When you know the truth...

Republicans have gone silent on "Family Values"

Back during the Bush W administration we heard about "compassionate conservatives" and the family values platform of the GOP. But you don't hear too much about it now - not with attacks on civil rights, women's rights and gay rights. I guess even they realized how hypocritical it was to preach about values when you have none.

More proof of the assertion that Republicans are hypocrites - level 10.

From Think Progress

Congressman Who Gets Millions In Farm Subsidies Denounces Food Stamps As Stealing 'Other People's Money'

By Aviva Shen on May 21, 2013 at 1:29 pm

Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-TN) agitated against food aid for poor Americans included in the Farm Bill during last week's House Agricultural Committee debate, accusing the government of stealing "other people's money." Funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has already been decimated in both the House and Senate versions of the Farm Bill, cutting off nearly 2 million working families, children, and seniors from food assistance.

Fincher invoked the Bible in his defense of the devastating cuts, quoting, "The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat."

At a Holiday Inn in Memphis over the weekend, Fincher expanded on his version of the Christian social gospel: "The role of citizens, of Christians, of humanity is to take care of each other, but not for Washington to steal from those in the country and give to others in the country."

While Fincher interprets food assistance for the needy as "stealing," he has not similarly condemned the Farm Bill's massive agricultural subsidies. In fact, he supported a proposal to expand crop insurance by $9 billion over the next 10 years. Fincher has a great personal stake in maintaining these particular government handouts, as the second most heavily subsidized farmer in Congress and one of the largest subsidy recipients in Tennessee history:

    USDA data collected in EWG's 2013 farm subsidy database update - going live tomorrow -shows that Fincher collected a staggering $3.48 million in "our" money from 1999 to 2012. In 2012 alone, the congressman was cut a government check for a $70,000 direct payment. Direct payments are issued automatically, regardless of need, and go predominantly to the largest, most profitable farm operations in the country.

    Fincher's $70,000 farm subsidy haul in 2012 dwarfs the average 2012 SNAP benefit in Tennessee of $1,586.40, and it is nearly double of Tennessee's median household income. After voting to cut SNAP by more than $20 billion, Fincher joined his colleagues to support a proposal to expand crop insurance subsidies by $9 billion over the next 10 years.

Attacking the defenseless

Mean-spirited, lacking n compassion, cruel, heartless, selfish, vicious, lacking in empathy, nasty - sorry, but I'm running out of adjectives for Republicans.

From Occupy Democrats...
(Click on the link to read more)

If you thought that the Tea Party Republican House couldn't sink their stature any lower, think again. Their latest attack on the American middle-class is against America's most innocent, vulnerable, and needy groups: hungry poor children and school kids.

Although they have remained steadfast in their support of the federal government doling out massive budget busting corporate welfare to international banks and multinational corporations, House Republicans have finally found what is wrong with America, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

On Wednesday, the House Agriculture Committee voted to cut $21 billion from SNAP's budget. If signed into law, these heartless cuts would yank food stamps away from 2 million poor kids. To make matters worse, they would also ensure that 200,000 poor and hungry school kids would not be able to get free school lunches that are vital for their nutrition and health.

Little Red Riding Cat

Republicans- brave soldiers

Truth be told...

If the truth is to be told, those on food stamps and welfare today are primarily children - about 48% of them as I last read. Another huge chunk are the elderly living on small Social Security checks, still more are the disabled, some are those employed for minimum wages, and finally we have the unemployed, unable to find work in a tough economy.

There are few of the slackers that the Republicans love to rant about, and there are only a few because it is a difficult life - some are probably drug addicts, others ex-convicts - you know - people who don't have many other choices. But in the eyes of the Republicans, there are a whole lot of minority people collecting welfare and living high on the hog. But it just isn't so.

One pundit I read not so long ago described the problem as a bunch of folks who can't stand to see someone else getting something they're not getting. But maybe folks on welfare aren't getting so much.

Just thinking about job creation

Has it ever struck you as odd that both Democrats and Republicans bray at the moon most every day about the need we have in the U.S. for small businesses because they are the job creators? And yet almost all tax breaks and incentives are designed to help out mega-corporations like Wal*Mart?

I live near a small community which was populated with a lot of small businesses - a small grocery, a small hardware store, a mom-and-pop drug store, a store that sold yard equipment (lawn mowers, snow blowers,etc.), a pet store and many others.  A super Wal*Mart moved in and all but one of those small businesses folded.

Now, instead of a lot of people making a living off of owning their own business, a few even hiring some others to work for them, lots of those people now work in nearly minimum-wage jobs at Wal*Mart, each of them pulling down food stamps, HEAP and other government handouts because we subsidize those low wages.

If the political parties were serious about supporting small businesses, they would make the BIG businesses pay a living wage so that we don't have to subsidize their cheap prices.

Bailing out the employeed because business is too cheap to pay a fair wage.

Impact of the changing economy - the rich get richer