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Home > GOPer Who Got Millions in Farm Subsidies Thinks the Poor Should
Starve Rather Than Get Food Stamps
Daily Kos [1] / By Justin Doolittle [2]
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GOPer Who Got Millions in Farm Subsidies Thinks the Poor Should Starve
Rather Than Get Food Stamps
May 20, 2013 |
Stephen Fincher [3], a deranged Republican congressman from Tennessee, is
very angry that the federal government is committed to preventing poor
people from starving to death:
Republican Congressman Stephen Fincher of Tennessee, who supports
cuts to the program, had his own Bible verse from the Book of
Thessalonians to quote back to Vargas: “The one who is unwilling to work
shall not eat,” he said.
The program in question is SNAP, better known as food stamps. Fincher and
his ultra-right-wing friends in the House are furious about the fact that
the worst economic crisis in 80 years has resulted in more Americans
needing food stamps. The whole point of programs like SNAP and other
automatic stabilizers, of course, is that they kick in when the economy
is struggling and people need help. Fincher is shocked and horrified by
this heinous policy of ensuring that poor people and their children don't
starve. Food is to be earned! Sure, this is the richest country in the
history in the world, but if we provide our citizens with food to eat,
then freedom is obviously dead.
He fulminates about people who are allegedly "unwilling to work" sucking
off the government teat with impunity. This is a patently dishonest
representation of the SNAP [4] program. Most people who receive food
stamps cannot be dismissed as losers who are "unwilling to work." Nearly
half (47%) of all food stamp recipients are children. Another 8% are 60
years of age or older. The "working poor" - people who live in a
household with income from work - represent another 41%. Between
children, the elderly, the working poor, and people who want a job but
cannot find one - someone should tell Fincher that there are still [5]
more than 3 unemployed job seekers for every 1 opening - that leaves very
few people who can be accurately described as being "unwilling" to work.
It's also worth noting that the average monthly SNAP benefit is a
whopping $287. It takes a deeply disturbed person to crusade against
providing this class of people with food to eat, when the economy is this
battered, and when the broad economic benefits [6] of the program have
been so well established (at least in the reality-based community).
Now, this would not normally be worthy of mention. Hardly a day goes by
without some Republican sadist expressing fury that poor people have it
so good. Devising new ways to make the peasants suffer is what makes
Republicans wake up in the morning. What's fascinating about this
particular case, though, is Fincher's background.
The reason this is even more egregious than the usual Republican class
warfare is that Fincher himself is a poster boy for government
dependency. It's not just that he's benefited here and there from some
government help. That sort of low-level hypocrisy is almost to be
expected from these types. But Fincher has received millions - $3.2 [7]
million as of June 2010 - in federal crop subsidies. The people who refer
to themselves as Tea Partiers [8] threatened to derail his candidacy over
this, but then they realized that they have no principles, and supported
him anyway. He's now a member of the "Tea Party Caucus," which,
amazingly, is something that actually exists. Fincher's brother and
father also snatched another $6.7 million in subsidies as Stephen geared
up to run for Congress on a platform of eliminating "wasteful government
spending." The "wasteful spending" that he had in mind, of course, was
that which serves policy aims with which he disagrees, such as keeping
poor people alive.
House Republicans are on a mission to slash the SNAP program by $20
billion over the next decade. A Senate committee, just last week, voted
to cut it by "only" $4 billion. If some sort of vicious "compromise" is
reached between the sociopaths in the House who are demanding human
sacrifice on a massive scale, and the "moderates" in the Senate who are
only comfortable with letting some people starve, it will not be pretty.
This is not hyperbole, either. SNAP really does keep poor people,
including millions of children, from going hungry, and it's under attack
from ultra-right-wing ideologues. This program deserves the support and
activism of progressives as much as any government program in existence.
See more stories tagged with:
gop [9],
republican [10]
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thinks-poor-should-starve-rather-get-food-stamps
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Not dead, in jail or a slave? Thank a liberal!