Cross-posted at immizen.com.
Even if old news, it’s always news on Faux News:
Fox News love their Joe the Plumber and now they love their anti-hero “Surfer Dude Jason”. Tell me if you think he is representative of those people who are getting food stamps?
On March 13th, 2014, almost six months after they first profiled their lobster eating food stamp recipient surfer dude, Fox News interviewed the guy again, to make the point that welfare is wasting tax payer’s money. They had 6 months to find some other slacker but they come back with the same old story. Well, what's to be expected from Faux News, right? The stories are about Jason Greenslate, a San Diego surfer, who buys sushi and lobster with a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program debit card. Greenslate plays in a rock band and laughed at the idea of getting a normal job.
I am not linking to the Fox News page. I don’t want to send traffic to their website, so I suggest to google for “Jason Greenslate” and read the summaries, or read other articles in a different legitimate news outlet referring to it.
So Faux News found one guy misusing food stamps, and that's why we should not help all the other people that need them? And there are more like this surfer dude but for every one of them there are hundreds who actually need the help. 45% of food stamp recipients are children. Of the 36% non-elderly, non-disabled adults receiving food stamps, 22% are parents with children. Why not try to visualize the faces of those children who were not lucky enough to be born into an affluent family but instead have parents who are out of work and can't afford to buy food?
If we focus on who misuses the system, why does Faux News not care to report about "welfare for the wealthy", such as tax loopholes for oil companies? Do companies that make billions in profit need that kind of help from the government? Like the surfer dude, no they don't, but the surfer dude is milking the system for a few hundred Dollars a year, while for example the oil industry is withholding millions in tax dollars that could help pay down the US debt.