Michigan senator wants foster kids to shop at thrift stores only

Sen. Bruce Caswell (R-MI)

Republicans love kids and poor people so dang much, they wanna make sure that they’ll never be exposed to the ills of expensive new clothes. Michigan Senator Bruce Caswell (R) wants to make it so that government money intended for the purchase of clothes for foster and underprivileged children can only be used at second-hand thrift stores:

He says they should get "gift cards" to be used only at Salvation Army, Goodwill or other thrift stores.

"I never had anything new," Caswell says. "I got all the hand-me-downs. And my dad, he did a lot of shopping at the Salvation Army, and his comment was -- and quite frankly it's true -- once you're out of the store and you walk down the street, nobody knows where you bought your clothes."

He never had any new clothes as a kid … so now, he wants to make sure that no other poor kids get any, either. There’s a word to describe this kind of attitude, and it isn’t ‘compassionate’.

Humanitarian workers aren’t happy, either:

"Honestly, I was flabbergasted," Jacobs says. "I really couldn't believe this. Because I think, gosh, is this where we've gone in this state? I think that there’s the whole issue of dignity. You’re saying to somebody, you don’t deserve to go in and buy a new pair of gym shoes. You know, for a lot of foster kids, they already have so much stacked against them.”

But, hey, at least they’ll be free from the threat of impoverishing themselves further from blowing their sparse food money on chic new threads!

Oh, and of course:

Caswell says the gift card idea wouldn’t save the state any money.

Naturally. Very little of what modern Republicans do is ever about the budget (or jobs) – it’s pure, heartless ideology and nothing else.

(via @ebertchicago)