STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Monday, 3 February 2014

[Demeter]

23. Congress Agrees That People Should Go Hungry By Charles P. Pierce

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/farm-bill-bipartisan-deal-012814



Oh, look, we have another "bipartisan" deal, this time on the Farm Bill, which is the most bipartisan-y thing you've ever seen because everybody has to swallow a small toad, and the only people who really get hurt are people you don't know anyway.

The changes to food stamps would trim $8 billion from the program over the next 10 years, according to congressional aides. That's less than the $39 billion that Republicans had wanted to cut from the program, but double what Democrats had suggested. Lawmakers say the deal will prevent 17 states from doling out more generous food stamps to people who get federal help to heat or cool their homes, even if the help is as little as $1. They stress the move won't cut families from food stamps, it will just shrink the amount some families get.

Of course, the allotted amount dropped last November, too, so the invisible people out there are used to making do with less, anyway.

"Today's bipartisan agreement puts us on the verge of enacting a five-year Farm Bill that saves taxpayers billions, eliminates unnecessary subsidies, creates a more effective farm safety-net and helps farmers and businesses create jobs," said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat who chairs the Senate agriculture panel.

How, precisely, does this particular bill help "businesses create jobs"? Almost a million people will have less money to spend on luxuries like heat and food. That doesn't help you if you're creating jobs in grocery stores or selling heating oil. Teachers will have to cope with dozing, hungry children while their unemployed parents try very hard not to yawn their way through job interviews. But the Republicans didn't get absolutely everything they wanted, and the Democrats agreed to cut twice what they'd proposed, and the deal was struck among people who never will feel its real effects, and that's the way things are supposed to work in this great Republic of ours.