two months of the fiscal year, with the money becoming available only as Senate Democrats come to terms with the House on the dozen annual spending bills that cover government operations.

This GOP strategy is driven by the party’s desire to prevent further defense cuts and use the budget to advance its anti-regulatory agenda. Whatever the justification, their reckless decision to go back on their word risks yet another government shutdown.

Republicans’ reneging on the deal could still be averted: Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the chief architect of the August deal, is said to be strongly opposed to tampering with the $1.043 trillion target. Final decisions by the House Appropriations Committee are expected Wednesday or Thursday, so Boehner and his cohorts will reveal by then whether they will honor their agreement with President Obama or once again hold the country hostage to get what they want.

The unprecedented number of natural disasters in 2011 have left already struggling states with $36 billion in damages. Hearing calls for aid, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) responded by bringing a $7 billion relief package before the Senate.

His Republicans colleagues, however, responded by obstructing it. Last night, GOP senators successfully blocked Reid from bringing up the bill for consideration. In need of 60 votes, Reid got 53 votes in favor and 33 votes against. Fourteen senators did not vote, but every single senator who voted against relief was Republican.

Even GOP senators representing states that suffered disaster damage — North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, Alabama Sens. Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions, and Mississippi Sens. Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker — voted against aid for their constituents. Taking a page from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA), the Senate GOP refused because the relief was not offset with cuts elsewhere:

– SEN. RAND PAUL (KY): “I plan to insist my fellow senators take a long, hard look at where the funding comes from,” Paul said yesterday before the vote. “Will it be more borrowing on the backs of our children and grandchildren, or will it be from the coffers of our numerous nation-building programs overseas? America’s priorities should come first.”

– SEN. JOHN THUNE (SD): “These are different times. We have got to figure out how to pay for these things,” Thune told reporters last week.

– SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (AL): As ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, Sessions “believes the Senate should not provide the spending before getting expert advice on the precise need.” “We haven’t carefully examined every penny of it,” he added. Noting that he represents “a state that has suffered” from tornado damage, he still asked “how much more do we need” in aid?

Disaster relief — much like funding to rebuild Iraq — is traditionally not subject to offsets. But only Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins seemed to take note of that fact. She, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-MN), Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN), Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), and Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) were the only five to break with their party and vote in favor of the disaster aid.

They, however, will find support from numerous GOP governors who seek aid without offsets. Cantor’s home state Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) rebuked this kind of zero sum thinking. GOP favorite Gov. Chris Christie (NJ) characteristically did not mince words: “Our people are suffering now, and they need support now. And they [Congress].. can figure out budget cuts later.” For now, Christie — and the people’s needs — go unheeded.

ThinkProgress filed this report from the GOP presidential debate in Tampa, Florida.

Though Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) picked up the support of Bobby Jindal yesterday, the Louisiana governor was unwilling to endorse Perry’s tough talk on Social Security, despite repeated questions from reporters after the Republican presidential debate.

In his book Fed Up!, published in November 2010, Perry called Social Security unconstitutional, a claim he stood by after a question from ThinkProgress last month. Since that time, Perry has repeatedly called the retirement program a “Ponzi scheme” and a “monstrous lie.”

Following yesterday’s debate in Florida, Jindal spoke with the press about Perry’s performance. However, as reporters asked Jindal whether he agreed with Perry that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, the Louisiana governor ducked the question, repeatedly saying, “call it whatever you want” and “I don’t care what you call it.” When ThinkProgress asked Jindal if he agrees that Social Security is unconstitutional, he again demurred.

REPORTER: Is Social Security a Ponzi scheme?

JINDAL: Look, call it whatever you want. What was clear to me today was that when you listen to all the different candidates, they essentially agree with Gov. Perry’s position. [...]

REPORTER: Do you agree with that characterization that it’s a Ponzi scheme?

JINDAL: Look, I don’t care what you call it. What’s important is that if we don’t do anything it will not continue to be sustainable for younger workers. [...] Call it whatever you want, the bottom line is it’s not sustainable, it needs to be fixed. Look, people in Texas talk differently from people in Louisiana. They have a different accent, they use all kinds of different words. It doesn’t matter what you call it, what’s most important is the substantive point he was making.

KEYES: Do you think he’s right that it’s unconstitutional?

JINDAL: Look, bottom line on Social Security, I think you heard everybody agree with the governor tonight that it needs to be kept and preserved for the seniors in the system that are approaching retirement, but it also needs to be reformed and improved for younger workers.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has proposed a progressive solution to ensure Social Security’s solvency for the next 75 years: simply lift the payroll tax cap.