Ryan to make people work for less, or lose food stamps

Paul Ryan is latching onto what is known as “disaster capitalism,” a plan to accelerate our race to the bottom of the wage scale and lower labor expectations, while growing the wealth of our “owners”- the 1 percenters.

Here’s another great Ryan comment for his political challenger to use in the 2014 midterms:

Paul Ryan recently told NBC News, “I think it’s insensitive to not have a work requirement for food stamps … our goal in these programs is not to make poverty easier to handle and tolerate and live with, our goal in these program ought to be to give people a temporary hand so that they can get out of poverty.”

And when that temporary hand is pulled away, with no job in sight? Unless you know a newspaper editor, no one will ever hear about you again. Problem solved.

Along with Republican efforts to reduce unemployment, the threat of cutting food stamps is the second of a one-two punch. Forget about the actual human cost, says Ryan, people have got to work:

In September a bill pushed by Reps. Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor will if passed cut off food assistance to 2-4 million of America’s poorest citizens.

The cuts would impact food stamp availability most when the country is in the throes of another “bust:”

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: These cuts would literally push millions of Americans deeper into poverty … The new cuts come primarily from eliminating waivers that states can use during periods of high unemployment, to ease the severity of a harsh rule that limits SNAP to three months of benefits out of every three years for people aged 18 to 50 who aren’t raising minor children and are unemployed, regardless of how hard they are looking for work … if such individuals can’t find at least a half-time job, they will summarily be thrown off the program after three months, irrespective of how high local unemployment is. 

Ryan wants cheap labor, and the best way to do that is to force people to work for nothing, lower their expectation level, and to break the American spirit. And does he really expect kids to work too?

The vast majority of Americans who receive food stamps are children, the elderly, and the disabled. Children make up 45% of those receiving food stamps. The disabled are 20% of those receiving help, and the elderly are 7.5% of the participants in the SNAP program.

More than 40 percent are women … one-third are over age 40 … half are white, a third are African American, and a tenth are Hispanic … many of these individuals would fall deeper into destitution. Some would likely experience hunger as well as homelessness; money spent on food won’t pay the rent.

Another words: The reality is that the majority of the people that they will be harming are white people in suburban and rural areas. These people are also known as the kind of voters who Republicans are supposed to be wooing in order to win elections.

Here's Thom Hartmann with his take on Ryan:

Let’s review again Ryan’s low wage form of discipline:

Paul Ryan recently told NBC News, “I think it’s insensitive to not have a work requirement for food stamps, and what I mean when I say that is: our goal in these programs is not to make poverty easier to handle and tolerate and live with, our goal in these program ought to be to give people a temporary hand so that they can get out of poverty.”

Rep. Eric Cantor fine tuned Ryan's message of despair: 

(He) told Fox News Sunday that denying poor people food is all about fairness: “But you know what? It’s an issue of fairness. If they are able- bodied people who can work, they ought to do that in order to receive a government benefit.”