Sorry if I gave that impression: Poor people are not demonized directly in Atlas Shrugged, at least not that I can remember. It has been a long time since I read the book.

But objectivist politics does blame poor people for their plight--or at best, simply ignores them and leaves them to their fate. "Not my problem" seems to be the general response.

I submit that, until everyone has been given equal opportunities to forge their own destiny, it's immoral to remove the safety net. And that even if people really did have equal opportunities to succeed, that it benefits society to prevent the people who really screw up from starving and living on the streets.

And to do that you need money, which means (at a minimum) taxes. And you also need regulations to protect workers from being exploited--which means no laissez-faire capitalism.