Why must we humiliate those in poverty?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Dana Milbank

Rick Brattin, a young Republican state representative in Missouri, has come up with an innovative new way to humiliate the poor in his state. Call it the surf-and-turf law.

Brattin has introduced House Bill 813, making it illegal for food-stamp recipients to use their benefits “to purchase cookies, chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood or steak.”

“I have seen people purchasing filet mignons and crab legs” with electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards, the legislator explained, according to The Washington Post's Roberto A. Ferdman. “When I can't afford it on my pay, I don't want people on the taxpayer's dime to afford those kinds of foods either.”

Never mind that few can afford filet mignon on a less-than-$7-a-day food-stamp allotment; they're more likely to be buying chuck steak or canned tuna. This is less about public policy than about demeaning public-benefit recipients.

The surf-and-turf bill is one of a flurry of legislative proposals at the state and local level to dehumanize and even criminalize the poor as the country deals with the high-poverty hangover of the Great Recession.

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20150409/OPINION04/150409142

[2naSalit]

1. A couple possible reasons

and not mutually exclusive:

They think it gives them more "license" to look down at the impoverish - many are there as a result of their policies...

It satisfies their need to control those less able to defend against discrimination...

The "selected" think they have a supremacy edict and this is how they perceive their duty to those who "selected" them...

The "control-freak" mindset is justified in making certain discriminatory policies keep the poor poor so they can serve as the other side of the superiority paradigm... and a self-fulfilling prophecy of a sort.

For starters.

[sharp_stick]

2. If I had a dime

for every right wing shithead that claims he witnessed someone buying Filet and Crab Legs I'd probably be able to eat Filet and Crab Legs twice a week.


It's easy to call them out on it and catch them in a web of RW spun bullshit and we should do that at every opportunity.

[raccoon]

14. Reminds me of a time when some RWNJ called into a local radio station and CLAIMED he gave a $20 to

one of those people holding a "work for food" sign. And said he later saw the guy buying beer.

I KNEW it was a lie. Most people wouldn't give them $20, to begin with. But to me it didn't pass the smell test.

[FSogol]

3. Why? Because conservatives believe the opposite of "good" is "poor."

[sabrina 1]

4. I'd be willing to bet someone's Shrimp and Lobster money, that that moron is a 'Christian'.

[Mnemosyne]

5. They would so figure everyone else is as disgusting as them. Projection, Inc. nt

[ck4829]

6. "I can't afford it on my pay" Yeah right.

Something tells me this guy hasn't even been in a grocery store for a very long time.

[Warpy]

7. Guilt and a reluctance to realize that for a few twists of luck

we would be in exactly the same position as the poor people we're trying to humiliate. Only by denying their essential humanity can we live with the fact that we're also teetering on the edge of the abyss most of the time.

Pretending they're an inferior species helps us feel safer. I guess humiliating them makes a legislator feel positively godlike. I suppose mandating nothing but oatmeal might cause him to rise to heaven immediately.

I don't know anyone on food stamps who eats chuck roast. Hamburger is a treat and it's stretched in a starchy casserole. Most of the meat I see at the checkout with a welfare cardholder is cheap cuts of pork and lunch meats. Beef is way out of the budget.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

8. Wait, do you mean State Representatitive Rick Brattin?

That State Representatitive Rick Brattin?

Because the only Rick Brattin I know is a State Representatitive Rick Brattin.

And there's no finer State Representatitive Rick Brattin than Missouri State Representatitive Rick Brattin!
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For God's sake, our laws are being written by people who can't even spell their own job title:

https://www.facebook.com/rick.brattin.3?fref=ts

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

10. No auto-correct or spell checker on his browser?

He might try updating those. Nah, he's a conservative.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

11. I bet a poor person once used auto-correct though.

Lazy bums. Shouldn't even be on computers. Don't they know how much computers cost?

[Downwinder]

9. Poor boy. He only gets an annual salary of $35,915.

Put him on food stamps with a food stamp income and see how many steaks he buys.

[Orsino]

12. Because we're afraid we'll be joining them...

...and hope vainly that our little rah-rahs for Team Haves will secure our positions.

Same reason we made fun of kids in grade school. Fear.

[Tsiyu]

13. Classic deflection

If any of us could see how much tax money Brattin has squandered on his own special snowflakeness, we might show up with pitchforks.

By deflecting the entire burden of deficits on the backs of the least of these, he takes the target off of himself.

I do hope for special places in hell for these sorts.