Republican Congressman Declares That Most People On Food Stamps Deserve To
Starve (AUDIO)
Author: Stephen D. Foster Jr. August 6, 2013 2:29 am
In July, House Republicans eliminated the food stamp program, also known as
SNAP, from the Farm bill to secure support from Tea Party congressmen who
wanted deeper cuts to the program. As a result, there is no food stamp
funding in the bill while agriculture corporations get millions in taxpayer
subsidies. It is doomed to fail in the Democratic controlled Senate, but
that isn’t stopping one Florida Republican from continuing the GOP attack on
food stamps and food stamp recipients.
Speaking at a town hall event in Florida earlier this month, Republican Rep.
Ted Yoho went on the war path on a variety of topics from same-sex marriage
to birtherism to Obamacare. On each topic, Yoho toed the extreme
conservative line. But the topic Yoho really made waves on was food stamps.
According to Right Wing Watch,
Yoho said he doubted that around 50 million Americans face food insecurity,
joking: “I think there’s 330 million people starving, at least three times a
day, we call it breakfast, lunch and dinner.†He added that huge proposed
cuts to food aid won’t impact anyone, telling the audience that “not one
person would lose a calorie or crumb that deserves it.
Yoho revealed that his family had used food stamps for about two months, but
claimed that the cuts are necessary because it has become a “lifestyle†and
that it is too easy to “qualify for the program.â€
Here’s the audio:
To translate, Yoho is saying that while his family NEEDED food stamps,
everyone else isn’t really struggling to put food on the table and are just
making it their lifestyle in order to get free food from the government.
Plus, he thinks no one is starving in America who doesn’t deserve it. In
short, Yoho thinks most Americans on food stamps actually deserve to starve.
Yoho’s remarks echo Tea Party Rep. Michele Bachmann, who stated in 2011 that
the unemployed should starve as punishment for not having a job. The
comments also echo other Republicans who have compared giving people food
stamps to feeding wild animals.
Yoho, like the rest of his Republican colleagues, are making a huge mistake
by attacking food stamps. Pew Research recently put together a chart showing
which states rely on food stamps the most. The findings revealed that people
in red states stand to lose the most if food stamps were to be eliminated.
Even Florida, which Yoho represents, needs the program.
For some sick and twisted reason, Republicans have lost all compassion for
people and refuse to believe the simple facts about hunger in America. ABC
News reports that 50 million Americans are food insecure, meaning that they
aren’t sure where their next meal will come from on a day-to-day basis. And
despite GOP claims that food stamp recipients don’t actually deserve the aid
applicants already have to demonstrate a real need for the food stamps in
order to qualify for the program. In fact, research has shown that the
qualifications need to be raised so that food insecure Americans who make
just enough money to be considered above the poverty line can have access to
the program as well.
Rep. Yoho apparently has zero sympathy for people who are going hungry in
America. So much so, that he’s in denial about the problem entirely. He’s
also a raging hypocrite because he himself had to rely on food stamps at one
time in his life to put food on the table for his own family. But according
to him, his family deserved to eat, while most others deserve to starve to
death. This is what the Republican Party is today, a group of people who
selfishly take for themselves and think themselves worthy of what they
receive while simultaneously believe that everyone else deserves to suffer
and die.
Read more: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/08/06/republican-congressman-declares-that-most-people-on-food-stamps-deserve-to-starve/#ixzz2bO57QLrd
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