“Return the dignity of work to young men who need to be at work instead of playing video games all day.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson defended Republican efforts to attach work requirements to Medicaid, suggesting that young American men are wasting their lives “playing video games all day” instead of working.
Johnson’s remarks came as House Republicans pushed forward a budget framework that would help finance President Donald Trump’s tax cuts, with plans to slash federal spending by trillions. GOP leaders are eyeing $880 billion in reductions to Medicaid, a move critics warn could gut health coverage for millions of low-income Americans.
Many men look at the pain/reward ratio and it’s not actually worth it. People are rational: toiling away to at best afford a tiny apartment that takes up half your salary while the other half is spent on food is not alluring. Ironically, this guy is in a position to alter society so the rewards are not so small and instead he chooses moral condemnation as the tool to motivate, as though his castigation will change the equation. He may be an idiot or may be very intelligent and just exploiting the system by saying what people want to hear to distract from the real problem.