by Tom Gallagher
From The Huffington Post:
"I think it would be a good idea if perhaps we had the kids work for their lunches: trash to be taken out, hallways to be swept, lawns to be mowed, make them earn it," Del. Ray Canterbury (R-Greenbrier) said during floor debate. "If they miss a lunch or they miss a meal they might not, in that class that afternoon, learn to add, they may not learn to diagram a sentence, but they'll learn a more important lesson."
Canterbury argued that providing students with free lunches would destroy their work ethic and show them "there's an easy way," the Charleston Gazette reported.
Canterbury is just echoing Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, who said as much in a 2012 GOP South Carolina debate.
At least Canterbury and Gingrich verbalize their sad Republican views. Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's devastating budget proposal will brutally attack the poor and drive them deeper into poverty. Ryan rarely verbalizes the actual impact on his proposals. I suppose that makes the devastating cuts easier to execute -- just block out the impact of these cuts on real people.
Of course, Ryan's 50-plus Catholic Republican House colleagues march in lock-step with Ryan on these proposals. Poverty drives abortion. Federal budgets that beat up the poor by brutally cutting successful poverty programs will drive young, poor women to abortion clinics.
