Less food for the poor. Millions added to taxpayers' tab. Grothman happy.

The Journal Sentinel reports in a story currently behind its subscriber pay wall that the Trump administration is pushing a rule change that a) will cut food aid to 40,000 Wisconsin residents, b) hit taxpayers with millions of dollars in new administrative costs, and c) makes Glenn Grothman giddy

because he tells the Journal Sentinel that some millionaires will soon be ineligible for food stamps.

“A lot of people didn’t know that millionaires are eligible for food stamps,” he said. “I’m glad Donald Trump came along and decided to put a stop to it.”

This is not the first time that Grothman has twisted numbers to justify an attack on people without his $174,000 annual helping at the public trough:

“So your viewers are aware, a single parent with a couple kids can easily get $35,000 a year in total benefits between the health care and the earned income credit and the FoodShare and the low-income housing and what have you,” Grothman said during an interview on “UpFront with Mike Gousha,” a statewide television program. “ 

And that’s after taxes. How many people make $35,000 a year after taxes? Most people don’t.” 

“When you look at that amount of money — which is in essence a bribe not to work that hard or a bribe not to marry someone with a full-time job — people immediately realize you have a problem,” he added. “Then as soon as you realize you have a problem and something has to be done, then you look at the generosity of the benefits and see what you can do to pare them back.”

Taking food off poor people's tables has been a right-wing GOP staple in Wisconsin for years. Walker even inserted that kind of heartlessness I discovered in in his first budget: 

...let's review one telling Walker action which never got the broad attention it deserved, though it spoke volumes about his hard-edged Tea Party modus operandi and willingness to tilt the playing field through Big Government power and hammer people who are generally without the means to fight back.

I am referring to an item buried in his first budget - - an across-the-board $20 per month cut from W-2 recipients.

I'd written about it here, with language taken directly from the budget's text, on page 65, in the "Health and Human Services" section:

"To further encourage W-2 recipients to recognize that the goal of W-2 is for participants to secure unsubsidized employment, reduce the monthly benefit check by $20."  

And the negative impact was multiplied by other Walker budget changes that reduced the value of two tax credits that helped low-income families stay in their homes and on a payroll.

There's a straight line from that kind of thinking and arbitrary punishment by government action - - the loss of a few boxes of disposable diapers, or maybe seven or eight gallons or milk, or bus fares to a job, a day care or the pediatrician  - - to Walker's more recent slams at the poor - - a refusal to increase the minimum wage of $7.25/hr., and his stated plan to mandate urine testing for food stamp recipients.

Your modern-day Republican Party at work.