Take a peek into the abyss,
Marlin Stutzman
Marlin Stutzman
by David Benjamin
MADISON, Wis. — Marlin Stutzman has never looked into the bright, white depths of an empty refrigerator.
I can’t say I’ve done this often in my life, but I did when I was a kid. It’s an experience that leaves an impression, especially if today is Tuesday, and the charge account at the Red Owl Store is maxed out, and you know Mom doesn’t get paid — won’t have two nickels to rub together — ‘til Friday.
Marlin Stutzman is a Social Darwinist Congressman from Indiana, who favors following up a recent $4 billion cut in food stamps to the rock-bottom poor with another $40 billion in cuts to the same luckless mass of paupers.
The first time I opened the fridge to absolutely nothing (except maybe some ketchup and a shriveled lemon), I knew I didn’t have to panic, because Grandma and Papa were ten minutes’ walk. They would gladly feed us — Peg, Bill and me — ‘til we popped. But after Mom moved to Madison, there was no such Plan B.
Of course, in Madison, we were eligible for “commodities,” the surplus food giveaways, once a month, that predated the food stamps that Rep. Stutzman wants to stamp out. Mostly, the food we got from the County was oatmeal. But there was also surplus canned beef which, when opened, revealed more gristle, fat and grease than recognizable beef. Still, you could empty the can into a skillet and fry it down for a while, then slice what was left into a couple of fatburgers to beat all fatburgers. Normally, the grease didn’t entirely clear my esophagus for three days.
The highlight of our free government food was pure Dairyland surplus — a cheddar cheese slab four-by-four and 18 inches long. This “cheese log” was often my main sustenance for weeks. One slice of it, about a quarter-inch thick, fit perfectly between two pieces of day-old Wonder Bread, providing enough calories to keep me going for 12 hours.
Clearly, when Congress enacted the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), replacing fatburgers, oatmeal and 4x4 cheese with food stamps, they made things better — and healthier — for kids like I used to be. But Rep. Stutzman thinks food stamps have gone too far. They discourage people, like my Mom, from getting jobs, and buying food without sucking on the government tit.
Speaking of Mom, she always had a job, even though she spent 12 years — while Peg, Bill and I were growing up — sucking on a government tit called Aid to Dependent Children. The reason she moved to Madison was that she could get two jobs instead of one. But both jobs together couldn’t make enough money — figuring in rent, car payments and gas, heat and electricity, non-commodity groceries, the phone, medical bills, kids’ shoes — to get herself clear of the tit.
When we turned 15, Mom stopped buying our school clothes. I had to get a job and make that money myself. On the wages I made at $1.10 an hour at Octopus Car Wash, I developed some very interesting wardrobe strategies.
But Rep. Stutzman — oh, you should check out his photo online; he looks just huggably plump and apple-cheeked! Here’s a guy who’s definitely never missed a hearty breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner. Or shrimp buffet. Or midnight snack, in front of his bulging fridge. Republicans eat real well.
But Rep. Stutzman — who deplores “government spending” while raking in 174,000 government bucks a year (or 48 times what Mom made in her best year as a daytime appliance saleslady and night-time supper club waitress) — is right on one point. This food stamp dodge is rife with fraud. I know, because Mom cheated.
Clyde, her boss at the appliance store, paid Mom in white goods, rather than cash or check. From her night job, at Leske’s, she never reported all her tip income. Of course, the reason she cheated was that, above a certain income threshold, the state subtracted a dollar in aid for every buck Mom earned, creating a sort of treadmill that made it almost impossible to escape the government’s sticky tit.
I can’t really understand why, surrounded by overweight multimillion-dollar thieves in Washington — I mean, they’re right there next to him in the U.S. Congress (look around, Marlin!) — Congressman Stutzman is so rabid about taking food away from people who hardly have any food and are broke every minute of every day. I don’t understand…
I mean, I look at gangs of Indian men pouncing on women randomly, raping them viciously, shoving iron rods into them, after which they toss their victims into a ditch and walk away laughing. And I don’t understand…
I look at sectarian zealots in Zanzibar or Afghanistan flinging acid at women they’ve never met, disfiguring them forever for the “sin” of showing their faces — their, lovely, young, blameless faces — in public. And I don’t understand…
I look at “lone gunmen” who level military-style anti-personnel weapons at innocents — men, women, children, babies — and blow them away en masse. And I look at the firearms absolutists who condone this because all actions preparatory to these sorts of mass slaughters are “protected” by the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. And I do not understand…
I look at guys like Marlin Stutzman, pudgy and prosperous, but so mean and soulless that Dickens would struggle to make him a believable villain in a Victorian novel, a guy who wants to single out the most miserable families in America for the sake of making them more miserable, and I don’t understand…
…What in God’s name is wrong with these people.
If I ever met Congressman Stutzman — who keeps himself inaccessible to the people he would turn away at the door of the supermarket — I suppose I could ask him why he’s such a ruthless, heartless, coldblooded skinflint.
