Let The Poor Starve

3254449443_01ff48e7e0_oOn a recent episode of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”, a contributor for Forbes’ has called for the complete abolishing of the food stamp program and allow those who are on the program to starve. John Tamny told “The Daily Show” correspondent Jessica Williams that it would create an outpouring of support from private charities.

I don’t think anyone is happy if they are relying on someone else. I think if people were literally starving, you would see a massive outpouring of charity.

When Jessica Williams asked him what he thought starving looked like, he acknowledged that what he was about to say would be taken badly, but he said it anyway.

This is going to come off the wrong way, but I guess it’s where literally people have distended bellies where they’re getting almost nothing. We don’t hear about the poor in this country starving on the streets.

All right… Has he ever even seen actual starving people like that? I have. I worked as a caregiver for a man who could not eat and was literally starving himself because of stomach cancer, and it is a horrid thing to see face to face. It is heart-wrenching and it breaks my heart to even remember. How can you advocate something like that? There is no soul, no heart in this man’s words, at all!

We don’t hear about the poor in this country starving on the streets.

Sure. That’s why there aren’t laws in some states nowadays that bans people from bringing food and money to the homeless and starving in our streets. That’s why there is a series in the NY Times called “Invisible Child: Dasani’s Homeless Life“. Yeah, we never hear of any of this! When I was in Indianapolis when I was seventeen years old on a youth trip there was a woman and her four or five children who were sitting on a corner, begging for food or money. This was in 2007, during the height of the recession, and they were not the only ones.

If you’re going to be poor, this is the country you want to be poor in.

Yep. Sure. That’s why we have millions who are starving, who are homeless, and who are hungry. We are now the most unequal of all advanced economies. But this is the country to be poor in! He then goes on to claim that he has not heard of any programs that are out there to keep people from starving. There are multiple programs that are privately funded; there are churches, and there are government programs. The thing is, churches and private charities could not handle the demand that would happen. There are millions who are hungry in this country, yet he says an outpouring of private charity would occur. Sure.

 

Edited by DH.