July 17, 2007

"Buy Less Crack"

"Buy less crack." - An affiliate of the Cato Institute on what families on Food Stamps living on $21 a week for food should do if food prices went up significantly. After all, if people weren't "strung out all the time," why would they be poor? Ideas he had for American families not on public assistance should they face higher food prices included deciding not to buy new plasma televisions, forgoing ski lessons, canceling their broadband service, or other means of trimming their discretionary spending.

Posted by natasha at July 17, 2007 02:10 PM | Obscenity | Technorati links |
Comments

Link?

Posted by: Susie from Philly at July 17, 2007 06:57 PM

Link to what? This was something I heard straight from the source.

Posted by: natasha at July 17, 2007 08:35 PM

What an effing asshole. Of course, it's an issue as the "farm bill", which includes food stamps, is being dressed up in Congress this week. I suspect the poor will get stiffed once again.

Posted by: MB Williams at July 17, 2007 09:22 PM

Why yes, because cancelling broadband service would do wonders for our budget, seeing as how my boyfriend does remote IT work for a living.

What an ignorant prick.

Posted by: Bonnie at July 18, 2007 09:57 AM

It probably didn't occur to him that an equally valid suggestion is to "sell more crack". Afterall, in his perception crack cocaine is the root of the underclass economy, and po' folk are poor because they're dumb, lazy people.

The Cato Institute's bread & butter has been to intentionally sew misperceptions about the working poor at every opportunity, so this shouldn't be surprising. They're just usually a smidge more polished about how they divide the world between winners & losers.

Posted by: mike at July 18, 2007 02:56 PM

Oh yeah, he also said that rural broadband was essentially a porn delivery subsidy.

Just another one of those young, decent-looking, well spoken, libertarian-aged white guys with good teeth. Intelligent, but with all the compassion and essentially humane impulses of a half-starved, molting python. Which is funny, because he also said that hunger and starvation didn't really exist in America.

But as to the poor, a Republican was complaining as you may note about nutrition spending being up 46%, a percentage that includes allotments for fresh produce and nutrition education. Even some of the Republicans, even Rep. Schmidt of Ohio, had worked for better nutrition funding because they understood how important it was.

So the poor will at least get more help, and thank goodness. Because of all the things that one might smack oneself on the head and wonder, 'how much better were these Democrats supposed to be' about, helping the poor shouldn't be one of them.

Posted by: natasha at July 18, 2007 06:30 PM