Republican Announces Plans To Make Poor People Starve

After more than a month of attacks from the Left about wanting to cut programs to help needy Americans, Republicans have decided to expand their efforts to go after SNAP benefits. As part of their plan to fix the debt ceiling, Republicans are now calling for revamped "work requirements" for SNAP beneficiaries, which will just give them more people to cut from the program to save a few dollars. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

For the last month and a half. Everyone on the left, including those at the very top of the Biden administration, president Biden himself, have been attacking Republicans for their desires to cut Social security and Medicare. It's an argument that has resonated with the public. They dislike these Republican plans. Uh, it's gone as far as Republicans have had to kind of pull off those plans a little bit, including Rick Scott, who kind of kickstarted the whole thing now says, no, I don't want to do that anymore. So after being attacked for a month and a half of wanting to screw over needy people in the United States, Republicans in the House of Representatives have come up with a new plan that will screw over millions of needy people here in the United States. That plan was put forth this week by Republican representative from South Dakota, dusty Johnson, and Mr.

Dusty Johnson as part of the debt ceiling negotiation, wants to cut food stamp benefits for low income Americans, and he is gonna do it by making even more strict work requirements. Even though we already have work requirements for SNAP benefits, he wants to make 'em even more strict. He also wants to make it to where states who typically make the decision whether or not to waive those work requirements or adhere to them, they have that right, you know, state's rights kind of thing that Republicans told us they loved, but he wants to do away with state's ability to waive those work requirements if they deem it necessary. So now the states are losing a little bit of autonomy under this Republican plan. Oh, and also by the way, the work requirements are for able bodied, childless individuals under the age of 50. So if you're over the age of 50, but you don't have any children, you're able bodied, you still don't have to meet those work requirements.

Well, Mr. Dusty Johnson thinks that that's hogwash, and he wants to raise that age from 50 up to the mid sixties, basically to retirement age. So if you're 65, but hey, you still got a spring in your step, you don't have any kids at home, guess what? You can't get food stamps unless you get your to work every day, says Mr. Dusty Johnson, to those elderly individuals who have probably worked their entire lives, the percent of able-bodied, childless people receiving food stamp benefits, who, uh, are considered, you know, able-bodied under 50 don't have kids and not working, uh, 13% and there's 20 million people on food stamps here in the United States. So only 13% of 'em would be cut off the program under

Mr. Johnson's plan here. But that's still what I think 2.25 million Americans who cannot make enough money to support themselves do not make enough money to buy food. Owen, for the record, this is the kicker. The average food stamp benefit here in the United States averages less than $300 per month, but that is what Republicans led by Mr. Dusty Johnson want to cut so that we can get this whole debt ceiling thing straightened out and we can cut spending so we can spend it on other more important things like handing the Pentagon 900 billion every 12 months. We can't afford to give 2 million people $300 a month so that they can eat and survive, but 900 billion a year for the Pentagon. Yeah, sure.