Beleaguered Republican Congressman Scott DesJarlais is being primaried by political newcomer Grant Starrett in Tennessee, and the latest line of attack involves a potentially controversial vote DesJarlais made involving food stamps.
From a release by the Starrett campaign:
Scott DesJarlais voted for more than $700 billion in Food Stamps over the next ten years – a major problem not just because of its cost to taxpayers, but its effect on recipients. Food stamps is one of the terrible examples of the federal government discouraging work and disincentivizing marriage. We need to stand for jobs, not welfare, and the government needs to stop distorting the American family.
In 2014, Politico asked whether Desjarlais was “The Biggest Hypocrite in Congress?” before going on to praise his political acumen for getting re-elected despite his past.
NASHVILLE—Two abortions. Maybe three, if you count the one he pressured a girlfriend—who happened to be his patient—to get. Pulling out a gun during an argument with his first wife. Prescribing pills to another patient while they dated. Getting reprimanded by the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners for dallying with patients, an ethics violation
For now, Starrett appears to be keeping to the issues in attacking DesJarlais, which may play better in Tennessee’s solidly Republican 4th Congressional District.
Conservatives had some great success in reforming welfare in the 1990s, but liberals in both parties have expanded alternative programs, most notoriously Food Stamps, that gut those essential reforms. Nearly half of all Food Stamp recipients are on the program for more than eight years – a sorry tribute to two terms of President Barack Obama.
The last reason we should be accumulating debt is to turn America’s safety net into a hammock. And yet that’s exactly what Congressman DesJarlais is borrowing from China for. In fact, in 2014, Tennessee sent $56 billion in taxes to Washington, D.C., and then the federal government turned around and spent all of that and more on Food Stamps. Let’s stop the madness.”
Starrett is up with a website expressly hitting DesJarlais on the food stamps issue.
Scott DesJarlais voted for $700 BILLION in Food Stamps, now one of the fastest growing and top 5 largest entitlement programs. In $5 bills, that would cover the entire playing surface of the football field at Floyd Stadium and stack 97 feet high!
The Obama administration admitted to meeting approximately 30 times between 2009-2012 with the Mexican government to specifically promote Food Stamps and other programs to non-U.S. citizens.
Approximately 1.6 million non-U.S. citizens were on Food Stamps in 2012, quadrupling from 2001.
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