Senator David Vitter of Lousiana is a pretty sleazy guy. We know this because of his appearance in the DC Madam scandal. He somehow managed to persuade Louisiana voters that he should remain a Senator, getting re-elected in 2010.
He’s apparently forgotten those voters’ act of mercy; the other day he inserted an amendment into the Farm Bill currently being negotiated which would “prohibit convicted murderers, rapists, and pedophiles from receiving food stamps.” This sounds a little harsh, since those people, while hardly savory, are entitled to eat. Surely if they’re otherwise eligible they shouldn’t be refused the benefits other Americans in poverty receive. If I commit a crime, serve my time, and stay straight, when I’m 75 years old and poor I don’t deserve a meal?
What this really is is a pander to his voters at home. It will probably pass because few if any Senators are going to make the argument I just made, that no matter their past crimes if they’re poor they ought to get help paying for food.
Apparently mercy has its limits for Senator Vitter. Soliciting prostitutes isn’t as serious as rape, so he should be forgiven while the rapist should not.
What a nice man.
Geez, that is pretty bad… someone who’s done their time, and stays out of prison could wind up having to commit crimes at age 70 in order to eat…
I think keeping them from receiving food stamps would make ex-cons more inclined to recidivism…
3 hots & a cot when too old to work. What a retirement plan!
Probably cheaper to just give them food stamps than to imprison them. (Especially with privatized prisons skyrocketing the prices for profit)
I don’t think people think past “they don’t deserve it”… to the real reason all civilized people who want a halfway harmonious society, ought to support help for the needy… to prevent civil unrest, and discourage crimes of desperation.
You do not have to feel compassion or pity to support social programmes. You just have to be a realist actually.
Realists are even more rare than compassionate people these days.
All we seem to have in abundance in the U.S. are people obsessed with tally score cards against their fellow citizens, by which they rate by some subjective biased arbitrary means, the very value of human life itself.