Maybe we could sit down and share a cheese sandwich.
MADISON, Wis. — Marlin Stutzman has never looked into the bright, white depths of an empty refrigerator.
I can’t say I’ve done this often in my life, but I did when I was a kid. It’s an experience that leaves an impression, especially if today is Tuesday, and the charge account at the Red Owl Store is maxed out, and you know Mom doesn’t get paid — won’t have two nickels to rub together — ‘til Friday.
Marlin Stutzman is a Social Darwinist Congressman from Indiana, who favors following up a recent $4 billion cut in food stamps to the rock-bottom poor with another $40 billion in cuts to the same luckless mass of paupers.
The first time I opened the fridge to absolutely nothing (except maybe some ketchup and a shriveled lemon), I knew I didn’t have to panic, because Grandma and Papa were ten minutes’ walk. They would gladly feed us — Peg, Bill and me — ‘til we popped. But after Mom moved to Madison, there was no such Plan B.
Of course, in Madison, we were eligible for “commodities,” the surplus food giveaways, once a month, that predated the food stamps that Rep. Stutzman wants to stamp out. Mostly, the food we got from the County was oatmeal. But there was also surplus canned beef which, when opened, revealed more gristle, fat and grease than recognizable beef. Still, you could empty the can into a skillet and fry it down for a while, then slice what was left into a couple of fatburgers to beat all fatburgers. Normally, the grease didn’t entirely clear my esophagus for three days.
The highlight of our free government food was pure Dairyland surplus — a cheddar cheese slab four-by-four and 18 inches long. This “cheese log” was often my main sustenance for weeks. One slice of it, about a quarter-inch thick, fit perfectly between two pieces of day-old Wonder Bread, providing enough calories to keep me going for 12 hours.
Clearly, when Congress enacted the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), replacing fatburgers, oatmeal and 4x4 cheese with food stamps, they made things better — and healthier — for kids like I used to be. But Rep. Stutzman thinks food stamps have gone too far. They discourage people, like my Mom, from getting jobs, and buying food without sucking on the government tit.
Speaking of Mom, she always had a job, even though she spent 12 years — while Peg, Bill and I were growing up — sucking on a government tit called Aid to Dependent Children. The reason she moved to Madison was that she could get two jobs instead of one. But both jobs together couldn’t make enough money — figuring in rent, car payments and gas, heat and electricity, non-commodity groceries, the phone, medical bills, kids’ shoes — to get herself clear of the tit.
When we turned 15, Mom stopped buying our school clothes. I had to get a job and make that money myself. On the wages I made at $1.10 an hour at Octopus Car Wash, I developed some very interesting wardrobe strategies.
But Rep. Stutzman — oh, you should check out his photo online; he looks just huggably plump and apple-cheeked! Here’s a guy who’s definitely never missed a hearty breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner. Or shrimp buffet. Or midnight snack, in front of his bulging fridge. Republicans eat real well.
But Rep. Stutzman — who deplores “government spending” while raking in 174,000 government bucks a year (or 48 times what Mom made in her best year as a daytime appliance saleslady and night-time supper club waitress) — is right on one point. This food stamp dodge is rife with fraud. I know, because Mom cheated.
Clyde, her boss at the appliance store, paid Mom in white goods, rather than cash or check. From her night job, at Leske’s, she never reported all her tip income. Of course, the reason she cheated was that, above a certain income threshold, the state subtracted a dollar in aid for every buck Mom earned, creating a sort of treadmill that made it almost impossible to escape the government’s sticky tit.
I can’t really understand why, surrounded by overweight multimillion-dollar thieves in Washington — I mean, they’re right there next to him in the U.S. Congress (look around, Marlin!) — Congressman Stutzman is so rabid about taking food away from people who hardly have any food and are broke every minute of every day. I don’t understand…
I mean, I look at gangs of Indian men pouncing on women randomly, raping them viciously, shoving iron rods into them, after which they toss their victims into a ditch and walk away laughing. And I don’t understand…
I look at sectarian zealots in Zanzibar or Afghanistan flinging acid at women they’ve never met, disfiguring them forever for the “sin” of showing their faces — their, lovely, young, blameless faces — in public. And I don’t understand…
I look at “lone gunmen” who level military-style anti-personnel weapons at innocents — men, women, children, babies — and blow them away en masse. And I look at the firearms absolutists who condone this because all actions preparatory to these sorts of mass slaughters are “protected” by the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. And I do not understand…
I look at guys like Marlin Stutzman, pudgy and prosperous, but so mean and soulless that Dickens would struggle to make him a believable villain in a Victorian novel, a guy who wants to single out the most miserable families in America for the sake of making them more miserable, and I don’t understand…
…What in God’s name is wrong with these people.
If I ever met Congressman Stutzman — who keeps himself inaccessible to the people he would turn away at the door of the supermarket — I suppose I could ask him why he’s such a ruthless, heartless, coldblooded skinflint.
Maybe we could sit down and share a cheese sandwich.
No comments:
Post a Comment