From yr Wonkette: Wisconsin Takes Lead In F*ck The Poors Sweepstakes: Now You Can’t Buy Beans And Rice
Wisconsin is one of those states that really hates poor people. (Yeah, we know. Just like the other 49.) The state’s Republicans are particularly obsessed with what poors eat, or don’t eat, or where they buy food to eat, or whether they’re really poor enough to deserve to eat, or how best to humiliate them for wanting to eat. […]
The Wisconsin Women, Infants & Children Nutrition Program has a handy brochure of permitted and prohibited foods. Let’s take a look!
How about beans, for example? They’re cheap, filling, good for you, last forever. So sure, you can buy those. But if the store where you’re shopping does not have a 16-oz. bag of dried beans, too bad for you, you’re not going to rob your fellow Wisconsinites of their hard-earned tax dollars by purchasing a bag of beans that is more or less than one pound!
And as for organic? Forget it. Organic food is for gainfully incomed Americans. If you’re not buying your own food your own self, you’ll have your beans in whatever pesticide flavor is available in a one-pound bag and like it! Or not. Who cares? You’re poor; what you like doesn’t matter.
It could be worse … you could be poor in Missouri (or “Misery” as those of us who have lived there like to call it) and have a time limit on how long you are “allowed” to be poor:
Missouri lawmakers voted Tuesday to remove thousands of families from a welfare program, overriding a veto by the state’s Democratic governor.
The new law will reduce Missouri’s lifetime limit for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families cash assistance program, known as TANF, from five years to three years and nine months, starting Jan. 1, 2016. The law also imposes stricter work requirements and directs a portion of Missouri’s federal TANF funding to alternatives to abortion and promoting marriage and fatherhood.
About 9,500 people — 6,400 of whom are children — would lose benefits in the first year, according to Department of Social Services estimates cited by The Kansas City Star. […]
When Nixon vetoed the bill last week, he cited concerns that it would punish children for the actions of their parents. The measure imposes sanctions on the entire family if a parent does not comply with requirements to participate in work activities, which can include volunteering, job training or education.
“I don’t sign bills that hurt kids — period,” said Nixon, according to The Kansas City Star.
In Maine, changes to TANF resulted in deeper poverty:
“Nearly 70 percent reported that they had to go to a food bank after losing TANF and more than 1 in 3 families lost a utility service, such as electricity,” the [Maine] study (PDF) states. “One in five reported being evicted from their home; having to relocate, often to overcrowded living conditions; or needing to go to a homeless shelter.”
But the state saved money and the Righteous Right saw that it was good …
Found on the Internets:
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’
~ Matthew 25:34-46
How about this one? “Whoever gives to the poor will not want, but he who hides his eyes will get many a curse. ~ Proverbs 28:27”.
Hey, Wisconsin … and Missouri and Maine. [curse redacted] you!