Republicans To Slash Food Stamps
Source: POLITICO
By DAVID ROGERS | 4/16/12 12:04 PM EDT
Food stamps moved front-and-center in the budget wars Monday morning, as House Republicans began rolling out a first wave of $33.2 billion in 10-year savings that will have an immediate impact in the farm bill debate and come November, the 2012 elections.
An average family of four faces an 11 percent cut in monthly benefits after Sept. 1, and even more important is the tighter enforcement of rules demanding that households exhaust most of their savings before qualifying for help. This hits hardest among the long-term unemployed, many of whom never before used the aid now titled SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program)but have found it valuable in trying to stay afloat in the current recession.
Indeed food stamp enrollment and costs have exploded since the financial collapse four years ago, making SNAP a target for the right but also far bigger political issue in swing states like Florida, Nevada and Ohio.
National food stamp enrollment reached 46.4 million people in January 2012, a nearly two-thirds increase from the average participation in fiscal 2008. The annual costsnow running in excess of $80 billionhave more than doubled in the same period. And even the most ardent food stamp proponents will sometimes say SNAP is a program asked to do too much.
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75190.html
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banned from Kos
(4,017 posts)Its the most humane $80 billion we spend every year at about 2% of our budget.
Fuck the GOP and their starvation panels.
brooklynite
(94,727 posts)"Let those kids get a job!"
dkf
(37,305 posts)Subsidize more health care, take away food stamps. Sometimes it is a zero sum game.
Cirque du So-What
(25,978 posts)It's because the GD repugs keep cutting taxes for the wealthiest individuals, that's why.
toddwv
(2,830 posts)annual price tag for "defense" certainly doesn't help either.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)for these families affected? and when will such replacement benefits go up?
WTF?
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)Well, we know who is going to pay for tax cuts for the 1%; the poor, the sick, and the Seniors.
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)for the 1% true Americans cause y'know the little people are worthless anywho.
Y'think the senate will vote for the Buffett Rule, I would be surprised if one gopper crosses over, other than that NO. Remember most of them signed the "devil's" contract.
Slamdrive
(14 posts)It trumps the recovery.
movonne
(9,623 posts)stamps will vote repug...It really funny that these repugs are so against abortions but would like to starve the children to death...
jwirr
(39,215 posts)that makes no sense at all. It is going to alienate as many people as their views on women does.
olegramps
(8,200 posts)Keep the poor in a state of starvation so they can't make it to the polls. And even better yet if they are dead. I think Swift's "Modest Proposal" in which he advised the starving Irish to eat their children with will be their "Final" solution for the pesky problem.
aquart
(69,014 posts)Ask the English how well that worked.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)Technically at least, the Democratic Senators still outnumber the Republican ones also if I recall correctly.
It is fun to blame them, they are flaming lunatics these days, but they could be stopped simply by putting away that hot to sign pen Obama has.
All he has to do, assuming the Democratic Senate passes the food stamp slashing legislation is to put the pen down slowly, and back away from the desk, it is really that simple.
AndyTiedye
(23,500 posts)Then the whole program expires and millions go hungry. We will have no choice but to compromise with these bastards, because they can hold the poor hostage. We have no corresponding leverage over them. That is the problem, and it will not go away.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)AndyTiedye
(23,500 posts)Just because the GOP has the votes to ram it down our throats doesn't make it bi-partisan.
Just because the GOP-controlled media calls it bi-partisan doesn't mean it is.
Why are YOU so eager to call it bi-partisan?
It only makes it harder to stop.
It is precisely because of the GOP's control of the discourse that the Democrats are being forced to compromise again and again.
That is why the Republicans can vote for these cuts and not take any heat for it.
If the Democrats "stand their ground" and refuse to go along, the program ends.
That's even better for the GOP, because the Democrats get all the blame for the suffering this would create.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)to shove anything down our throats, got it, that's why we pushed all of those
Progressive laws down their throats under Bush, right? Or under Obama when we had the awesome power of the house that Republicans now enjoy.
Keep it up, you can do the 180 back to "it takes all three branches to have any effective power" in the next thread when we demure on labor or gay rights or fair taxes, the irony will be lost on you even as a monument is built to honor the depth of your ability to believe both things at once.
It is only a convieient excuse when Democrats claim, no matter what the circumstances, that the other party holds all the power, always, no matter who holds which branches of government.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)although it will be denied, ignored, and distracted from by the perpetual defenders of rightwing-corporate-neocon-policy-coming-from-neoDemocrats.
The middle class and the poor are under bipartisan attack by our own corporate government.
Occupy.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)Occupy them every day
savalez
(3,517 posts)There, that covers it.
Daniel537
(1,560 posts)Pres. Obama and the Democrats should take this message to poor red states like West Virginia, Kentucky, Louisiana etc....and tell the people there straight-out, you may not like me, but i won't let you starve.
lovuian
(19,362 posts)poor and yet give tax right off for the rich
bloomington-lib
(946 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)Amonester
(11,541 posts)Feels like History is Ignored, time and again.
libodem
(19,288 posts)Every foodstamp spent adds $3.00 to the local community economy. Couldn't be a more foolish or cruel move. Suicides aren't taking out the disenfranchised fast enough? They have to stave them to death as well?
E-Z-B
(567 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)MatthewStLouis
(904 posts)Last edited Tue Apr 17, 2012, 07:05 PM - Edit history (1)
Even if innocent children are the ones who most benefit.
This story makes me think of my conservative leaning brother in law, who is always quick with some dumb story about waiting in the grocery store checkout line behind welfare mothers with ten children who along with their WIC and food stamp purchases are loading up with cigarettes and alcohol. I guess this indicates that EVERY person who needs this kind of assistance is just a lazy scumbag... damned poor people!
lib2DaBone
(8,124 posts)Maybe they will contact Republicans and let their feeling be known....
Amonester
(11,541 posts)Predictable, sadly.