Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 01:37 pm
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) sent a shiver down Rep. Paul Ryan’s spine tonight by exposing the secret behind the his sudden interest in poverty programs.
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Sen. Sanders said, “You have folks out there now who have virtually no income coming in. They have families. They have kids. How are they going to eat? We have veterans out there trying to get into the food stamp program. To me, what you’re looking at is an ugly kind of class warfare where the people on top want more and more and more, and they’re pushing down in an incredibly terrible way the most vulnerable people in our country.”
Rev. Al showed this graphic that illustrates who food stamp recipients really are:
Later Sen. Sanders ripped Republicans for claiming that the problem is that children get too much help from the federal government, “These are the same people who want to eliminate the estate tax, which applies to only the top three tenths of one percent of all Americans, which is the richest of the rich, then they are going after kids. The politics of this, Al, is what they are trying to do is deflect attention away from income and wealth inequality. Attention away from the fact that the rich are doing extraordinarily well, and tell their supporters that the real problem in America is that children are getting too much help from the federal government, and that’s the kind of mentality that we have got to fight back against.”
Sen. Sanders nailed it. This is a classic case of Republicans trying to blame the victims of their policies. Republicans crashed the economy, threw millions out of work, then blamed the unemployed, and their children for needing assistance. While the GOP tries to take the food out of the mouths of those who are struggling, the rich continue to get richer.
The Koch brothers won’t have less money if children continue to get free school lunches. The issue is that the people at the very top continue to see their wealth grow while nearly everyone else is struggling to survive.
That’s the dirty little secret that Bernie Sanders exposed.
Republicans refuse to limit themselves to encouraging the wealthy. They are on a mission to take everything away from everyone else, and give it to the rich. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has been leading this new smokescreen with a war against the poor that has been disguised as budget cuts and poverty studies.
Ryan and his millionaire Republican brothers are running a shell game. They are trying to convince the American people that the income inequality that is obvious to everyone isn’t a problem. Instead, they want the country to focus on the fact that poor people need to eat.
Bernie Sanders is one of the few members of congress who will stand up and call out this con game for what it really is, and he is not going to sit back quietly and allow Republicans to starve children, veterans, and the elderly so that the Koch brothers can have millions of dollars more in tax breaks.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
