Congressman: You're Doing Something Wrong If You Need Government Aid

During a House Budget Committee hearing Wednesday, Sister Simone Campbell, a Catholic nun and executive director of NETWORK, a Catholic social justice lobby, testified to lawmakers about the effectiveness of government subsidized welfare programs. In a response to her pleas, Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI) asked, "What is the church doing wrong that they have to come to the government to get so much help?"

Ribble's ridiculous indictment of Campbell and the Catholic Church for failing to fix poverty on their own came only a few weeks after he gleefully voted "aye" to make devastating cuts to the Food Stamp program for 46.6 million low-income people, half of them children, while maintaining farm bill subsidies for fatcat agri-business collectivists who are expected to reap almost a trillion dollars from taxpayers from the House Farm Bill over the next ten years.

Think Progress Excerpt:
In his opening statement, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) claimed that in America, “If you work hard and play by the rules, you can get ahead.” Ryan’s comments, combined with Ribble’s, invoked an old conservative stereotype of the lazy, unemployed welfare recipient, living off of government funding instead of working for her family’s well-being. Under their logic, those who receive welfare—or faith-based social justice charities that ask for government assistance—are just not working hard enough.

Think Progress - Congressman Scolds Nun For Asking The Government To Help The Poor

Wonkette - Congresscritter Yells At Nuns About How Poor People Are All Their Fault