In SNAP vote, Republicans normalize misery

>>> all right. joining me now is maddie doppler at americans for tax reform , which is grover norquist 's group, and sam cedar, host of the majority report and daily political talk show and a fantastic podcast everyone should listen to, i listen to basically every day. all right, here is what has me so frustrated, angry, and upset about the vote. the shameful, shameful vote that the republicans had today. before we argue it, i know, i know. before we argue it, let me just say this. so here's the thing that has been lost in all of this. there is already a cut to s.n.a.p. that is going to take effect this fall. it's going to be $36 a month. which you say, well, $36. $36 a month is a lot of money if you are poor, if you are poor enough to receive food stamps , and then this $40 billion cut, which is not going to happen and is not going to be made real, then obscures the fact that the senate, the democratic senate passed a farm bill that cut food stamps by $4 billion. that's one-tenth, but that's also a lot of money. we shouldn't even be cutting food stamps . we should be increasing food stamps . let's increase it by $10 billion a year or $50 billion. i don't care. people need to eat and there are a lot of poor people in this country. and what this connects to, and i'll shut up in a moment, what this connects to, the exact same thing happens with the sequester. the right flank does all kinds of crazy nonsense over to the right, and they drag it to the middle. right now we're having this debate about defund obama care. your boss, grover norquist says it's crazy, it's batty, don't do it. he's saying, you're crazy. what's going to happen is, when the whole thing is over, then the center is going to keep the sequester funding. the sequester was the most controversial policy in all of domestic fiscal politics that we have seen in this country in several years. and it's going to be the base lane. sam, am i wrong about this? does it drive you crazy as it drives me crazy?

>> yeah, it does, but it also speaks to some larger problem in our culture, where this notion that we're going to be punishing poor people for being poor, essentially. and what's also stunning is that we hear constant, and i think some of this is legitimate, that the economy, you know, from the right, that obama has tanked the economy, that the growth is sort of not really happening. there's some truth to that, but you can't turn around and say, and now we are going to punish the people who are suffering under that.

>> explain to me why this vote today was not morally monstrous.

>> smart people need to disabuse themselves of the idea that spending more money means spending money well. that's what they're trying to do with this vote today. you're talking about how there's going to be a s.n.a.p. spending cut coming down the pipe, how we've got sequester we're already laboring around. if there's going to be less money, we need to spend it better.

>> no -- so why isn't a person who has been unemployed for more than three months, who doesn't have a kid, who is living in poverty, right, meets the income requirement, has been unemployed for more than three months, which is the current requirement, in a very high unemployment year, why should that person not get a hundred bucks a month from the government --

>> what this bill does is says maybe the dead person shouldn't get the hundred bucks a month, the lottery winner shouldn't get a hundred bucks a month, that person --

>> so wait a second. you need to throw off 4 million people to get rid of those two people.

>> they're the dead people . those are the --

>> dead people are not actually cashing those checks. there's 1% fraud in the program --

>> but guess what, if you write the --

>> wait a second --

>> so we're still spending the more.

>> is 1% fraud, you're going to do an across-the-board 10% cut? it doesn't make any sense. there's no logic to that.

>> translator: let me say this also. the argument eric cantor was making today was not an argument about fraud. i saw some people making the fraud argument, and i don't think the fraud argument holds up. there's incredibly --

>> 1%.

>> that wasn't even -- eric cantor even gave up on this. his whole argument is, this is, we are just doing what bill clinton did, which is work requirements. people should be working. they shouldn't be sitting on the bill. here is the thing. unemployment in this country is 7.5%. there are three unemployed people for every job opening . it's not like people are sitting around. and critics of the obama economy say this all the time on the right. it's not like people are sitting around saying, man, it is awesome being unemployed in this economy.

>> i know that!

>> that was also the biggest failing of welfare reform under clinton, because it did not project out what happens when there are no jobs.

>> welfare reform under clinton has been heralded as a success on the left and the right.

>> not --

>> incorrectly heralded, a, but continue.

>> well, but perhaps, then, this is a starting point for conversation on welfare writ large. what the bill was intended to do today was expand the work requirements that are already in tanf, that had 50 governors right and left sign off on, saying it was better --

>> you're saying is tanf?

>> right. this expanded it to --

>> there are 40 governors in the country right now who want to maintain these waiver, because they have too many poor people who cannot eat! they cannot afford to eat.

>> but there are those who you don't want to have them in place. and they have the chance now, they don't have to abide by --

>> they don't have to apply for a waiver.

>> that's a completely opt-in situation.

>> now they don't have the option to opt-in, but have the option to expand their programs to the communities that need them.

>> no, this is all --

>> federal government --

>> correct. but they are able to set up their own programs now. they're able to have better control over --

>> where are they going to get the money for these programs?

>> they still get the federal money. what they're doing, they're increasing the work requirements that are already in place in federal law , that welfare reform advocated signed off on the last 20 years and they're increasing federal matches for people who do this in order to increase the --

>> on work requirements, do you genuinely think, are you sitting here looking me in the face saying, there are a lot of people, hundreds of thousands, millions, because 4 million will be kicked off. let's say 2 million or a million of these folks, who are sitting around, not getting a job because they are getting $1.40 per meal?

>> this is not an argument against the policy for you to impugn what you think the motives are. and of course i don't think that --

>> no, that is the logic of the policy!

>> i'm telling you --

>> the logic of the policy is you're disincentivizing --

>> the logic of the policy, quite frankly, is that we are disincentivizing people getting into the labor market by giving them $1.40 for every meal, and we need to put work requirements, otherwise, the government, with its tasty, tasty candy will lure people away from being productive members of society, in an economy that has 7.5% unemployment. it is completely nonsensical.

>> i also would like to know, how many lottery winners and dead people , if you're endorsing this policy, how many lottery winners and dead people -- do you think that we are funding?

>> but does it really matter? if you're someone who believes in the safety net , which we all do, we just disagree to the extent to which size it should be, don't you think those people shouldn't be on -- you're disregarding this idea that there is fraud in the --

>> here, i think we all agree. the 1% of the people in the latest audit that we're getting, fraudulently, let's figure out a way to not have them get it.

>> maddie, we ended on an agreement, on the 1%, and sam seder from majority report . thank you both. that is "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. good evening, rachel.

>> good evening, chris. thanks very