But Conservative think tanks like the Koch Brother-funded Heritage Foundation work hard at dividing America by demonizing the poor. Last year, they postulated there really isn’t any such thing as a poor person in this country because of the “things” they have. So, I was wondering what ‘things’ the poor had that made them not poor. Turns out it comes down to things like refrigerators, microwaves and coffee pots. Uh huh. Poor people aren’t poor because they can both store and cook the meager food stuffs they have. It would seem that if poor people aren’t spooning cold beans from a can, they’re not poor enough. And televisions. A television is a luxury items. I would think that lady raising three kids on her own is grateful for the presence of a television. If she can’t afford to treat her kids to a night out occasionally, a movie or an amusement park, a few pennies of electricity hardly seems like excess. Not to mention the “new poor” who purchased their televisions when they had jobs. I gave away a television, a VCR and a DVR player to a family last Christmas. Does that mean they are no longer living in poverty? Hardly. And possessing a coffee pot makes you not poor? Did the Heritage Foundation phone that slur in from Starbuck’s?