Republicans seek cuts to food stamp program with new farm bill

The newest depression isn't enough for them.

The poor die in the street of starvation. What does that tell you about their political party and what it stands for?

When I worked 6 years at DOL in the Work Incentive Program from 1976 to 1982 we had full funding for for helping welfare recipients get work and back into the work force. We could write federal employment training contracts for up to a year and send recipients to school so they could get off of welfare. They also got support albeit somewhat limited from Social Services in the form of welfare and "food stamps". It allowed the women and children to survive well enough to get them a start. We had two profession units of employment professionals like myself and my fellow workers and a full staff of social workers and support aides to help them.

The GOP ended all that and replaced it with TANF. Temporary Assistance To Needy Families. It actually was just a "harassment" program to get women to take jobs they could not live on and feed their kids. I retired rather than allow myself to participate in such a program that I totally disagreed with. I could never understand why Clinton supported such a trashy deal.

I know what women went through trying to get a start. It was really hard to help even in 1976. Now it is impossible. When a country looks away from the most needy and begins to shortchange is children, I often wonder what my service in Vietnam even meant or that of all veterans. We are becoming a nation not to be proud of.

Food Stamps and programs like it ultimately effect women and children more than anyone. Yet they seem to be invisible. And yet we have a GOP Senate candidate who is complaining that he is hearing too much about the poor and downtrodden.

vote for the repubs...WTH?

has reverted to the worthiness test - that somehow, poverty and deprivation are a signifier of poor character. Is that really what Mr. Sessions thinks of the 16.6% of the population of his state that qualifies for SNAP? (Don't answer that - I think I know the answer).

Miserable excuse for a human being, he is.


(slightly off topic - I don't care for the graph they are using in that article. It fails to adequately express the issue since it doesn't take into account total population by state. California is colored red, with almost 3.7 million receiving benefits - but out of a population of 37.69 million, that's less that 10% (still distressingly high). Next door, Nevada is colored pale yellow, with 'only' 332,959 receiving benefits . . . but the population of the entire state is just over 2.7 million, meaning that 12.2% of the population is receiving benefits. A silly niggle, I know . . .)

The word that best describes "moral values", that have been weekend to the point they no longer have anything to do with true morality, is "Paramoralism"

It is the best word that I have seen, and it explains how Republicans (for example), while claiming the moral high ground, can be the leader of evil deeds, while most people will never see the evil deeds for what they are, and therefor support the people who do them, even though it is against their own best interest.

to kill off more. It's an egregious party that will eventually consume itself, but will take many with it ...

This is why I get irritated when people conflate the two terms. Guh.

They scream "class warfare" but they better count their fucking blessings; if we fought back as hard as they attack us, they would be exterminated.

I alwso bet he calls himself a Christian

I don't have the details yet, but it appears the Senate bill, at least, won't have the cuts the 'cans want.

Of course that leaves the House, and if the Senate has the likes of Rand Paul and Jeff Sessions, we all know the House has equally odious, possibly worse, members.

giving away millions of dollars to wealthy farmers.

One of my neighbors who inherited 300 acres from his father and has thousands of sheep, got millions to build barns and put up fencing from the farm bill. Yet the starving poor should get cuts in their food stamps. I think this man could have survived if he built one less barn (he had 5 already) but the starving poor should be fed less.

Repuklicans to the rescue!

the Republicans would never, ever win another election.

For sessions.

to the states...they use them for all sorts of different stuff and they say there is no more money for food stamps. Tough luck kiddo!

and use the money on the consumption side (ie food stamps).

plus people on food stamps do`t vote! win win for the republicans!

What would happen if there was a gigantic killer Tornado that swept thru Iowa this summer... and left thousands hungry and homeless?

Not saying I would want that.. but it would be interesting.. considering that the good Evangelical religious right-wing synchophants found it so necessary to reduce all food stamps and , they themselves.. were caught in the trap?

Sometimes.. reality happens....