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Comment by davinic | Hacker News Reader

Last week I saw a person on Facebook sharing an anecdote patterned after the "welfare queen" trope and arguing against food stamps.

I noticed from her Facebook page that she owned a ranching operation, so I searched her name in the EWG Farm Subsidy Database and saw that she and her husband had received $18k in subsidies in 2018, and nearly $250k since 1995.

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Is your logic that a dollar is a dollar and it doesn't matter why the government gave it to them?

If so, I don't agree.

What are you trying to say? He is remarking on the ignorance / hypocrisy of the woman, who laments when other people receiving government subsidies as "welfare queens" disregarding the fact that she is also receiving government subsidies. Likely due to her own biases, that her subsidy is worthwhile while another person's isn't for whatever reason.

Not all government subsidies are the same. Someone could say farm subsidies are good while welfare is bad. That's not hypocritical.

I'm against people living off of food stamps also, and if there is a subsidy out there for the taking, then i'm going to take it. I agree that government should not be involved in either of those things, but promoting certain kinds of businesses might be worth the subsidy for some people.

Would you be against other people getting the subsidy?

I'm just trying to figure out if it's hypocrisy or selfishness.

Why not both?

Thanks for wanting to make sure I didn't have dinner on my table as a child while my mom took care of my brother with leukemia.

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