Gordon Howie bemoans the expansion of food stamps and taxes under the governorship of his fellow Republicans Dennis Daugaard and Marion Michael Rounds.
Just short of 100,000 South Dakotans are signed up, over 11%.
…Perhaps you have also noticed the several hundred Million dollars in annual tax increases during the tenure of these two Governors. Be sure to thank them (or yourself) for that too… if you think it’s a good thing [Gordon Howie, “Food Stamp Recipients in South Dakota,” The Right Side, 2017.04.06].
Alas, Howie envisions no way to change the problems for which he seems to blame his party:
You will soon have the opportunity to elect someone new to this office. My guess is that it will be another Republican. I would also guess not much will change [Howie, 2017.04.06].
Alas, the fatalism of fundagelicals! Turn that frown upside down, Gordon, and do something more about your woes than praying to be raptured away from them:
- If Republicans are causing your problems, stop voting Republicans.
- If people can’t afford food, vote for Democrats who support better wages and a repeal of the food tax.
- If tax increases are getting your goat, vote for Democrats who support steady, ongoing investments in schools and roads instead waiting until there’s a crisis that requires massive tax increases to address.
See, Gordon? Problems aren’t hard to solve, if you put down your culture-war prejudices and look for real solutions.
Yep. GOP’ers have this image that ALL food stamp recipients are just drug using sloths, laying on the couch all day with their Obama phones. Are there people abusing food stamps? Of course there are. But it is a very very low percentage of those folks.
The huge majority of food stamp recipients are working. Some, two jobs or more. But because the wages are so low, especially in South Dakota, these working poor rely on food stamps to put food on their table. So yes, taxpayers, you are subsidizing the likes of Walmart, McDonald’s, etc….all businesses that are not paying a living wage.
What will it take to get this through people’s heads?
Totally agree Cory and I’d expand on this by including corruption like EB-5 and Gear-Up.
I’ve been reading about the efforts to investigate the corruption in our state and I have to commend Stace Nelson and a few others on their efforts to find out what’s going on.
However, it’s the Republicans that are responsible for what has happened, Not RINOS, but Republicans.
If the people of South Dakota really want a chance at change then it’s time to “drain the swamp” and give Democrats a chance.
Until these Republicans are voted out nothing, and I mean nothing, will change.
Great post Dana.
Mickey D and WalMart had officials in their stores advising new hires to file for food stamps and Medicaid because korporate amerika is too cheap to pay a living wage.
From 1947 to 1979 workers wages rose 122%. Since Raygoonomics came along the 1% pay has increased 270% while worker’s pay has remained stagnant.
So be typical wingnuts and blame the poor for not having been born rich.
It seems that Howie should be a little more concerned about the $23 million Trump has spent in the past 10 weeks for his golfing in Florida. Can you imagine what that figure will be after four years in office. Hopefully Trumps excessive travel expenses will come under review by the congress and senate.
President Obama’s travel costs after 8 years in office was $97 million.
Republicans like Howie also continually ignore the billions of dollars the government pays the 1% in the form of tax breaks and subsidies (including farm subsidies).
I’d much rather see people eat than pay for presidential golf weekends.
You’re forgetting that republicans are basically lizard people. Everyone else is simply prey.
There’s no way our current congresscritters will do anything to cast a bad light on Kim Il Don.
Our only hope is a wholesale house cleaning in 2018 and adding to it in 2020.
Gordo is a typical racist who thinks that the food stamps only go to Indians. Some ag guy or gal out to throttle this nuisance and tell him the importance of the program for their dwindling bottom line. They might also mention that veterans (all colors and genders) as well as white folks ( all shades and genders) utilize the program to keep from starving to death. Dude should run for governor again, that should be good for another laugh.
Drumpf is golfing again this weekend after he ordered missile strike.
I don’t think Drumpf Dump South accepts SNAP cards, only Mastercard and Visa.
Mr. Howie, who defined the term “insaner than most” during his failed run for Governor and for which he still owes money back to grudznick, is the top cog in the fringe crazies who hate the billboards that record your eye movements when you drive past and for whom every gun law is a good law if it says guns. Mr. Nelson, as naive as he is, is one of Mr. Howie’s key operatives. I used to be welcome in Mr. Howie’s headquarters but now they are so paranoid they seem to be sifting into league with those fellows down by Pringle. It is going to get more and more insaner, people, mark grudznick’s words.
We can all agree, Mr. Howie is an overgodder who is insaner than most.
The problem I find with conservatives’ economics is that it is fact-free. It’s as if Howie was born yesterday, and never lived through the Great Republican Recession.
That 11 percent on SNAP benefits is actually down from 13 percent in 2013. When the economy tanks, and people lose one of their two jobs or, perhaps both, either you let your children starve, or you go on SNAP. When you gain back employment, you go off SNAP. Duh!!!!
You will also remember that Rounds two terms and Daugaards first term coincided with the downturn. The first year or two of the downturn, the federal government was able to help out by providing more money to state budgets hit by the downturn. Then we got Republican stupidity at the federal level, so states had to cut budgets and increase taxes to make ends meet during the slow return to normal economic conditions.
South Dakota doesn’t have an income tax, so all that money made on investments by South Dakota’s millionaires as the markets improved never made it to state coffers.
@cah: “If tax increases are getting your goat, vote for Democrats who support steady, ongoing investments in schools and roads instead waiting until there’s a crisis that requires massive tax increases to address.”
Because dying a death of a thousand cuts is always better.
Voting republican will get you death every time in the harshest way possible. I think I would take the thousand cuts over waterboarding, hanging by the arms or legs, sleep deprivation, starvation too name a few and then the all time republican favorite, electric shock to the privates and I ain’t talking rank here either.
Those thousand cuts bring about social blessings that help all of us, rich or poor. The Democratic vision is one of economic bonanza that give equality for all, regardless of gender or race.
Thousand cuts? Ha! Vote Democrat, and you get sustainable ongoing investment in public goods that increase opportunity and quality of life steadily and avoid more expensive crises. Solving problems a little bit at a time is always cheaper.