RollingStone | The way the program to provide the poor with the bare minimum of daily
nutrition has been handled is a metaphor for how the far right in the
House is systematically trying to take down the federal government. The
Tea Party radicals and those who either fear or cultivate them are now
subjecting the food-stamp program to the same kind of assault they have
unleashed on other settled policies and understandings that have been in
place for decades. Breaking all manner of precedents on a series of
highly partisan votes, with the Republicans barely prevailing, the House
in September slashed the food-stamp program by a whopping $39 billion
and imposed harsh new requirements for getting on, or staying on, the
program. The point was to deny the benefit to millions.
