No one knows what Jesus would do to feed today’s poor, hungry Americans — but Fox News host Bill O’Reilly is pretty sure the Christian savior wouldn’t be “down with” giving them food stamps because it’s “their fault.”
After Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) recently said that Jesus “didn’t charge food stamps” in response to Republican efforts to cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Pope Francis called income inequality immoral, O’Reilly tried to set the record straight with a segment about the “nanny state” on Tuesday.
The Fox News host acknowledged that Christ would have fed the poor, but objected to the idea that he would have “hurt” richer Americans to help feed them.
“The problem I have, as I stated is that you’re helping one group by hurting another group and a bigger group, and so I don’t know if Jesus is going to be down with that,” O’Reilly told Pentecostal Pastor Joshua Dubois.
“Jesus would be down for the poor,” Dubois pointed out. “He would want to make sure every single person in this country had enough food to eat. And the bottom line is if you add up every single private charitable dollar that feeds hungry people in this country, it’s only 10 percent of what we would need to make sure everyone has food in their stomachs. The rest comes from the federal government.”
“You’re making a powerful argument, but there is one huge mistake in it,” O’Reilly opined. “And that is that some of the people who don’t have enough to eat, it’s their fault they don’t have enough to eat. Particularly with their children.”
He continued: “If you’re an alcoholic or heroin addict or a drug addict and you can’t hold a job, alright, and you can’t support your children — and that’s a circumstance of millions and millions of people, not most, but a lot, a substantial minority — then it’s your fault, you’re bringing the havoc, that you’re asking people who may be struggling themselves to put food on the table to give their tax money to you. And then you’re not even going to buy food with it, you’re going to buy booze and drugs with it.”
“With all due respect, there’s a lot of misconceptions in what you just said,” Dubious replied. “The vast majority of that program goes to elderly people, people who are disabled, 46 percent are children and most people are working families.”
“My parents didn’t make a lot of money and they were able to put food on the table,” O’Reilly grumbled. “I give a lot of money — and you probably know this — to children’s charities, okay? Children who have derelict parents. And I say, it’s not the kids’ fault so I’m going to give the money to the kids. But I don’t give it to charities unless the charity hands it to the kids, gets it right to the kids. So, I’m circumventing the drugs and the alcohol and the other craziness, alright?”
“I don’t live in a derelict country,” Dubois insisted. “There are some folks that have the problems that you described, but that is not the vast majority of food stamp recipients.”
Watch this video from Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, broadcast Dec. 2013.
(h/t: Video Cafe)
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