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After Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) recently said that Jesus "didn't charge food stamps" in response to Republican efforts to cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Pope Francis called income inequality immoral, O'Reilly tried to set the record straight with a segment about the "nanny state" on Tuesday.
The Fox News host acknowledged that Christ would have fed the poor, but objected to the idea that he would have "hurt" richer Americans to help feed them.
"The problem I have, as I stated is that you're helping one group by hurting another group and a bigger group, and so I don't know if Jesus is going to be down with that," O'Reilly told Pentecostal Pastor Joshua Dubois.
"Jesus would be down for the poor," Dubois pointed out. "He would want to make sure every single person in this country had enough food to eat. And the bottom line is if you add up every single private charitable dollar that feeds hungry people in this country, it's only 10 percent of what we would need to make sure everyone has food in their stomachs. The rest comes from the federal government."
"You're making a powerful argument, but there is one huge mistake in it," O'Reilly opined. "And that is that some of the people who don't have enough to eat, it's their fault they don't have enough to eat. Particularly with their children."
He continued: "If you're an alcoholic or heroin addict or a drug addict and you can't hold a job, alright, and you can't support your children - and that's a circumstance of millions and millions of people, not most, but a lot, a substantial minority - then it's your fault, you're bringing the havoc, that you're asking people who may be struggling themselves to put food on the table to give their tax money to you. And then you're not even going to buy food with it, you're going to buy booze and drugs with it."
"With all due respect, there's a lot of misconceptions in what you just said," Dubious replied. "The vast majority of that program goes to elderly people, people who are disabled, 46 percent are children and most people are working families."
"My parents didn't make a lot of money and they were able to put food on the table," O'Reilly grumbled. "I give a lot of money - and you probably know this - to children's charities, okay? Children who have derelict parents. And I say, it's not the kids' fault so I'm going to give the money to the kids. But I don't give it to charities unless the charity hands it to the kids, gets it right to the kids. So, I'm circumventing the drugs and the alcohol and the other craziness, alright?"
"I don't live in a derelict country," Dubois insisted. "There are some folks that have the problems that you described, but that is not the vast majority of food stamp recipients."
Watch this video from Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, broadcast Dec. 2013.
David Edwards has served as an editor at Raw Story since 2006. His work can also be found at Crooks & Liars, and he's also been published at The BRAD BLOG. He came to Raw Story after working as a network manager for the state of North Carolina and as as engineer developing enterprise resource planning software. Follow him on Twitter at @DavidEdwards.
Reader Comments
At least the Pastor Joshua Dubois has the guts to stand up to O'Reilly on this issue. The economy is in the tank for everyone other than the White Shoe Boyz on Wall Street or Washington D.C. Some people do need help and not because of drugs, alcohol, or laziness. An aversion to boot licking can make the kind of success O'Reilly enjoys rather difficult to attain also...
I was enraged when I read this article so I sent the following e-mail to him:
Mr. O'Reilly - I can not believe how ignorant and misinformed you are. Forty-four million American are on food stamps because they can't get a decent paying job due to fascist American corporations shipping them overseas.
My husband and I are not on food stamps. I hope you read my story. Perhaps it will open your eyes a bit.
First of all let me give you some background info about us. Husband and I working in finance/banking for 38 and 30 years respectively. We HAD substantial 401K retirement funds. We now have less than $1,000 to our name and live on his Soc. Sec. I won't qualify for another two years.
In October 2007, John got the call that his employer was closing the doors and that tomorrow would be his last day. Consequently, both of us looked diligently for employment. In December of that year I obtained a teller position with a local bank. Previously, I had worked for 29 years as a mortgage loan officer. John did not find employment even though he had 38 years in the mortgage/finance industry; at age 62 no one wants to hire you. So he applied for Social Security as my income could not even come close to paying the mortgage and other bills. So we tried to do the right thing and kept paying our bills. In order to do this we cashed in John’s 401K. Then in 2009 my job went away. We BOTH tried again to find employment but to no avail. When it became apparent that our funds were running out we looked into moving to Mexico. We did that in July 2009 with only a few thousand dollars to our name. To date we have approximately $600 USD in the bank.
So if you have any humanity at all you might want to push for this agenda:
-increase the COLA for Soc. Sec. (They don't count food in their calculation any more. Imagine that!)
-have the corporations bring back some of the jobs to the USA (How much money do they need? Some
companies, such as General Electric, paid NO federal income tax and received a tax refund of
approx. $3 billion if memory serves me correctly.)
Not everyone on food stamps is a drunk or druggie. Most are struggling just like we are in Mexico. I bake
and sell cheesecakes, key lime pies, and various other food items (hence my e-mail name) to make ends meet. Had we remained in the States we probably would need food stamps...........So don't you ever, ever, EVER, refer to US citizens
like husband and me as drunks and druggies. We worked hard and do not deserve our fate. However, our
downfall was "doing the right thing".