Moneybox

Do SNAP Recipients Dream of Welfare Sheep?

The dream crushers.

Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images

The Washington Post has an article on Paul Ryan’s efforts to rebrand himself as an anti-poverty crusader that lands way up there on the unintentional comedy scale. All of Ryan’s ideas to help the poor seem to involve taking money away from low-income people in order to reduce taxes on the rich. But Bishop Shirley Holloway is on hand to explain why this makes sense:

“Paul wants people to dream again,” Holloway said of Ryan. “You don’t dream when you’ve got food stamps.”

Scott Winship, a conservative policy analyst who’s working with Ryan’s staff concede that this kind of thing “makes Republicans look like they’re just punishing poor people,” which in my experience is a common side-effect of punishing poor people.