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GOP Hypocrisy


icanthearyou

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Cut government spending? Americans need to be more self-reliant? How about your family Joni? Give back the government subsidies and then, maybe we can have a serious discussion.

http://www.inquisitr.com/1777070/joni-ernst-on-welfare-gop-senators-family-took-460000-in-taxpayer-handouts/

Joni Ernst, the new Republican senator from Iowa who delivered the GOP response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech Tuesday night, called in her address for cuts in government spending and described how her views grew out of her own “simple” upbringing, one in which her family diligently watched ever scarce penny, to the point where she owned only one pair of shoes.

But an investigation of public records by the Washington D.C.-based District Sentinel online news site showed that between 1995 and 2009, Ernst’s family received nearly a half-million dollars in government handouts, payments targeted toward subsidizing farms with taxpayer funds.

“I had only one good pair of shoes. So on rainy school days, my mom would slip plastic bread bags over them to keep them dry,” Ernst described in her State of the Union rebuttal Tuesday.

“But I was never embarrassed. Because the school bus would be filled with rows and rows of young Iowans with bread bags slipped over their feet. Our parents may not have had much, but they worked hard for what they did have.”

The address sounded many of the same themes used by Ernst in her election campaign in 2014, one which featured an advertisement depicting Ernst castrating a pig, as she declared that because her family learned to “live within our means,” the federal government should “do the same.”

But the District Sentinel investigation showed that Ernst’s own father, Richard Culver, received $38,395 in taxpayer handouts, almost all of which went to corn subsidies. The Iowa senator’s uncle, Dallas Culver, made out even better, soaking up almost $370,000 in federal agriculture subsidies.

The total subsidies enjoyed by members of Joni Ersnt’s family came in upwards of $460,000.

Ernst failed to mention her own family’s reliance on government assistance in her speech touting the virtues of self-reliance. According to Media Matters for America, no major media outlets that covered her speech made note of her family’s willingness to benefit from government spending, at the same time that Ersnt called for the new, Republican congress to “cut wasteful spending.”

CNN, for example, highlighted Ernst’s “hardscrabble upbringing,” while NBC News told how the 44-year-old Joni Ernst “brushed aside the president’s call for higher taxes on the wealthy, vowing that Republicans would cut wasteful spending and propose meaningful tax reforms.”

The Wall Street Journal even criticized Joni Ernst for not calling for enough cuts to “wasteful spending,” noting that her outspoken opposition to “federal government subsidies” was a big factor in earning her election to the Senate.

But neither the Journal nor any of the other major media outlets made note of the fact that the family of Joni Ernst herself would have benefited from exactly such “federal government subsidies.”

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The average American would feel better if those receiving govt benefits WORKED for a living like the farmers mentioned.....Just sayin'.....

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The average American would feel better if those receiving govt benefits WORKED for a living like the farmers mentioned.....Just sayin'.....

If my grandmother could work then Yes, I would feel ALOT better that she was not getting government assistance.

Are going to tell me that nobody in your family has received government assistance in the last 50 years?

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The subsidies given to farmers in this country are a thorny issue. But they weren't exactly living the high life here. Her immediate family got an average of $2500 or so per year during this time period. Her uncle got about $25k per year. And those aren't "pure profit" numbers. The subsidies ostensibly are to make up the difference in what various crops yield on the market vs a "minimum price" for a crop that the gov't sets. So for instance if it costs you $6 a bushel to raise a crop, but the market is only paying $5 and the minimum set by the gov't is $7, you didn't clear $2 a bushel from these subsidies. A dollar of the money you got just covered costs and you made a $1 in profit per bushel.

Obviously those are simplistic numbers and I don't know the specifics of her situation. But even $25,000 a year is not going to catapult anyone into the easy life. I'm just not sure I see the big "gotcha" here.

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Well, it sounded like she was assuming the humble, "boot straps" sort of myth.

That may be true enough, but Republicans as a rule are loathe to admit the government should ever play a role in helping people who are hard-working and deserving.

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Well, it sounded like she was assuming the humble, "boot straps" sort of myth.

That may be true enough, but Republicans as a rule are loathe to admit the government should ever play a role in helping people who are hard-working and deserving.

True enough, though I think more of the rank and file Republican views a subsidy given to a hard working person differently than they do a welfare payment to an able-bodied/able-minded yet chronically unemployed person. Or someone who does end up making out like a bandit on gov't goodies.

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Well, it sounded like she was assuming the humble, "boot straps" sort of myth.

That may be true enough, but Republicans as a rule are loathe to admit the government should ever play a role in helping people who are hard-working and deserving.

Speaking as a conservative...I, and every conservative I know, are willing to help the needy. It's the lazy bums on the dole we have issues with...
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Well, it sounded like she was assuming the humble, "boot straps" sort of myth.

That may be true enough, but Republicans as a rule are loathe to admit the government should ever play a role in helping people who are hard-working and deserving.

