Starve, You Bastards

[babylonsister]

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/1/10/153014/340

Starve, You Bastards

by BooMan
Tue Jan 10th, 2012 at 03:30:14 PM EST


How do you squeeze the last dime out of a staving person? Elect a Republican:

Republican Gov. Tom Corbett has announced a major assault on the food stamp program that feeds 1.8 million Pennsylvanians, including 439,245 in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania's Department of Public Welfare announced that on May 1, people under 60 with more than $2,000 in savings or other assets will be barred from receiving food stamps. People over 60 would have a $3,250 cap.

As the Inquirer points out in a detailed look, the move to cut food stamps is way out of line with what other states are doing: “Pennsylvania plans to make the amount of food stamps that people receive contingent on the assets they possess — an unexpected move that bucks national trends and places the commonwealth among a minority of states.”

The trend during the Great Recession, with millions falling into poverty, has been to remove such barriers to assistance. Gov. Ed Rendell eliminated the state's asset test in 2008. Pennsylvania now joins 11 states with asset tests — including Indiana, Kansas, Missouri and South Dakota.

Eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse” is an old and recurrent refrain from those who seek to dismantle the country's social welfare system. But it's a cynical ruse: 30 percent of those eligible for food stamps in Pennsylvania don't receive them. According to federal data, the Inquirer notes, Pennsylvania has a fraud rate of just one-tenth of 1 percent.

Conservatives frequently bristle at the idea that poor people might have nice things while receiving public assistance ("they have a television on welfare!&quot . But Pennsylvania will now create the most bizarre of disincentives: dissuading poor people from saving.

Don't blame me. I voted for his crappy opponent.

[my2sense]

1. We are on a fast decline........

Don't know how these people sleep at night.

[SammyWinstonJack]

7. With full stomachs, I am sure.

Greedy bastards!

[wakemewhenitsover]

2. K&R.

Fuckers.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Kicked and recommended to highlight Republican Alice in Wonderland political logic.

Thanks for the thread, babylonsister.

[Erose999]

4. $2,000 is practically nothing when it coes to savings/assets. It won't even but you a plate at a

Mittens or GinGrinch fundraiser.

To make it worse these people are advocating that the gov't make healthcare and other services cash and carry. So if little Timmy needs his appendix out and his parents lost their jobs and had to go on social services, the family will be wiped out.

These Republicans are fascists. I'm convinced of that more each day.

[onethatcares]

11. $2000.00 in savings here in florida will get you

$1.94 interest in a year or pay for 3/5 of a homeowners insurance policy for my house.

Jeez, some folks actually make that much each week. Next time around I'm coming back rich instead of good looking.

[AsahinaKimi]

5. sonna baka na!

Stupid!! Maybe the requirement to be elected should be to put out on the streets for a year, without anything but the clothes on your back. I am sure Republicans would find a way to cheat... with their friends secretly slipping them some big cash from time to time.


Kimiko

[patrice]

6. So, in order to get at some bad actors, "we" kill the relationship between us that says,

"We care about one another for one another's sake alone and nothing more" and in the demise of that affirmation of the intrinsic value of a life, any life, we perpetuate the very motive that drives corruption, more or less $uce$$fuly, at any and all levels . . . which corruption, btw, is more than just a little obvious to the most disempowered, some of whom then mirror that human betrayal that they see all around them, in their own frauds, which we, in turn, use as justification for the conditions that we impose upon economic justice in our relationships. And almost no one wants to own up to the fact that we ARE doing this to one another; no wonder it no longer feels like there is anything of us left to call a "nation".

[Scuba]

8. This is why Vegas has penny slots.

They want ALL your money.

[LiberalAndProud]

9. So, families who get a tax refund

based on earned income credit will be ineligible for food stamps until the refund is depleted. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the earned income credit?

[Sirveri]

10. We should push for this in every state.

Starving people like to do things like riot, and take to the street. This will end a good deal of complacency and get people onto the barricades to fight the good fight.

[redqueen]

12. Sickening.

K&R

[gratuitous]

13. But don't say to Wall Street "Jump! You F*ckers!"

Because that will hurt their poor widdle fee-fees, and make robber baroning not so much fun anymore.

[Dawson Leery]

14. Republicans are terrible.

[Tallulah]

15. This is stupid

Is it the honor system ? Because if it is and I needed food stamps, no way in hell I'd cop to having any money.

If it isn't, how will they know if you have any money ? Will they access your bank account, look through family member accounts or just say they know ?

This in itself stinks of fraud. You cannot starve people. I don't give a damn what it costs, you don't starve people.