OMG, some poor people have air conditioning and mobile phones

I am shocked—shocked!—to learn from FOX News duo John Stossel and Elizabeth Hasselbeck that poor people are living in air conditioned luxury, yakking on their cell phones, while collecting public assistance benefits.

It gets worse, according to Stossel, some of the poor even have cars and televisions and who knows what else. This is the “ugly side of entitlements,” according to libertarian Stossel and right-winger Hasslebeck.

Yes siree, this is as bad as Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens” driving up in their chauffeured limos to the liquor store to spend their welfare checks.

The hell of people like Stossel and Hasslebeck is that there are folks—too many—who fall for the garbage they spew.

Yes, there are welfare cheats. There are middle class cheats, too. But the biggest cheats of all are the rich who suck up the biggest government handouts—welfare labeled subsidies—offshore their money in tax havens and demand lower tax rates for the relatively few bucks they ante up in taxes.

Doggone, I keep forgetting the immortal words of the late Leona Helmsley, “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.”

So the poor “little people,” who have no jobs because the rich people offshored them to places where they can pay workers even less and make bigger profits without paying taxes on those profits as long as they keep them in offshore tax havens, are merely lazy leeches, according to Stossel and Hasslebeck. The poor should be grateful if they have a refrigerator box to live in under a bridge, not luxuriating in air conditioned digs with cell phones and televisions. No free stuff for them, as though it’s free for most of them who helped pay for it when they had jobs. It’s called a social safety net, not entitlements. Only the rich have entitlements and believe they are entitled whatever they want at the expense of us all.

Stossel wants to stigmatize those who seek public assistance or turn up a food banks. “It used to be a stigma to take a hand out,” he said. Such a loving guy. Hey, stigmas used to attach to many things—cancer, mental illness, divorce, unwed mothers—and, depending on where you live, still do. So let’s shame all the down and out who are down and out through no fault of their own.

Of course, it wouldn’t occur to Stossel if he took away the air conditioning some poor folks have, they would wind up in hospital emergency rooms or die during a heat wave. Take away their cell phones, too, and they can’t call for an ambulance if they become ill or a fire truck if their dwelling is on fire. I suppose he also would deny them heat in the winter if they’re lucky enough to still have a roof over their heads. As it is, many die or wind up in the ER because of lack of cooling in the summer or heat in the winter, and I am not speaking of just the homeless who try to survive on the streets. That costs a lot more than air conditioners or cell phones. But to the Stossels and Hasselbecks in the US, it’s principle over cost, therefore, the poor must suffer in every way possible for being poor.

The poor who need help receive a fraction of what is handed out to the rich welfarites.

And Barack Obama has the gall to say America is an exceptional country. It’s exceptional all right in all the wrong ways.

Bev Conover is the editor and publisher of Intrepid Report. Email her at editor@intrepidreport.com.