A popular myth among many Americans is that the typical food stamp recipient is living the high life at the expensive of the average taxpayer. The image of the Welfare Queen that was born during the height of Reaganomics still prevails in the minds of many conservatives even though that myth has been debunked many times.
There are two main types of conservatives on today’s political and social landscape — the Christian conservative, who truly does try to follow the albeit confusing and often contradictory doctrines laid out in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible and Free Market Christians, who have twisted that doctrine into something that Christ himself would probably find unrecognizable.
Free Market Christians believe that poverty is necessary to maintain the status quo. They think that it’s a motivator that causes people to strive harder and is therefore the foundation upon which the labor system depends. They also believe that anyone who is poor is lazy and without pride.
Old legends die hard, and the Welfare Queen myth still walks among us. She’s generally black with several children by different fathers. She wears bling and drives a fancy car when going to the supermarket to stock up on lobster, filet Mignon, and Champagne, all at the courtesy of the long-suffering American taxpayer.
Except it isn’t that way, and it never has been that way. Research shows that the real drains on public coffers has occurred in the red states, where food stamp fraud has always been highest.