What are the most heartless and out of touch comments about poverty

[TBA]

Full disclosure... Writing a performance piece about poverty, specifically SNAP recipients. Three of my characters are Rebublican congress critters. Although it is comedy I like to use actual statements when I can. Been googling for awhile. Thought I'd ask the smart creative people of DU.

[Iris]

1. food stamps are cruel because they rob people of their potential.

The idea here is that if someone is hungry and desperate, they will work harder and then have the opportunity to become successful.

[PeaceNikki]

2. here you go...

http://mobile.onmilwaukee.com/buzz/articles/grothmanlie.html

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/12/02/3598130/welfare-bribe-grothman/

Anti-poverty aid programs are nothing more than a bribe to keep low-income people from getting married or going to work, according to a new U.S. Congressman from Wisconsin.

“When you look at that amount of money, which is in essence a bribe not to work that hard or a bribe not to marry someone with a full-time job, people immediately realize you have a problem,” Rep.-elect Glenn Grothman (R) said on a statewide television show aired Sunday evening.

When the show’s host gave him a chance to walk back the bribery line, Grothman instead doubled down. “Well, if you tell somebody you’re going to get $35,000 if you don’t get married and you’re not going to get anything if you marry somebody making 50 grand a year, it’s certainly a strong incentive not to raise children in wedlock,” he said.

That $35,000 figure is seemingly plucked from a Cato Institute study that was discredited more than a year ago by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). As the CBPP explained last August, the Cato study describes theoretical totals that a person could extract from a combination of anti-poverty programs without bothering to link that theoretical figure back to practical reality. The study’s assumptions about how bureaucratic rules and real-world experience interact produce “a misleading portrayal of the trade-off between work and welfare.” In the real world, CBPP wrote, the vast majority of public assistance program beneficiaries are working families rather than jobless ones, and very few families that receive public benefits tap into every available system in the way Grothman’s $35,000 figure implies.

While Grothman’s use of the word “bribe” caught his interviewer’s attention, a different, less-inflammatory phrase in his remarks is concealing an even larger deception. In portraying public assistance programs as an incentive “not to work that hard,” Grothman insinuates that people who work part-time or earn so low a wage that they qualify for housing aid and food stamps aren’t doing hard work, or that they are settling for poorly compensated positions rather than chasing better jobs. The comment simultaneously ignores the reality of the modern American labor market — where there are two job applicants for every opening and most hiring comes from service industry jobs that pay poverty wages — and hints that people who skull pots and fry potatoes for $8 an hour are lazy.

[kydo]

3. Scott Walker

Scott Walker - there's some good lines in this piece.
http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_26908033/scott-walker-wants-jobless-food-stamp-recipients-face

Then there are the thugs oops rethugs some times called the gop (I think it stands for graying old people but the hubby says no its grumpy old pedophiles) http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/08/gop-proposal-would-require-food-stamp-recipients-to-show-photo-id/ this link is actually faux news. they are good at making racist and belittling statements.

It didn't take long to find these on the internets there are tons more but I am not going to do your job for you.

[Vinca]

4. Read the Ronald Reagan section in Helen Thomas's book "Front Row at the White House."

He said homeless people like sleeping on grates on the street. An aide sad there is no hunger in this country and that people go to food kitchens because it's free. And, of course, there is the old "ketchup is a vegetable" remark.

[Laughing Mirror]

7. Yes, Reagan, proud creator of the Cadillac Welfare Queen

Him or his script writers, that is.

[freshwest]

5. Here's a couple:

Lt Gov Andre Bauer: Don't Feed the Poor They'll Breed

Uploaded on Oct 11, 2010

From a DU link, more:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022262578

Another in my post on that thread:

Missouri Republican responds to child hunger: "Hunger Can Be a Positive Motivator"

Sat Jun 20, 2009 at 03:21 PM PDT
by Dem Beans

The Party of No Ideas has finally come up with one: eradicate child hunger by sending your children to work at McDonalds, because they give a free meal to their workers.

This is the response of a Missouri State Representative to a summer lunch program to help Missourians who are struggling with the economic downturn.

State Rep. Cynthia Davis (R-O’Fallon) chimes in on how wasteful it is to feed hungry children during the summer, when they don't have a school lunch program to offer one good meal per day.

In her recent newsletter Cynthia Davis has the following words of wisdom to parents of hungry children:

Why have meals at home with your loved ones if you can go to the government soup kitchen and get one for free? This could have the effect of breaking apart more families.

Anyone under 18 can be eligible? Can’t they get a job during the summer by the time they are 16? Hunger can be a positive motivator. What is wrong with the idea of getting a job so you can get better meals?

Tip: If you work for McDonald’s, they will feed you for free during your break.

Families may economize by choosing to not waste hard earned dollars on potato chips, ice cream, or Twinkies. Perhaps some families will buy more beans and chicken and less sweets.

They are using a "crisis" to create an expansion of a government program. Parents naturally love their children and enjoy caring for their children just as much as ever during an economic downturn...

Laid off parents could adapt by preparing more home cooked meals rather than going out to eat.

If you can stomach reading her full newsletter, there's lots of gruesome, heartless dreck contained within.

St. Louis Today features a story about State Rep. Davis, as well as the following sad statistics about child hunger in Missouri:

Ms. Davis chairs the House Special Standing Committee on Children and Families. In that position, she might be expected to have insight into child hunger in our state.

She might know, for instance, that about one in five Missouri children lives with hunger. That ties us with Louisiana for the nation’s seventh-highest rate, according to a report released last month by the hunger-relief charity Feeding America.

Or that the recession has pushed the number of poor Missouri kids who qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches by 8.3 percent this year, well above the national average.

Apparently not.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/06/20/744986/-Missouri-Republican-responds-to-child-hunger-Hunger-Can-Be-a-Positive-Motivator

The Daily Kos allows sharing these in their entirety.

Don't worry, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

[brer cat]

8. "Don't feed the poor.

They'll breed." Well that would top my list. What an absolute a@@.

[lame54]

6. find the Craig T Nelson vid on food stamps