Food stamps can lift our economy right out of recession according to the peculiar thinking of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Next thing you know, she’ll believe that unemployment insurance will make our economy boom. Whoops, she believes that, too. Speaker—but obviously not thinker—Pelosi provided this bizarre analysis Oct. 6 of what the country needs to pull us back to good times.
With her usual smile glued to her face, Pelosi was responding to comments made by former Republican House leader Newt Gingrich. He had urged Republican candidates to make the November election a fight “between the Democratic Party of food stamps and the Republican Party of paychecks.” Pelosi, in an appearance in her home District in San Francisco, blurted out: “It is the biggest bang for the buck when you do food stamps and unemployment insurance,” according to a Politico story Oct. 7.
This twisted thought-train comes from the woman who is just two heartbeats away from the Presidency (at least until her likely replacement if the Republicans win the House majority in November). Pelosi’s knowledge of economic matters is so substantial she once called natural gas “a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels,” oblivious to the fact that natural gas is a fossil fuel. In early March, smiling Nancy said about the ObamaCare law, “We have to pass it to find out what’s in it,” apparently unaware of how revealing as well as irresponsible this was. As for the Bush tax cuts, “I don’t think we can wait until they expire. That’s the biggest contributor to the national debt,” she groused. Really? The New England Journal of Medicine carried an article estimating the Obama universal health plan would contribute to the debt $40 trillion over the next decade. Social Security’s unfunded liability is $17.4 trillion. Some wondered how Pelosi’s brain works when she appeared before a group of illegal immigrants telling them that enforcement of immigration laws is “un-American.”
As the eighth richest member of Congress, Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t know a food stamp card from one of what must be many credit cards in her wallet. Nancy Pelosi’s family net worth is at least $25 million, primarily from investments. Capitalist pig?
In addition to a large portfolio of San Francisco Bay Area real estate, which she and her husband own jointly, the couple owns a vineyard valued at between $5 million and $25 million. A cut above the typical person on food stamps.
Fourteen percent of America’s older women reported needing physical therapy, and 13 percent reported needing in-home assistance from a visiting nurse, according to the Women’s Health and Aging Study. But Pelosi—if rattle-brained–seems more than physically fit. She demonstrates this comically during President Obama’s speeches to joint sessions of Congress by bouncing up, like a bird in a coo-coo clock, clapping frenetically again and again, a grin stretching her facial skin whenever Obama mentions a spending proposal.
Mrs. Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, reportedly put their final fingerprints on the $787 billion stimulus package. The legislation, stealthily embodied in more than a thousand pages was passed by Congress 19 hours later with doubts that any member of our legislative branch had time or conscience to read it. In January 2009, Mrs. Pelosi had vowed there would be no earmarks in the then-upcoming stimulus legislation. “I can pledge to you that no earmark or any of that, any description you want to make of it, will be in the bill that passes the House,” she declared on CNN. The stimulus law had more earmarks than a chicken has feathers, including $4.2 billion for ACORN, the array of vote-solicitation organizations charged with voter fraud in 14 states, and a provision for a National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, intended to make sure seniors get what health care is appropriate, but “cost effective.” That’s called rationing.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported Oct. 7 that about 42 million people get an adequately nutritional diet on food stamps, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) at a cost of $56 billion. Unlike most means-tested benefit programs, SNAP is broadly available to almost all households with low incomes—of about 130 percent above the poverty line, or about $23,000.
Now New York State and City are asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the food stamp program, to let NYC bar the use of food stamps to buy sweet beverages, such as most sodas. It might make people fat. So, while Nancy Pelosi weirdly believes that food stamps can bring the economy back to life, New York bureaucrats want Uncle Sam to tell poor people they can’t buy soft drinks. Will somebody please listen to Newt Gingrich and those who know what’s really important to the economy—paychecks.
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