Tuesday, May 21, 2013

TN rep gets $3.5M in handouts, but says food stamp recipients 'stealing other peoples' money'

Is he smiling because he
has a check in his pocket?
Oh this is rich. U.S. Rep. Stephen Fincher, a Tennessee Republican, gladly cashed $3.48 million in taxpayer-funded farm subsidies between 1999 and 2012.

Then, during a House Agriculture Committee debate, he spoke against the food stamp program, which feeds 47 million (Now there's a scandal) hungry Americans:
We are all here on this committee making decisions about other people’s money. We have to remember there is not a big printing press in Washington that continually prints money over and over.  This is other people’s money that Washington is appropriating and spending.
The Environmental Working Group reported on Fincher's own theft of other people's money:
Fincher collected a staggering $3.48 million in “our” money from 1999 to 2012. In 2012 alone, the congressman was cut a government check for a $70,000 direct payment. Direct payments are issued automatically, regardless of need, and go predominantly to the largest, most profitable farm operations in the country. 
Fincher’s $70,000 farm subsidy haul in 2012 dwarfs the average 2012 SNAP benefit in Tennessee of $1,586.40, and it is nearly double of Tennessee’s median household income. After voting to cut SNAP by more than $20 billion, Fincher joined his colleagues to support a proposal to expand crop insurance subsidies by $9 billion over the next 10 years.
Tennessee, what were you thinking when you elected this guy?