About a month ago, after the Senate approved a bipartisan farm bill rather easily, the House pushed its own right-wing version, which was almost laughably extreme. House Republicans pushed for $20 billion in food-stamp cuts, along with drug tests for recipients -- because if you're struggling to buy groceries in the wake of an economic crisis, conservative lawmakers believe you deserve to be treated as a suspected drug addict.
Much to the surprise of the GOP's own leadership, that bill failed, not because it was too ridiculous, but because House Republican members concluded it just wasn't punitive enough.
And so, instead of adopting a more moderate bill, making a compromise with the Senate easier, House Republicans, in their infinite wisdom, decided to make their version much more right-wing -- doubling the cuts to food aid for the poor, while imposing work requirements and drug tests.
If Ayn Rand were alive today, this is the sort of bill that would lead her to say, "Aren't you guys overdoing it a bit?"
'The American people should be outraged' - The Maddow Blog
No comments:
Post a Comment