True enough, though I think more of the rank and file Republican views a subsidy given to a hard working person differently than they do a welfare payment to an able-bodied/able-minded yet chronically unemployed person. Or someone who does end up making out like a bandit on gov't goodies.

Very well stated. Agree
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The subsidies given to farmers in this country are a thorny issue. But they weren't exactly living the high life here. Her immediate family got an average of $2500 or so per year during this time period. Her uncle got about $25k per year. And those aren't "pure profit" numbers. The subsidies ostensibly are to make up the difference in what various crops yield on the market vs a "minimum price" for a crop that the gov't sets. So for instance if it costs you $6 a bushel to raise a crop, but the market is only paying $5 and the minimum set by the gov't is $7, you didn't clear $2 a bushel from these subsidies. A dollar of the money you got just covered costs and you made a $1 in profit per bushel.

Obviously those are simplistic numbers and I don't know the specifics of her situation. But even $25,000 a year is not going to catapult anyone into the easy life. I'm just not sure I see the big "gotcha" here.

There isn't one. A very poorly researched article.

By 1995 Ernst would have been 25 years old. I would imagine this was well beyond her "bagged shoes" days and school bus rides. :dunno: Add in the author's failure to compute simple math or have a basic understanding of farm subsidy's and it get's worse.

My sympathy to the author......well, maybe not.

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Well, it sounded like she was assuming the humble, "boot straps" sort of myth.

That may be true enough, but Republicans as a rule are loathe to admit the government should ever play a role in helping people who are hard-working and deserving.

Link please!
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The deference between most conservatives and liberals is conservatives give to charities out of their incomes ,liberals tax others to give to charities.

Would be funny if it were not so very true...
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The deference between most conservatives and liberals is conservatives give to charities out of their incomes ,liberals tax others to give to charities.

And right wing nuts post random things in threads because they can't carry on a conversation.

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This strikes a nerve in my neck of the woods. The local news publishes the amount local farmers get in subsidies. I don't recall seeing it in the last few years. But it was in the millions. And these are big timers who spend probably six figures a year competing in tractor pulls.

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I remember seeing a while back that a majority of farm subsidies go to the big boys who could most certainly do fine without them. Subsidies are price distortions, plain and simple, and need to be severely overhauled if not eliminated.

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Well, it sounded like she was assuming the humble, "boot straps" sort of myth.

That may be true enough, but Republicans as a rule are loathe to admit the government should ever play a role in helping people who are hard-working and deserving.

Speaking as a conservative...I, and every conservative I know, are willing to help the needy. It's the lazy bums on the dole we have issues with...

Surly you don't think there are people that love giving assistance to people that abuse the system????????

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Well, it sounded like she was assuming the humble, "boot straps" sort of myth.

That may be true enough, but Republicans as a rule are loathe to admit the government should ever play a role in helping people who are hard-working and deserving.

Speaking as a conservative...I, and every conservative I know, are willing to help the needy. It's the lazy bums on the dole we have issues with...

Surly you don't think there are people that love giving assistance to people that abuse the system????????

I think there are people who more or less turn a blind eye to it if it means hanging on to a reliable voting bloc. Then there are others that while not that cynical, consistently vote against measures that would bring more accountability to the system.

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The deference between most conservatives and liberals is conservatives give to charities out of their incomes ,liberals tax others to give to charities.

And right wing nuts post random things in threads because they can't carry on a conversation.

Touchy, I can debate anything you would like and not resort to name calling, because Im sure we can agree once the discussion has resorted to that level worthwhile duscussion has ended.

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The deference between most conservatives and liberals is conservatives give to charities out of their incomes ,liberals tax others to give to charities.

And right wing nuts post random things in threads because they can't carry on a conversation.

Touchy, I can debate anything you would like and not resort to name calling, because Im sure we can agree once the discussion has resorted to that level worthwhile duscussion has ended.

I second that
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Myself being a farmer(cattle farmer that does not receive gov. benefits)I don't see the need for farmers to continue getting these subsidies in todays markets.There are insurance programs for loses that occur.Also being a conservative how anyone could look at the trillons of dollars of debt the gov. has built up and not be worried about it is beyond me.I think the less gov. we have the better off we all would be.It's time to cut spending at every level and everywhere.I do not support welfare on any level,but cooperate welfare is the worst to me.

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Myself being a farmer(cattle farmer that does not receive gov. benefits)I don't see the need for farmers to continue getting these subsidies in todays markets.There are insurance programs for loses that occur.Also being a conservative how anyone could look at the trillons of dollars of debt the gov. has built up and not be worried about it is beyond me.I think the less gov. we have the better off we all would be.It's time to cut spending at every level and everywhere.I do not support welfare on any level,but cooperate welfare is the worst to me.

Aren't those insurance programs backed by the government and therefore, another form of a subsidy?

Wouldn't that mean that, ultimately zero government is optimal?

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