More Gramm: “All Our Poor People Are Fat”
Saying we’re a nation of mentally depressed whiners seems to be one of the least controversial things McCain economic advisor and former Senator Phil Gramm has said.
He has a long history of wacky views, as Think Progress chronicles.
“Minimum wage laws tend to cut the bottom rung off the economic ladder. The plain truth is there should be no minimum wage law in this great land of free enterprise.” – Gramm, 5/17/89
“We’re the only nation in the world where all our poor people are fat.” – Gramm, 9/6/81
And here is what Gramm said about Bill Clinton’s 1993 budget, which led to the surplus Bush destroyed:
“I want to predict here tonight,” he said on the evening that Clinton’s budget passed in the spring of 1993, “that if we adopt this bill the American economy is going to get weaker and not stronger, the deficit four years from today will be higher than it is today and not lower … When all is said and done, people will pay more taxes, the economy will create fewer jobs, the government will spend more money, and the American people will be worse off.”
Let’s all say a little prayer that McSame picks Gramm for his veep running mate.
McBush/Gramm in 2008!!!
July 11th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Actually, I’m pretty sure most of our Republicans are “fat”.
July 11th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Gramm’s 1993 comments on the Clinton budget prove without a sliver of a doubt that NO ONE SHOULD EVER listen to what he has to say about economics.
July 11th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
If Gramm is wrong, and I don’t think so, then a good response would be to set about fixing the economic problems, rather than underscoring the fellow’s point.
Or shall we watch more Iranian propaganda and wring our hands in the Chicken Little fashion?
July 12th, 2008 at 6:32 am
fat republicans definitely outnumber fat poor people.
as someone who has often been poor, i can speak for my occassional battles with weight- when you don’t have a lot of money to spend, you have to eat what’s cheap and on sale. that means pasta, pasta, pasta. mac and cheese, tuna helper (not hamburger helper, bc then i have to pay for beef), hot dogs (i hate hot dogs, but my son likes them), oodles and noodles (a favorite for me and my son). you get the picture. spaghetti is a weekly dish in my home, sometimes two or three times a week. i have to eat what i can afford.
if i had more time, i could work out during the day or evening to help off set all the carbs. (i should have more time, bc all poor people are on welfare and living off the govt, right?) i don’t have time for that shit.
July 12th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Tony’s frozen pizzas are good, and less than a dollar each. frozen meals from wal mart for less than a buck each. all that food is straight carbs with a lil bit of sauce and a lil bit of fake meat and a lil bit of veggie.
July 12th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Cheryl,
It’s funny. I eat a lot of those foods and I like Mexican food, but I am not fat. I bicycle a lot.
July 12th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Well, I don’t like what Gramm said, but one has to wonder when everyone is saying the economy is bad how all those people can camp out at the Apple stores overnight to buy those iPhones.
And Cheryl you’re right. The cheapest foods out there are the worst foods for a human body. They are loaded with additives (complements of the food manufacturers) which make one crave the unhealthy crap they put in them.
Do you live close to any farms? Get some of the local fruits/veggies.
July 12th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
LV~ you are so incredibly right about people camping out for the latest tech toys. i was actually just in a pet store today, and discoursing with the owners about current events. they are also talk radio fans, but they listen to the conservatives. (i’m prob going to call alan about it on monday, bc when i said that i listen to alan colmes religiously, the dude VISIBLY jumped! LOL) anyway, it was nice to have a chat with them about things.
great idea about the local produce. i don’t know why i haven’t tried that yet.
July 12th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I listen to OReilly and Dobbs…sometimes Glen Beck, but I honestly love listening to Alans show. Sometimes he can get me going and I just turn it off for a while. But I like hearing all sides of the triangle we call human nature. I guess that’s just the Libra in me.
I wish I had farms here to go to. One day when I am finally released from the hell I find LV to be, I will live close enough to farms to buy what I don’t grow.
July 12th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Thinking about what I just said, when it comes to the radio show these commentators have, it’s the callers I like to hear…to get the feel of the country. And reading the letters to leaders posted on http://www.congress.org. I love looking through those.
I need a life huh?
July 12th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I also know what it’s like to be poor. And at this rate, with the price of food going through the roof, I may know again. It is very easy to gain weight when you’re poor. Cheryl is right on about the foods one is forced to eat because you have no money for anything good and healthy. You can forget fish, lean meat vegetables and salads. Not everyone lives near cheap produce.
And don’t forget about those 10 lb bags of rice and potatoes and the cheapest oil you can find to give it some flavor. Lots of eggs too. Beans. Cheap sausage and cheap chuck steak if you can afford that. Peanut butter. Hahaha mac and cheese and tons of speghetti, oh yeah, I do remember. I never did succumb to putting ketchup on the pasta though. Yecch!
I love chicken livers, thats really cheap but you shouldn’t eat that too often as there is a lot of cholesterol in liver. When things were really bad and as I had a cat at the time, the hard Purina cat chow in the box wasn’t too bad. And then we BOTH got to eat!
July 12th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Those without health insurance, those whose homes are being foreclosed, those who are losing their jobs: what a bunch of whiners! I hope that Gramm keeps talking. He just might be a great asset to the Obama campaign.
July 12th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
lol- alan should do a thread on economical and cheap food. we can share tips and recipes.
i knew another single mom who swore by the following concoction-
mac n cheese and cream of mushroom soup
July 13th, 2008 at 12:05 am
lv~ you already have a life, woman. each person decides to devote their life to different things. a political obsession is no worse than a sports obsession. (we’re just less likely to have a steroid addiction)
July 13th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Isn’t it interesting that all the people above (they are not whiners and complainers, are they?) describing how bad their lives are have computers and internet access.
Not only are there long lines to buy the latest Ipods and other electronic gadgets but MLB games always seem to be 90%+ sold out, at $50 a pop or more. Most fans drive to those games using $4.00 gasoline. The recent basketball playoffs sold out all their seats despite ticket prices in the thousands of dollars.
And how quickly we forget history. In the 1994 elections the Republicans won control of the Congress. The Congress decides what the federal budget is going to be. The budget is first passed by the Congress, then signed into law by the president. Don’t you supose that the Republican budgets might have had something to do with those surpluses?
July 13th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
My laptop was a gift 2 years ago, and I pick up a neighbor’s wireless internet connection.
So quick to judge, with so little information.
Life is hard for a lot of people. The 95% still making their mortgage payments are having to cut down on other necessities. We’re looking at our budget and shifting things around. There are people still being their tech toys, but many more that have to make do with what they already have.
July 13th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
I built this computer from scratch with my bare hands using parts found in the trash of Radio Shack.
I get free internet access from Bill Gates in exhange for sleeping with him.
July 13th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
LOL
You are so STUPID, Epiphany! LOL
July 13th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Too bad Clinton’s budget changed dramatically when the conservative 94 congress was elected, which is what created the surplus.. Thank you, Newt.
July 14th, 2008 at 11:35 am
From what I understand there still wasn’t a true budget surplus in the 1990s because they still squandered all of the SSI payroll receipts.
Does anyone know the numbers of the National Debt through the 90s… If there was a surplus, did the Debt decrease, AT ALL.
If there was no decrease then it certainly went up.
And thus no true surplus the way normal understand the word to mean.
July 14th, 2008 at 11:45 am