Order Mad as Hell on iTunes Available now Last November once again elected a Republican
congress and that comes with consequences let's analyze one of them later this month
the House agricultural committee is going to begin a series of hearing on possible changes
the to supplemental nutrition assistance program more commonly known as food stamps now the
committee chairman is Mike Conway of Texas now he says he doesn't want things to get
to political about food stamps but he did say that he think that it's more important
that people rely on their own hard work than the government that might mean something about
his governing philosophy he also said a family that depends on their own work is more secure
there's a dignity in taking care of yourself and so you need to prepare yourself America
for more cuts to SNAP to more cuts to the funding to harsher regulations on who can
actually qualify for it for limitations on how long a family can be on we have many different
statistics here that we're going to read for you about food stamps and then we're going
a little discussion about whether or not this makes sense to be on the driving priorities
of your new congress they got the number one out of the way they once again voted to repeal
Obamacare that's out of the way until next week now let's cut food stamps some 46.5 million
people about 15 percent of the U.S. population currently receive benefits double the number
from a decade ago the costs meanwhile have nearly tripled in that time going from $27
billion in fiscal year 2004 to $74 billion in 2014 why don't be bring up the chart that
yes the number of people on food stamps has risen every year now it did drop a little
bit in 2014 thanks to the economy improving at least under certain metrics but there are
a lot of people on it and it does cost a lot of money and that's one of the reasons that
back in 2013 Republicans cut the program they tried to cut the program by $40 billion as
part of the farm-bill reauthorization a compromise with the Democrats yielded $8.6 billion in
cuts over 10 years when you see those two numbers compromise for the Democrats actually
seems to have accomplished something in that cases some actual details about what you get
on food stamps because apparently this is such a huge problem the average recipient
receives about $125 a month oh my god they're so luxurious on their $125 a month that they
have to feed their children on now we're going to talk about who's on it why they're on it
if you listen to Fox the reason people are on it is because they don't know how to work
they're not hard working nearly 40% of recipients are able able-bodied adults between the ages
of 18 and 60 the rest are children elderly or disabled adults the average gross income
for all recipient households is $758 a month so the vast the majority are not people who
are choosing not to work in fact many people are on food stamps despite the fact that they
already have at least one full time job the rest are children the elderly perhaps veterans
who've been incapacitated in foreign conflicts those people apparently aren't working hard
enough for the Republicans and so we can expect there will be significant cuts to food stamps
so this is an issue that at some point I can be a little bit more conservative on and I
can a day where I would say hey listen you we've got a bunch of problems and it has really
grown out of control it's doubled obviously a hugely cause of the economy as well the
economy did very poorly but today is not that day because we give away so much money to
do banks the oil companies so we give $40 billion in oil subsidies OK you take away
the oil subsidies then we can a conversation about a guy making $758 a month whether we
should cut their food stamps for their kids like I'm telling yah I'm willing to have that
conversation but I'm not going to have if you're still giving away bailouts to the banks
oil companies tax cuts for the rich are you kidding me they want to cut food stamps by
$40 billion and they a compromise lead to $8.6 billion in cuts OK the oil subsidies
got here's the comprise on that they didn't it one cent it's still $40 billion dollars
if you're Americans who do you want to have the money poor people who've got kids who
are getting just a $125 a month to be able to eat or the most profitable companies in
the world so these guys are such utter frauds before I answer that question do the executives
the oil executives no but that goes to a second point Ben which is now wait a minute you're
telling me in his quote he was saying hey look I want to make sure that people have
the right incentive to work right great then wait a minute they why don't we give the oil
companies the proper incentive to work by taking away their subsidies why are those
bums living off of our money I want the oil companies I want them to be more productive
they'll work harder let me give them the right incentives yeah we take the billions they
take the boot straps and then they use them to pick themselves up no what I love about
the comparison between those two is that they want to take away the limitless nature of
food stamps right now originally there was a limit on how many months you could have
