September 27, 2023 11:18 AM UTC

Boebert Bumbles Hypocritical Swipe At "Government Cheese"

• 8 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Yesterday, the Republican-controlled U.S. House plowed away on a series of individual spending bills reflecting the non-starter ideological aspirations of conservatives with no seeming regard for the impending government shutdown set to begin at the end of the week. As the clock ticks down on a realistic proposal to fund the federal government, meaning a plan that can pass the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate and be signed into law by President Joe Biden, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy took the short-term easy path this week of caving into the far right’s desire to pass totally unworkable legislation instead of reaching across the aisle for a deal that would truly end the standoff.

Colorado’s calamitously cantankerous GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert, as readers know, has been all over the map trying to explain her welcoming of a government shutdown while preposterously claiming at the same time she was “working to prevent a shutdown.” Boebert’s principal contribution to the debate yesterday over a bill cutting food assistance programs was an amendment she offered, albeit with some difficulty, to reduce the salary of the Deputy Undersecretary for the USDA’s Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services Stacy Dean to $1. When the time came for Boebert to present her amendment, as Mediaite reports, things went sideways as it became painfully obvious she wasn’t prepared:

Yikes pic.twitter.com/XxmqoxKGWg

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) September 27, 2023

After Boebert was recognized on the House floor to discuss her amendment to “reduce the salary of the Deputy Under Secretary of the Food and Nutrition Service of the Department of Agriculture, Stacy Dean, to $1,” the camera panned to the congresswoman and showed her looking down at her phone.

“Madame Chair, one moment,” said Boebert, still looking down at her phone after a pause, as she scrambled to find the amendment.

Following another awkward pause, Boebert said, “My apologies, I do not have amendment number 77 in front of me,” before attempting to stall for more time…

A few minutes later, having finally located her prepared remarks on her phone, Boebert took the floor again to explain why USDA Undersecretary Stacy Dean must be punished–in short, Dean’s nefarious role in helping poor people–gasp–get food–GASP!–during the recent pandemic:

BOEBERT: Thank you, Madam Chair. I rise today to offer my amendment that utilizes the Holman rule to reduce the salary of Deputy Undersecretary of the Food and Nutrition Services of the Department of Agriculture, Stacy Dean to $1. As the Deputy Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services at USDA, Mrs. Dean has spent her career helping bureaucrats use loopholes and gimmicks to gut requirements for able-body adults and bypass federal eligibility requirements, even going as far as to help states make millionaires qualify for the program. The last thing Americans need are higher prices, fewer jobs, and the largest expansion of our welfare state in a lifetime.

The Biden-Harris administration expansion of the welfare state abolishes work ethic and promotes a new generation of government dependency. I’ve lived under government dependency and I’m thankful that I have broke free of that cycle. Given my life experiences and developing work ethic, I’m one of the few who are able to break free of that cycle of dependency. Stacy…

First of all, the increased funding for food assistance programs that helped alleviate hunger during the economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has largely been curtailed with the end of the pandemic state of emergency, which has in turn resulted in a surge of demand at food banks across the country. Despite a couple of performative stunts, there’s no evidence that “millionaires” took advantage of the expanded eligibility for food stamps, but rather an increase in utilization by the people who need food assistance most. And as 9NEWS reported last night, a shutdown of the federal government will do even more harm:

Tens of thousands of Colorado moms and young children rely on Women, Infant and Children (WIC) benefits to put nutritious food on the table, but funding for that program could be suspended if Congress doesn’t reach a deal to fund the federal government into October.

Without access to WIC, many Colorado families will feel the strain and likely turning to food pantries already working hard to meet an increased demand…

Data from Colorado’s WIC program shows, more than 120,000 women, infants and children in Colorado enrolled in WIC benefits during the 2023 year. Right now, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reports nearly 90,000 Colorado WIC clients could have their monthly food benefits impacted by a government shutdown.

As readers know, Lauren Boebert received government food assistance at some point in her childhood, a story she tells often while she disparages such programs in broad terms. Yesterday, Boebert again touted how she personally “broke free” of dependency on government relief programs through “life experiences” and a “developing work ethic.” It’s a shopworn spiel that made more sense before the business Boebert founded went out of business, after years of well-documented financial struggle that included an inability to cover unemployment insurance for her workers. Boebert’s $174,000 annual salary as a member of Congress is almost certainly the most money she has ever made in her life, notwithstanding her estranged husband’s suspiciously large payouts from his oil and gas bosses.

Boebert’s amendment passed, but with the fantasyland legislation it’s connected to dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate and getting in the way of a real solution, it doesn’t really matter. But while Boebert claims to be trying to prevent a government shutdown out of one side of her mouth and welcoming it out of the other, we wanted to be sure everyone was clear on what exactly Boebert is actually grandstanding against: food assistance for poor people.

Boebert could be trying to outrage you into forgetting about…you know, the incident? That’s the only way it makes sense politically. Boebert gains absolutely nothing from this latest bout of shamelessly hypocritical villainy. Audaciously toeing the line of her own hypocrisy has long been Boebert’s style, but it’s lost its ability to mesmerize.

It’s pathetic now. Boebert is just pathetic.