My, I hope the idiots behind this are proud

THIS is what poverty sometimes looks like in America: parents here in Appalachian hill country pulling their children out of literacy classes. Moms and dads fear that if kids learn to read, they are less likely to qualify for a monthly check for having an intellectual disability.
...
Antipoverty programs also discourage marriage: In a means-tested program like S.S.I., a woman raising a child may receive a bigger check if she refrains from marrying that hard-working guy she likes. Yet marriage is one of the best forces to blunt poverty. In married couple households only one child in 10 grows up in poverty, while almost half do in single-mother households.

Most wrenching of all are the parents who think it’s best if a child stays illiterate, because then the family may be able to claim a disability check each month.
Yeah, cripple the kid intellectually so you can keep getting that check from the .gov; how many lives have been and are being destroyed by this?

And on the "Are you bloody kidding me?" front,
“People don’t want to talk about poverty in America,” Mark Shriver, who runs the domestic programs of Save the Children, noted as we drove through Kentucky. “We talk more about poverty in Africa than we do about poverty in America.”
 Bullshit. We hear about poverty in America all the bloody time, and it's almost always in the heading of "This is happening because you uncaring bastards aren't taxed enough" by people like Kristof, a 'proud liberal'.  Well, Kristof, the mess you're describing is directly connected to the crap you've pushed for decades; are you proud of it?

Further along you've got a woman pregnant with twins, and 'what happens to her when she has to quit her job?'  Well, for one thing, where the hell is the sperm donor, who's supposed to have something to do with that?  Oh, that's right, he's not supposed to be around anymore because the OPM from the .gov will take care of things, right?

To borrow from Insty, They'll turn us all into beggars 'cause they're easier to please.
And blame us for their 'having' to do it.