The Republican War on Women: The Newly Invisible and Undeserving Poor

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/12/17-0


Republicans are pushing to decimate food-stamp programs. (Illustration by Victor Juhasz/Rolling Ston))

While the rest of the world debates America’s role in the Middle East or its use of drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the U.S. Congress is debating just how drastically it should cut food assistance to the 47 million Americans - one out of seven people - who suffer from “food insecurity,” the popular euphemism for those who go hungry.

The U.S. Government began giving food stamps to the poor during the Great Depression. Even when I was a student in the 1960’s, I received food stamps while unemployed during the summers. That concern for the hungry, however, has evaporated. The Republicans - dominated by Tea Party policies - are transforming the United States into a far less compassionate and more mean-spirited society.

The need is great. Since the Great Recession of 2008, the food stamp programme - now called SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), has doubled from $38 billion in 2008 to $78 billion in the last year. During 2012, 65 million Americans used SNAP for at least one a month, which means that one out of every five Americans became part of the swelling rolls of “needy families,” most of whom are women and children.

Democrats defend the new debit card program, which can only be used to purchase food, as feeding needy Americans at a time of high unemployment and great poverty. Republicans, for their part, argue that the programme is rife with fraud, that its recipients (who are mostly single mothers) are lazy and shiftless, and that we must make drastic cuts to reduce government spending. Their most Dickensian argument is that if you feed the poor, they won’t want to work.

[reformist2]

1. Do their polls actually tell them this is a good move, or are they acting on 'principle'?!

Of all the dreadful positions they take, this has to be one of the worst! In a word it's cruel,
and what's more, the "savings" won't even make a dent in the budget. When you step back a bit,
it's actually hard to believe there is a major party in the western world willing to do this.

[PADemD]

2. The Four Horsemen

Conquest (White), War (Red), Famine (Black) & Death (Pale)