Nuns On A Bus: Romney’s 47 Percent Comments Show ‘He Has No Idea How Hard It Is’ To Be Poor
Nuns On A Bus: Romneys 47 Percent Comments Show He Has No Idea How Hard It Is To Be Poor
By Travis Waldron
The leader of the Nuns On A Bus tour that has criss-crossed the nation highlighting the effect the House Republican budget would have on low-income Americans said Monday that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romneys recent comments about the 47 percent show that he is out of touch and has no idea how hard it is at the margins of our society.
ThinkProgress spoke to Sister Simone Campbell, the executive director of NETWORK, a Catholic social justice lobby, in New York, where the Nuns got off the bus and onto the Staten Island ferry to highlight the GOP budgets impacts on poverty programs in New York City. Aboard the ferry, Campbell said Romneys comments broke my heart because they demonstrated his lack of knowledge about the living conditions of Americas poorest citizens:
CAMPBELL: I mean, it was shocking to me that a person who says he wants to be the leader of our nation believes that 47 percent of our country is basically lazy or dependent or indolent. That was shocking to me. But then, it broke my heart that he would be so out of touch, that he would so not know the truth of folks at the margins of our society who work so hard. And he obviously doesnt know that if you work a minimum wage job, if youre a child care, if youre providing janitorial services, or if youre a day laborer, if you work for minimum wage, youre still in poverty. He has no idea how hard it is at the margins of our society.
The Nuns tour, which hit nine states earlier this year, was in New York to protest the House GOP budget authored by Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan. Even before he chose Ryan as his running mate, Romney supported the Ryan budget, which makes a majority of its spending cuts from programs that benefit the poor, including food stamps, Medicaid, and other assistance programs.
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http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/09/25/906501/nuns-on-bus-romney-47-percent/