Fox News doesn’t just want to cut back on food stamps, they want to demonize those on food stamps as “takers.” The underlying message? Having them go hungry is good for the country. This, by the way, is the segment that prompted Jon Stewart’s epic response - which you can also watch here.
At the beginning of the segment, host Eric Bolling sneered, “It sure looks like the liberals in charge want us to pay for their entitlement lifestyle.”
Panelist Michelle Fields picked up the “food is an undeserved luxury for the takers” and ran with it. “We no longer live in a free society. Instead, we live in a society where everyone expects everything to be free. …The (food stamp) program is what’s the problem. It’s too big. We shouldn’t be regulating it, we should be cutting down the program. We spent $80 billion last year on food stamps. Twenty percent of American households are on food stamps. It’s out of control. …We have all of these people who are unemployed, we’re incentivizing people to stay home and live off of the government.”
“Right,” Bolling agreed.
According to the American Prospect, for every dollar spent on food stamps, $1.60 - $1.80 is put back into the economy. Also, the Prospect notes that cutting food stamps won’t trim the deficit, and that fraud is an imaginary problem. Yet none of that was mentioned on this so-called “business” show.
You’ll notice that in the middle, Bolling paused to answer back Jon Stewart. We’ve got the backstory on that here. Watch Stewart’s masterful evisceration of Bolling and the whole Fox News war on the poor below, underneath the Fox segment.
By the way, Bolling answered back Stewart again today. Stay tuned for an update!
Video below from the March 8, 2014 Cashin' In.