Wisconsin To 15,000 Poors: Let Them Eat Bootstraps
Durr durr durr.
Oh, Wisconsin. Remember when you were simply a reliable purveyor of fine, plentiful cheeses, copious amounts of beer, and more sausage than Eggplant Fridays? Ah, the (fried curd) salad days.
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Nowadays, thanks to Gov. Scott Walker Derpsocket up there, Wisconsin is less the Beer, Sausage, and Cheese Coma State than it is the How Many Ways Can We Fuck Over the Poors State, and a recent food stamps law has continued the longstanding trend. In the first three months after its passage, a law requiring able-bodied adult food stamps recipients without kids at home to either work 80 hours a month or spend the same amount of time "looking for work" (however the hell that's even defined under this law) has caused nearly 15,000 Wisconsin residents to lose their food stamps.
State Rep. Mark Born (R-His Own Butt), chairman of the state Assembly's committee on public benefit reform, had the following to say about the news, and Wisconsin's FoodShare Employment and Training program (FSET):
"The FSET program was created to help guide able-bodied adults back into the workforce, or put them on the path to gainful employment while remaining on FoodShare," he said in a statement. "So far we have seen thousands of individuals follow the FSET program and secure employment as a result. It is important we continue to enact reforms and transition people from reliance on government to independence."
Just one problem: The bit where he's like "FSET is going awesome!" is just a weensy bit of total bullshit. FSET, which as you may have gathered is designed to find Food Stamps recipients work, isn't so great at the "finding people work" part of its job description. Just 7 percent of recipients in Milwaukee County (where half of able-bodied adult food stamps recipients live) have actually been placed in jobs. So there's that.
It's good that in this time of fiscal belt-tightening, the state's clearly dire budget still found room for $400 million for an arena for the sportsballs, though. I hear layups are very nutritious, so that should help people who can't afford to eat now.
If you're poor, you're disposable. Poor people don't deserve anything, not even teeth and glasses. It's even worse if you are poor and old, or poor and disabled. Poor and homeless is the absolute bottom of the barrel.
Is that why Governor Jindal took the $250 million left over from the corrupt Hurricane Katrina recovery program and gave it to the Super Dome?