Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) revealed on Thursday that he had become a congressman because he was outraged that single women were having as many as 15 babies, 'by I'm sure close to that many fathers' and getting welfare checks.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) revealed on Thursday that he had become a congressman because he was outraged that single women were having as many as 15 babies and getting welfare checks.

“If it weren’t for the policies in this War on Poverty declared 50 years ago, it may well be that I would not have ever run for Congress,” Gohmert said during a Wednesday night speech on the House floor. “Because what got me thinking about it first as a state district judge back in Texas was seeing more and more young women, single women coming before me — single moms — charged with welfare fraud.”

The Texas Republican said that women discovered that “the government will send you a check for every baby you have out of wedlock.”

“One women had had 15 kids, didn’t even know where they all were, that was the most that I ever dealt with,” Gohmert explained. “It began to really eat away with me that in the 60s the federal government, desiring to help poor moms who were dealing with deadbeat dads, decided, ‘We’ll help, we’ll give a check for every child you can have out of wedlock.’”

“The War on Poverty has been a disaster,” he insisted. “Why do the children have to suffer for the ignorance and stupidity of the government and those who meant well but just did stupid things? It’s tragic.” MORE

 The War on Poverty: Not Just a Liberal Campaign

Two things are particularly notable. First, the War on Poverty went far beyond means-tested assistance to low-income people. In fact, it focused mostly on health, education and employment, but also included seemingly unrelated measures like tax cuts. Second, while Johnson proposed and implemented the War on Poverty, it wasn't just a liberal, Democratic initiative. President Richard Nixon largely built on and institutionalized the War on Poverty, and most of the major initiatives of the War passed with solid bipartisan support.

And, although few liberals or conservatives mention it today, Johnson also viewed tax cuts as part of the War on Poverty. Ashe put it, tax cuts were needed "above all ... to create new jobs and new markets in every area of this land." Just over a month after Johnson declared war on poverty, Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1964, which cut individual tax rates across the board. The top marginal rate, for example, was reduced from 91 percent to 70 percent, a major cut at the time, but still a far cry from today's top marginal rate of 39.6 percent.On that first point, in a new book from the Russell Sage Foundation, Martha Bailey and Sheldon Danziger remind us that the full legislative agenda associated with the War on Poverty included the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, the expansion of minimum wage coverage, an unprecedented effort to increase access to post-secondary education, increased federal support for elementary and secondary education, and many other initiatives to boost skills and employment.

On the second point -- bipartisan support, before Ronald Reagan rhetorically established himself in opposition to the War on Poverty, Richard Nixon and other congressional conservatives largely embraced it as a practical matter. For example, in 1969, Nixon called for adding an automatic cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to Social Security as well as an across-the-board benefit increase. He signed both into law in 1972.

Similarly, Nixon and other conservatives played a leading role in the establishment of the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), then known as food stamps, and other nutrition assistance initiatives. SNAP was expanded from a pilot program to a permanent one in 1964. But only about 1.5 percent of Americans were receiving benefits the month after Johnson left office in 1969, and the decision to operate a food stamp program as well as the eligibility standards were still left to local areas.

In May 1969, Nixon told Congress that "the moment is at hand to put an end to hunger in America itself" and called for expanding SNAP. It was the legislation adopted pursuant to this call that made food stamps a truly national program with uniform eligibility standards and availability nationwide and established the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) food program. By October 1974, about 7 percent of Americans were receiving food assistance. Today, 15 percent of us receive food stamps, or nearly 47 million people.

Additional programs include Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which provides basic income support to the elderly and people with disabilities, and the earned income tax credit (EITC), designed to allow low to moderate earners to keep more of what they earn. Established in 1972, Supplemental Security replaced state programs for the elderly and disabled with a federal program that applied uniform eligibility criteria throughout the nation. And the EITC was first established in the Tax Reduction Act of 1975, signed by President Gerald Ford. Both SSI and the EITC had their beginnings in Congressional debates in the early 1970s over Nixon's otherwise ill-fated Family Assistance Plan proposal, an extension of the original War.

Medicare paid millions to dead patients, illegal immigrants, probe finds

Here we go with another headline that insults my intelligence and it should everyone else's that knew WTF was going on and has been going on forever, just no one wanted to look or was so caught up in trivial mainstream BULLSHIT.  Payments to illegal immigrants, refugees,  dead people, or dead people voting has been going on for a long long time.

I am in NO WAY defending Obama, just pointing out truthful facts that have always been out there it seemed no one cared to look at what we have been trying to say calling us crazy racists when we tried pointing it out or take the time to do a little digging and research on your own, not by taking the easy way out listening to some over paid radio personality.

 Learn the true history of things and not just from one side.  It's out there and the truth is painful as hell!   I'm also not trying to point fingers at people calling them stupid, it is all a learning process.

Although;  I will call those that basically reiterate word for word what was told to them on the radio by their favorite radio personality sheep too, if they just want to stick to what was told to them without further looking into events and act like they know it all.