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.
8 comments:
I probably would also like to see farm subsidies cut also, but they shouldn't be considered equal.
The commodities program was established as a safety net to ensure that commodity produce didn't break through a price floor and in consequence of that fact, expose farmers to wild swings in the market. It's not the same as a subsidy which has farmers growing specific crops based on a centralized management scheme, (as for example ethanol which is a ridiculous boondoggle no matter how you slice it)
2/3rds of the 47 million SNAP recipients ARE poor and white, but that doesn't stay the hand of the Dickensian teatards or their astroturfing robber baron puppet masters. Denial of nutrition assistance is marketed by and among the teatards as doing something wicked to undeserving welfare queens.
Food that would have been wasted goes to someone's kitchen.
Bears repeating! 40% of the food produced in the U.S. IS wasted - and yet - 47 million people are struggling with serious food insecurity.
In Minnesota, the average monthly assistance level per person is $115.91 - so you're guesstimate is about $220.00 high. I'm guessing you have cars and don't live in a food desert, so your options (like Sams) are greater than the average public transit riding, minimum wage making person who has to pay rent, utlities, recurrent incidental living expenses (clothes, toothpaste, deoderant, etc.) and then try to feed themselves.
The delusion that somebody is getting rich, fat and happy off EBT/SNAP is easily disproven, racist teatard propaganda. Anyone interested in examining the facts of the matter could simply search food stamps hereabouts; http://subrealism.blogspot.com/search?q=food+stamp
It’s important to remember, as the RS article mentions, that the war on the poor begins with “Cigar Willie,” Bill Clinton’s welfare reform.
[In 1996, when Congress revised the separate welfare law, it also placed severe new restrictions on food stamps. Able-bodied adults who weren't raising children were limited to receiving food stamps for only three months out of three years if they weren't working at least 20 hours a week or participating in a job-training program. This grim rule applied no matter how hard they tried to find a job and even if they hadn't been able to get a slot in a training program.]
Both the Southerland amendment and the suggestions of the CATO Institute are ludicrous in this economy.
http://bit.ly/1hPWwsV
[While data on the very poor is limited and subject to challenge, recent studies have found that as many as one in every four low-income single mothers is jobless and without cash aid — roughly four million women and children. Poor families can turn to other programs, like food stamps or Medicaid, or rely on family and charity. But the absence of a steady source of cash, however modest, can bring new instability to troubled lives. Just one in five poor children now receives cash aid, the lowest level in nearly 50 years.]
http://nyti.ms/1fmn3vy
Of course some powerless people are abusing the food stamp program. Just like powerful people on corporate welfare. The biggest hypocrites in the bunch are Congresspeople who voted to cut food stamps while receiving farm subsidies.
[Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.). His wife, Caroline Aderholt, is a 6.3 percent owner of McDonald Farms according to 2008 ownership records. McDonald Farms received $66,891 in direct payment farm subsidies in 2012.
Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.). He and his wife Lynn Fincher are each 50 percent partners in Stephen & Lynn Fincher Farms. They received a $70,574 direct payment farm subsidy in 2012.
Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calf.). He and his wife Jill LaMalfa are each 16.67 percent partners (combined share totals 33.33%) of DSL Lamalfa Family Partnership, which received $188,570 in direct payments for 2012.]-- Alternet
The Democratic controlled Senate also voted to cut $4 billion from food stamps over 10 years. At the end of the day Congress will agree on a number and food stamps will be cut by billions of dollars, but corporate welfare will keep on rolling.
In Minnesota, the average monthly assistance level per person is $115.91, and you mean that is plus food stamps (SNAP) and housing choice vouchers, right? So if you're right with MN $115.91 or $575 for my family of 5 and then $750 for food stamps, and then a housing voucher, yeah you're probably right I couldn't afford a car and insurance and maint. and I coudn't buy all my clothes at once. Look I did not want to turn this into a inventory on what people who make no wage or minimum wage get. All I was saying was we expect food stamp use to decline from the peak it is in the next 10 years and also we could reduce roles by requiring those who can work to either work or make themselves more employable by being involved in some sort of education. I think its a little over the top to call a thought like this hateful.
As for the numbers here is where I got it from:
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1269
and here you can run your own calculations:
http://www.ndhealth.gov/dhs/foodstampcalculator.asp
Here is for your thoughts about paying the rent:
http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/public_indian_housing/programs/hcv/about/fact_sheet
Bunk you're going to have to better democrat execution of their programs. What electorate is going to look at who is running the country right now and think if we can only have these guys run unchecked how great it would be. We'll see drip, drip, drip as we get closer to 2015 and the employee mandate for Obamacare, and we'll get to see millions and millions more see the realities of the new affordable health care as they search for health care on the individual market; I am sure we all hope we're not one of them. Not to mention we'll blow right through the 900 billion health care cost estimate for the government. Very unlikely the GOP is going away.
It’s important to remember, as the RS article mentions, that the war on the poor begins with “Cigar Willie,” Bill Clinton’s welfare reform.
[In 1996, when Congress revised the separate welfare law, it also placed severe new restrictions on food stamps. Able-bodied adults who weren't raising children were limited to receiving food stamps for only three months out of three years if they weren't working at least 20 hours a week or participating in a job-training program. This grim rule applied no matter how hard they tried to find a job and even if they hadn't been able to get a slot in a training program.]
Both the Southerland amendment and the suggestions of the CATO Institute are ludicrous in this economy.
http://bit.ly/1hPWwsV
[While data on the very poor is limited and subject to challenge, recent studies have found that as many as one in every four low-income single mothers is jobless and without cash aid — roughly four million women and children... Just one in five poor children now receives cash aid, the lowest level in nearly 50 years.]
http://nyti.ms/1fmn3vy
Of course some powerless people are abusing the food stamp program. Just like powerful people on corporate welfare. The biggest hypocrites in the bunch are Congresspeople who voted to cut food stamps while receiving farm subsidies.
[Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.). His wife, Caroline Aderholt, is a 6.3 percent owner of McDonald Farms according to 2008 ownership records. McDonald Farms received $66,891 in direct payment farm subsidies in 2012. Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.). He and his wife Lynn Fincher are each 50 percent partners in Stephen & Lynn Fincher Farms. They received a $70,574 direct payment farm subsidy in 2012. Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calf.). He and his wife Jill LaMalfa are each 16.67 percent partners (combined share totals 33.33%) of DSL Lamalfa Family Partnership, which received $188,570 in direct payments for 2012.]-- Alternet
The Democratic controlled Senate also voted to cut $4 billion from food stamps over 10 years. At the end of the day Congress will agree on a number and food stamps will be cut by billions of dollars, but corporate welfare will keep on rolling.
What I said stands. The GOP has done enough over the last few decades and the tea party is just too much. They're indefensible at this point.
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