A Republican State Representative from Missouri recently compared providing low-income folks receiving federal health care benefits to feeding animals at the zoo.
State Rep Paul Fitzwater (R-Potosi) made the shockingly disparaging comment as part of a story on the website of a St. Louis-area CBS affiliate. The quote was buried near the end of the article, which was about a national health care organization report stating that 525,000 Missourians would be eligible for federal tax credits to receive Medicare under the Federal Affordable Care Act as of January 2014.
Rep. Paul Fitzwater
Fitzwater disagrees that Medicare should be expanded, arguing that people can become too dependent on welfare, which led to the following statement:
When you go to the zoo, there's a sign that says please don't feed the animals. There's a reason, because they keep coming back.
The analogy insinuates that low-come people who receive welfare will lack the motivation to better their lives and wean themselves out of having to receive public assistance. It's the same tired argument that Right-Wingers continuously make about poor people receiving some form of public assistance. It is a ruthless, cold-hearted mentality, and it displays a shocking lack of empathy and compassion towards those who struggle in this increasingly income-divided nation.
His presumption about why there are signs in a zoo prohibiting people from feeding animals isn't even correct. Animals in zoos have specialized diets, and if zoo spectators were allowed to feed them, it could cause them serious harm and even death if they were given the wrong kinds of food.
Furthermore, since the animals are in a zoo, held captive in a space in plain view of humans that is roughly 1/1000th the size of their natural habitats, we're not quite sure how they could "keep coming back".
Missouri already has Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin. Now they have Paul "Welfare Recipients Are Like Zoo Animals" Fitzwater.
rest at http://progressivepopulist.org/2013/04/07/republican-politician-compares-people-receiving-federal-health-care-benefits-to-feeding-zoo-animals/
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