House Republicans have decided to promote a symbolic bill to
intentionally brand themselves as enemies of Americans who are so
poor that they rely on SNAP benefits in order to put food on the table.
Now, the reason why I say it's a symbolic bill is because it's being promoted by
House Republicans who control the House.
But it's unlikely to pass the Senate, and more importantly,
if it somehow does pass the Senate Biden would veto it.
But nonetheless, this is a way of communicating to the American people what
the priorities of House Republicans happen to be and this is it.
It is not economic populism, it's doing away with a little bit of
help that some Americans rely on for sustenance.
Now, more than a dozen House GOP lawmakers are proposing legislation,
that would impose harsh work requirements to obtain federal food aid.
Now, let me be clear, right now there are already work requirements.
But what House Republicans wanna do is expand the work
requirement standards to a larger group of people.
They're expanding the age group, okay?
So representative Dusty Johnson's legislation,
which currently has 14 Republican co-sponsors,
would broaden the SNAP work requirement age bracket for
able bodied adults without dependents to 18 to 65,
adding 16 years to the current age ceiling of 49.
>> Yeah, so- >> That's what they wanna do.
By the way, sorry Cenk, sorry to interrupt you but let's just keep it real.
What do you think it's like to be an unemployed 55 year old looking for a job?
Just think about that because that never gets talked about whether we're
discussing the social security issue, right,
where they keep wanting to increase the social security age to 65, 67.
In some cases, Ron DeSantis proposed when he was a member of the House of
Representatives, he wanted to increase it to age 70.
All right, you're 60 years old, who's gonna hire you at 60?
Are we gonna pretend like the ageism in the job market doesn't exist?
>> Yep, so guys, the ostensible reason for
this is, we've gotta cut the deficit, it turns out deficit is gigantic.
Now, first let's just acknowledge why is the deficit gigantic?
Donald Trump put a $2 trillion hole in it, but by the way,
George W Bush put a $6 trillion hole in it.
These are all tax cuts for the rich.
And Obama and Biden made the Bush hole way larger by making those taxes for
the rich permanent.
So don't forget what Obama and
Biden did because mainstream media will never tell you.
It will be buried in a tiny little paragraph if you can ever find it again.
So, if you cared about the deficit though, and the Republicans
weren't lying, there's tons of stuff to cut in the budget.
We just told you, congressional budget office nonpartisan.
They said the Pentagon has $100 billion in total waste.
They already know what the waste is.
They're like, there's that $100 billion that we're throwing in the garbage, right?
They're like, yeah, go ahead, throw it in the garbage.
That guy get back to work.
You're 59 year old, get back to work, okay?
Otherwise you're gonna starve in the streets and not get any food.
>> Go back to work for the $125 a month that you might receive from SNAP benefits.
I'm not even exaggerating.
Let's actually go to that graphic because if you're wondering what the priority is,
what Republicans have decided to target in order to cut spending,
let's go to the last graphic here.
This is what SNAP benefits look like today today.
So if you are one person,
you're not making enough money in order to provide food for
yourself, if you do get qualified for SNAP benefits, you'll get,
if you're lucky, $195 a month, a month, a month, a month.
>> Okay. >> Just let that sink in guys.
>> Okay, so let's say you're on the right, you're conservative.
You're a traditional conservative.
Not like something outrageous or anything like that.
But traditional conservatives have said, look, I think it's important for
that guy to go back to work and have a work ethic, etc, right?
We can debate that.
But if you really care about the deficit,
this is gonna bring down the deficit by about two nickels, right?
Here, I'll give you another example.
There's $16 billion dollars in just oil and gas, not all energy and
not all fossil fuels, just oil and gas.
$16 billion in subsidies.
Wait, those are the most profitable companies in the history of the world.
Why do they need $16 billion dollars from us?
No, they won't cut it.
>> Yeah, because poor people don't have a lobby for-
>> Exactly guys.
So look, now let me give you something more depressing.
I read the article, they're gonna get their way because this
is how Democrats signal that they're in on it.
They will say, we have yet to come up with a plan for how to fight back on this.
This is going to be very difficult to fight back on.
Why is it difficult?
They're saying, let's negotiate over raising the debt limit.
That's a bluff.
And you all know it's a bluff.
There's no way you're gonna destroy the stock market and
have all the Republican donors angry.
So the Republicans do a fake bluff, the Democrats know for
absolutely certain that it's a fake bluff, and
would destroy the Republican Party if they actually delivered on that bluff.
But the Democrats play along and they're like, we are so
worried that you are going to do that.
So, I guess there's nothing we could do.
We're gonna have to cut this program, and leave all the subsidies for
our beloved corporations alone.
>> Here's what's gonna happen.
Because I was curious, I'm like,
with Republicans wanting to brand themselves as economic populists,
considering the fact that they know this bill is not going to pass and
that it's a symbolic bill, what's the real agenda here?
And it hit me.
So as I shared with you, they want to expand the work
requirement to individuals up to the age of 65.
I don't think they're gonna get that particular ask.
But I think they're doing this to essentially desensitize voters and
Democratic lawmakers.
What do I mean by that?
Well, let's go to graphic three here because there was an earlier suggestion,
earlier proposal by Rick Scott.
So Senator Rick Scott reintroduced a bill in January that would raise the age for
food assistance work requirements by a decade to 59, okay?
So that's, I guess, a little less extreme and
I guess that's what the compromise is gonna be.
I think they're gonna go with what Rick Scott is proposing in the Senate, and
the cover story will be, well, at least we didn't expand the age to 65.
>> 100%, so guys, I'm gonna show you two lines here from the political piece on
this that show you the Democrats have already surrendered and
this is all theater, right?
And because it's not a surrender, they both wanna do the same thing.
They don't wanna take the money from corporations or the rich.
Hey, populist Republicans.
Donald Trump and Republicans are so populist.
Have they proposed one cent from the richer from corporations?
Not one cent.
Have the Democrats said, well, all right then,
I'm not gonna raise the debt ceiling until you raise taxes on corporations.
Of course not.
This is all a joke.
There's many of these of course, but I'll just give you two.
House Democrats have yet to mount a coordinated response raising concerns
in the caucus about whether they can fend off likely GOP attacks on the program
during the negotiations over the debt limit.
When they leaked things like that to Politico,
that means, we will not be able to fend it off, golly, gee, how would we fight back?
Would we say there's $16 billion in oil subsidies?
We would never wanna say that, I don't know how we would fend it off.
If you can't fend this off, you guys are losers.
But again, mainstream media will never tell.
Last one, another flank of the party they say,
the fight over the federal anti-hunger programs could end up squeezing vulnerable
members who represent districts Biden won in 2022, okay?
Hey remember, if you do anything that isn't pro-corporate,
that's gonna hurt your vulnerable members Democrats.
And they never explain why because then you won't be able to raise enough bribes
to win in that district.
So guys, corporate media, corporate Democrats, corporate Republicans,
they're all part of the same team and we live under corporate rules so
they're very likely gonna cut this aid.
Final thing is from the ironic populist of the Republican party.
What do they wanna do?
They're taking everything from the middle class.
Everything is from the middle class.
So what do they want the middle class to get angry at?
The people that are taking the great amount of the money which is up top.
No, up top is the guys that fund their campaigns, the guys they take bribes from.
So they want the middle class to get angry at the people down below.
So they're like, don't look at the oil companies,
that guy in Florida or Arkansas, he didn't work enough, he's a bum,
get mad at him and take away his food, literally take away his food.
Are we taking away food from oil executives?
Come on, system is a joke.