Reply #15: Obey says Team Obama suggested cutting food stamps to save Race to the Top from cuts

[w4rma]

Remember that important NYT story from early this year describing the growing number of Americans whose sole income consists of food stamps...?

Well, months after that report came out, some genius in the Obama Administration, according to a very shrill David Obey, proposed offsetting funds to keep teachers in the schools by cutting food stamps. Said genius wanted to cut these people’s only safety net so Arne Duncan could go on privatizing our schools...

"It blows my mind that the White House would even notice the fight . I would have expected the president to say to the secretary, “look, you’re getting a good deal, for God’s sake, what this really does is guarantee that the rest of the money isn’t going to be touched.”

We gave $4.3 billion in the stimulus package, no questions asked. He could spend it any way he wants. … I trusted the secretary, so I gave him a hell of a lot more money than I should have...

We were told we have to offset every damn dime of . Well, it ain’t easy to find offsets, and with all due respect to the administration their first suggestion for offsets was to cut food stamps. Now they were careful not to make an official budget request, because they didn’t want to take the political heat for it, but that was the first trial balloon they sent down here. … Their line of argument was, well, the cost of food relative to what we thought it would be has come down, so people on food stamps are getting a pretty good deal in comparison to what we thought they were going to get. Well isn’t that nice. Some poor bastard is going to get a break for a change."
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/07/17/americas-dilemma-teachers-or-food
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8772149