How can Republicans prove they care about the poor?

The sequester has only hardened the GOP's image as a defender of wealthy interests

A woman who makes a living gathering bottles and cans pushes her evening's collection in New York City on Feb. 16.
(Image credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

James Carville, the former aide to Bill Clinton, recently summed up the GOP's problem with the sequester — $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that took effect last week — this way: "The sequester, many people don't know what it is," he told NBC. "But it sounds stupid and cruel, so they think it's a Republican thing."

Fairly or not, polls bear out Carville's pithy assessment. And the GOP's image has only hardened in recent weeks, with Republicans rejecting President Obama's plea to replace the sequester with a balance of entitlement cuts and taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations. While Democrats have sought to underscore the impact the sequester will have on middle- and lower-income Americans, many Republicans have dismissed such warnings as wildly overblown. But local administrators for federal aid programs say the cuts could do real damage to poor Americans, according to Annie Lowrey at The New York Times:

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Ryu Spaeth

Ryu Spaeth is deputy editor at TheWeek.com. Follow him on Twitter.