Attorney General for Nebraska compares welfare recipients to scavengers while taking a pot-shot at EPA

Nebraska’s Attorney General Jon Bruning has recently issued an apology through his campaign manager, after he personally compared the country’s welfare recipients to hungry raccoon scavengers during a campaign speech. A Republican, he is a Nebraska Tea Party-backed candidate for next year’s U.S. Senate…hoping to upset Democrat U.S. Senator Ben Nelson.

“They’re not stupid,” Bruning said. “They’re going to do the easy way, if we make it easy for them, just like welfare recipients all across America. If we don’t incent them to work, they’re going to take the easy route.”(

The campaign speech was held in Papillion, Nebraska, supported by the right-leaning Americans for Prosperity, the Libertarian Party and the Nebraska Republican Party. The speech was taped for the liberal organization, American Bridge 21^st Century, and then posted to YouTube.

Jon Bruning’s racoon welfare recipients

Jon Bruning’s remarks may haunt him in months to come by those who are struggling welfare recipients and those dedicated to the EPA projects. A candidate should not support only what he things will get him into office and bring the loudest laughter, but also what makes him an active participant in keeping the world a safer place for the years to come.

ABA Journal­ reported that Kate Bolz, policy analyst with Nebraska Appleseed, told the Omaha World Herald, “It’s a misconception that folks who access public assistance aren’t working. It’s a requirement for those programs unless someone is disabled or facing a crisis of domestic violence.” Nebraska Appleseed is a public interest law firm in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Jon Bruning’s sarcastic pot-shot at the EPA

Republican Jon Bruning also took a pot-shot at the Environmental Protection Agency by sarcastically telling a story which criticized the regulations of endangered species, according to Huffington Post.

Apparently, a road construction had been held up outside of Sergeant, NE by the presence of an endangered beetle…the American Burying beetle or Nicrophorus americanus. Few people know of this beetle’s existence, with its known populations existing only in Rhode Island and Oklahoma. After 1970, their numbers were reduced in areas like Nebraska…only small localized numbers can be found today. 

Unfortunately, the decline of the American burying beetles has been going on for about 100 years, with large populations gone by the 1920s due to changing land use patterns, increases in agricultural land, change in species population, and a reduction in carrion food-base for their survival.

Unknown to Jon Bruning, a recovery plan has been introduced for the American burying beetle…prepared by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

·         Reasons for the beetle’s decline were investigated.

·         Information was solicited.

·         Captive breeding populations were established.

·         The captive-raised beetles were reintroduced in Massachusetts.

·         The current population is being monitored and its population being controlled.

Instantly realizing his erroneous statement, Jon Bruning had his campaign manager apologize to the public, saying that the Nebraska Attorney General supports welfare reform, but he regrets the “inartful statement.”