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Stone the heretic!
Via Daily Caller:
You might think MSNBC is a pretty friendly venue for Democratic politicians, and usually you’d be right. But woe unto the Democrat who strays even slightly from the progressive line — as Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow found out the hard way Tuesday afternoon. […]
“To have credibility, I said, ‘Of course’ that I would address fraud and misuse,” she said. “And here’s what we did: If you have less than $20 in help for heating assistance in the year — less than $20 — then the system will go back to an old system where you have to actually produce a utility bill to get a credit for a utility bill.”
“You cannot justify somebody who is getting a dollar in heating assistance help, to give them a $50 credit for a utility bill that they don’t have,” she explained. “And if we’re going to protect and fight for additional help — which is what I want, to provide additional help for people in Michigan and across the country — we have to be credible and be willing to say ‘Yep, you’re right’ when there’s something happening that is just not right.”
Heresy! “Senator, let me interrupt you for a second,” Wagner said. “You used the words ‘fraud and abuse’ when we’re talking about a program that is giving people who are poor enough to qualify for food stamps more money to put food on the table. … The narrative here, that people who are on government assistance are somehow fraudulent or engaged in fraudulent behavior has become a very powerful meme on the right.”
“And I worry,” she continued, “when I hear Democrats talk about — whether it was a loophole or whether it was a special dispensation — but categorizing that as fraud somehow maligns people who are incredibly needy and who were using this money to eat! And I guess I just want to just get your response to that.”