How are they going to vote Democrat if they don’t need nanny government?
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ed FitzGerald condemned Gov. John Kasich’s new requirement that about 140,000 “able-bodied” food-stamp recipients work or lose their benefits, a sentiment echoed by a top official at the Mid-Ohio Foodbank.
“That decision … was devastating to those individual families,” FitzGerald said after touring the Grove City facility, where Kasich signed his latest budget bill in June.
“I thought it was done for political reasons,” the Cuyahoga County executive said. “It was not the compassionate thing to do; it was not even the rational thing to do.”
The Mid-Ohio vice president who gave FitzGerald an hour-long tour, Marilyn J. Tomasi, also criticized the cuts.
“You can’t knock 134,000 people off benefits and not figure out where they’re going to go, because they’re going to be hungry,” Tomasi said, citing the state’s original estimate. “This is a huge issue with us. … We are working hard to get a reversal on that.”[…]
The Kasich campaign stands behind the decision.
“The governor believes in the work requirement for able-bodied adult individuals who have no dependent children and who are physically and mentally capable of working,” said Kasich campaign spokeswoman Connie Wehrkamp.
“To continue to receive the SNAP benefit, these individuals are simply asked to engage in some work activity, be it job training, volunteer work, searching for a job — and all these activities are designed to help them get back on their feet and out of the cycle of poverty.”