I am no fan of the Daily Kos and
their fringe left-wing politics but I stumbled upon this item on their site and
thought it was an especially pungent example of hypocrisy in politics.
Congressman Stephen Fincher, a Tennessee Republican, apparently
has been making a big splash with his Bible-thumping opposition
to the government helping poor people by giving them food stamps.
Yet, Fincher collected nearly $3.5
million in payments from the Agriculture Department’s farm subsidy program from
1999 to 2012.
Researchers at the Environmental
Working Group found that Fincher, a farmer from Frog Jump, Tenn. (you can’t
make this stuff up), received about $70,000 in direct payments in 2012 alone.
This is one of those crazy price-support programs that give money to farmers
and farmland owner even if they do not grow crops.
According to Daily Kos, it’s unclear
how much Fincher received in crop insurance subsidies because the names of
people receiving the subsidies are not public.
Here’s the clincher – I guess you
could call it the Fincher clincher: He voted for $20 billion in cuts to food
stamps and the overall supplemental nutrition program over the next 10 years. He
also voted to increase the farm subsidies he’s on the receiving end of.