Tag Archive: SNAP

Fox News’ two-pronged attack on food stamps and California

Judy Oerly gathers food she will be taking home from the Central Pantry in Columbia, Mo., on 10/4/13.

Judy Oerly gathers food she will be taking home from the Central Pantry in Columbia, Mo., on 10/4/13.

Perhaps it’s not a surprise that Fox “News” attacks the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (“SNAP”), which Fox and the Republicans refer to by its old-fashioned and perhaps derisive name “food stamps.” Perhaps it’s also not a surprise that Fox “News” attacks almost all things in the great Blue State California, from “liberal Hollywood” to progressive policies such as green energy (which, by the way, is responsible for many good California jobs.) But what might be surprising is that Fox found a way to attack both SNAP and California at the same time, via its “Food Stamp Surfer” story.

Conservatives sell selfishness

Pig at the trough, West Palm Beach, FL

Pig at the barrel, West Palm Beach, FL

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

The one-word definition of conservatism is “selfishness.” How else to explain conservatives’ (and most Republicans’) opposition to the Affordable Care Act, which will allow millions more Americans to obtain health insurance? How else to explain the Republicans’ opposition to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (“SNAP“), which feeds millions of poor children in America? Or to raising the federal minimum wage, which now sits at just half the poverty level? How else to explain Republican opposition to the extension of long-term unemployment benefits, or the GOPs zeal to cut benefits for Social Security and Medicare, which keep millions of seniors barely out of poverty? How else to explain the Repubilcans’ love affair with the draconian sequestration cuts, except when it comes to military spending?

This holiday season, as many privileged Republicans gorge themselves on a bounty of food, tax cuts and high-flying stock market investments, and many of their followers inexplicably back them up, ask them why they support such selfish conservative policies.