On the Wednesday, May 22, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell show on MSNBC, host O'Donnell called for the defeat of a "vicious" Senate amendment pushed by Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter which would bar people convicted of some violent crimes from receiving welfare benefits.
The MSNBC host complained that the children of a criminal would "pay for his crime by going hungry," and called for "human decency" to defeat the measure. O'Donnell began the short segment:
In today's Senate debate on the farm bill, Louisiana Republican David Vitter offered and Senate Democrats accepted an amendment that would bar anyone who has ever been convicted of certain violent crimes from ever getting food stamps. And so what that means is a 19-year-old who commits a crime, does his time, and 20, 25 years later, after working and paying taxes for years, finds himself laid off in a recession and needs food stamps to help feed his family, his children will pay for his crime by going hungry.
The MSNBC host continued:
The farm bill, which is actually a massive agriculture socialism program that subsidizes farmers no matter what their criminal records are, is still being considered on the Senate floor, and David Vitter's vicious amendment can still be struck from the bill if somehow human decency prevails in the United States Senate.