it thanks to the recession we got rid of that which seems nice of us to do now originally
the subsidies that were going to the oil companies it wasn't just random money it was because
early drilling for oil was not a profitable business we needed to incentive to start that
industry how long have they been drilling for oil in America perhaps we add some sort
of limit on how long you get incentives for that their incentive they make more money
than any company in the world the top 5 are in the top 10 of all profitable companies
in the world I believe that's called capitalism what more effin' incentive do you need let
me I have a couple of stats that I think are so relevant these are the ones that struck
this is an article from 18 months ago so the number have increased you know by a couple
percent but for the number where you disqualify for food stamps right gross income if your
gross income single person $14,480 if you make that you can't get food stamps less than
$15,000 a year family of four just under $30,000 a year if you make that you can't qualify
and that's gross income that not net income we're not talking about people aren't cheating
the system here these people are poor the reason the numbers went it because there are
more people the numbers will go down if there are fewer poor people you want to do other
things to keep from being so poor well great then they won't need food stamps and by the
way they can say that this isn't about philosophy this isn't about the best way to get people
back to work but we know the people on that side what they actually think about those
people we remember when Rush Limbaugh said if they're hungry they can go dumpster diving
they can find food there and we know we showed Andrea Tantaro recently in another clip Andrea
Tantaro when she was talking about a politician who chose to go Corey Booker I think who chose
to go on the food stamp diet for 30 days he would live as if he was on food stamps she
said I should do that I'd look fabulous I'd be so skinny perhaps the children are skinny
but I don't think that it's fabulous so here you're going to see Stewart Varney and other
Fox hosts talking about why he thinks Obama is in favor of continuing food stamps so is
this a planned strategy for the White House to keep the hand outs on high levels what
do you think the economies getting better there's no strategy to get this men and women
off food stamps there's certainly not it is deliberate this is redistribution this is
the administration taking from this group giving from that group to that group I should
say essentially buying votes and it's costing an enormous amount of money God damn the projection
is unbelievable cause what do the Republican party what do they do they take money from
their donors and redistribute it back to them bank bails outs they take huge amounts of
donations from the banks and then they give them billions if not trillions if you count
what they got from the Federal Reserve in bailouts and what do they do that for votes
because they take that money they use it in political advertising and they get reelected
right that is GOP 101 and this Stewart Varney smug prick comes out there and is like oh
I can't believe their redistributing money $125 dollars for the kids we should take that
away from them they're trying to by votes you buy votes en masse and you love it that
guy man every time I see he is so grating I think send him back no he's like caricature
not sure we can do that but there's so many things wrong just on the structure of it because
first of all they're redistributing wealth well we've always done that's what we've always
done in fact when you weren't complaining about the program under the Bush administration
they were just doing it for slightly less but the concept it not that we're not going
to do that we know we're going to do it we do it all the time we've done it from 1789
when we first formed the government on we've redistributed wealth so you so it's disingenuous
on its face and then the other interesting thing is that we found out the one way that
we can get a Fox News to acknowledge that the economy under Obama has gotten better
Brian Kilmeade said it in his question like how are the food stamp things going if the
economy getting and of course the numbers have gone down since the economy got better
but he of course that's there one acknowledgement that the economy got better in a question
about and buying votes that's the thing we already know historically those people who
are making less $30,000 with a family of four and the single guy making $13,400 most of
them don't vote those are that essentially politically wasted money so the incentive
would appear in my mind not to be that but a genuine belief among people who may not
even be significant progressives just people in charge thinking I really don't want anyone
in American to be hungry we are an incredibly we're the wealthiest country in the world
here's one thing we can prevent we can't make sure that they don't go to Burger King to
McDonalds that they don't eat incredibly poorly they may get diabetes from all this but they
are not going to go to bed hungry and that's an actual accomplishment that Americans ought
to be proud of Stewart Varney from another land can't imagine that