Republicans cut out food stamps

[Sita]

www.nbcnews.com/id/52453957/t/death-knell-food-stamp-program

Since 1977, every incarnation of the farm bill—which subsidizes and regulate various programs related to agriculture and food production—has included food stamp funding. House leadership decided to carve SNAP out of the 2013 farm bill and place it in a separate piece of legislation after Democrats blocked an earlier version of the law which would have cut about $20.5 billion out of SNAP over the next decade.

Rules committee chair Pete Session, R-Texas, said the new version of the bill “excludes some extraneous provisions,” a statement that drew outrage from his Democratic colleagues.

emphasis mine.

This is just a great thing to read.
And it's wonderful how those of us needing food assistance are considered extraneous. It's like they can't stop reminding everyone how much they hate the average person.

It also makes me wonder about things like the free lunch program at schools. How long before that comes under the knife?

[The Mad Hatter]

Unless you already have more money than you could ever spend, many of those lawmakers will begrudge every cent you get.

[Xentor]

Most of the time I prefer Liberals over Democrats, but in this case, I'm very happy they recognised that cutting food stamps is a bad idea. "Nay", for considering my wife and kids extraneous.

[Jenne]

I had a post all typed out and lost it.

Anyway, sometimes these mandates are federally made but locally funded/to be funded by the state. But yes, school lunches are often under the gun because of this. In fact, all "government assistance" programs are on the chopping block and should be minimized according to conservatives, who don't "get" that they are just holding kids back by keeping them poor and hungry.

Grover Norquist et al seem to think that keeping bellies full of free food from the government creates more problems (read: for the wealthy whose tax burden should be paying for it, except for the fact the very wealthy can shelter their taxable wealth, thereby placing the bulk of the burden BACK onto the middle classes) for the poor sods who make $$ and don't need assistance. I guess they LIKE keeping the poor many poor...thinking the hunger in his belly will make him fight for his future in the rat race that much harder...?

*scratches head* I really don't get their way of thinking, honestly.

[The Mad Hatter]

Their thought process baffles me completely.

[Sita]

Their thought process is one (or a combination) of these:
a) they do not wish for anyone else to have any wealth, because that would mean less for them
b) they themselves grew up poor and hungry and were able to make their money with time and effort, so there is no reason at all everyone else can't do it too
c) they believe that giving people free anything will just continue enabling them to be lazy slobs and not try to get anything on their own

[The Mad Hatter]

D) They are so completely ruled by their own greed and self righteousness that they have zero concept of reality.

[User]

If you give them $200 a month, or whatever food stamps are actually worth, to buy food then they'll live like kings on it and not bother to work even though jobs are falling out of the sky. There is literally no difference between making the poor slightly less poor and full scale communism where we all get paid exactly the same. Or at least that's what I've been told.

[ayezatulbrite]

I think the game is to tax you and then give you NOTHING in return. It's like if you went into a shop, saw something you like, handed over your money and then they REFUSE to give you the item you just paid for!

it's a SCAMMMMMMMMMM!!!!

[Jenne]

All the above...and User, totally. The supposition that EBT is the spawn of the devil making freeloading welfare "queens" live like royalty is just so laughable but still their favorite hobby horse to ride. The fact is, food stamps are the difference between health and obesity, starvation and "just enough to get by" for many lower middle class families who can't get a wedge into the failing economy.

The stigma that government assistance has on the young gets in the way of people learning who really is at risk if food stamps and free lunch programs are discarded altogether. 1) the very young 2) the very old--two of the weakest parts of our society who need protection, not prosecution.

[The Mad Hatter]

The young are too young to work or fight in their wars. The old are too old to work or fight in their wars.

[Jenne]

So very true, so very very true.

Remember Newt Gingrich's idea to make the kids into the janitors at their very own schools? You know, to teach them a "work ethic"?

[Xentor]

The dumb, poor, and starving are easiest to control. Your conservatives like authority, they like being in control. So they want to conserve (or create) a society that lets them be and stay in control. If people are on welfare, or get food stamps, they need less time fighting and struggling to stay alive. That gives them more time to think. Thinking leads to awareness. Awareness leads to questioning authority. Which is what conservatives hate and fear. So keep the dumb dumb, the poor poor, and the starving starving. Divide and conquer.

[Jenne]

It's not just that...the power structure is one thing, I agree, and probably a particularly large part. But they have this "me mine MINE!" mentality that says that if they SHARE, then there's less for THEM and THEIRS. They see the pie as finite, whereas others of us see the pie only as an ever-growing entity that can grow larger, faster and more abundantly THE MORE IT IS SHARED.

By keeping the pie stagnant, they are destroying what could encompass ALL OF us, their greed carries them further way from the global ideal and instead DEVOLVES the whole population into a grasping, grabbing, get-it-before-THEY-do! kind of morass.

The more we horde, the more we don't share and teach our KIDS to share, the more we take up rights of others and don't allow them to spread their wings, the more hate and greedy desire, lust for power and disgust for their fellow man we will breed into those who are born here as well as those who have come here to survive and make a way.

[User]

Make the pie higher