Child nutrition bill stalls in House after 106 Democrats revolt

[inna]

I don't understand why there is practically no coverage of this issue; it directly affects (and is vitally important to) 40+ million most vulnerable Americans who are currently enrolled in the food stamp program and who are going to face a significant reduction in benefits as a result of these cuts.

Child nutrition bill is important and a good cause, but there *has* to be a better way of funding it than slashing billions from the food stamp program.

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/child-nutrition-bill-stalls-house-106-democrats-revolt/


ETA: a slightly better link: http://washingtonindependent.com/99325/child-nutrition-bill-stalls-out-over-cuts-to-food-stamps

[texastoast]

1. Hey, it's survival of the fittest

So it begins.

:hide:

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Absolutely! This shouldn't be an either/or, and to any RWers who say

"but the money just isn't there" I just point to the wars. Look at how "secure" the monstrous spending on those wars has made our most vulnerable people.

[Thav]

8. Grayson drafted a bill for the war spending

"War is making you Poor Act" as it's called. It would make the military conduct these wars within their regular budget. Oh, and the $156 billion that it would trim would go to making the first $35k ($70k for households) tax free. How's that for helping the middle class.

However it's dead on arrival, since it funds a tax cut through cuts to military spending. And we ALL know that the only good tax cuts are ones for rich people funded through cuts in social programs for the most needy and vulnerable of citizens.

[Motown_Johnny]

3. 30 some days before the election they can't take on an "entitlement" for poor people

I only hope they can do it quickly in the lame duck session

[MrsCorleone]

4. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there will not be a direct cut to food stamp funding.

The additional emergency funding merely reverts back to normal (non emergency) sometime around '13. I don't know where the "cut funding" language came from.

[inna]

7. In practical terms, these are CUTS.

Stimulus boost ("the additional emergency funding") was never supposed to be taken back from the program; it was supposed to catch up with the inflation (that is, the benefits were supposed to stay at a flat level until caught up). Instead, for the FIRST time in history of the food stamps program, the actual benefits received by a poor family will DECREASE (by $59 a month for a family of four in 2013). Try explaining to a struggling poor family (who currently get $4.50 a day in food stamps per person - and that amount includes the stimulus boost) that directly DECREASING their monthly benefits by $59 amounts to anything less than a "direct cut". You may want to call this "reverting to the pre-recession levels" if that makes you feel better, but in practical terms, this amounts to actual and direct REDUCTION in monthly benefits. Which is, BTW, unprecedented in history of the program. Yes, these are real cuts, and they are going to hurt poor families. See this, for example, for more details: http://washingtonindependent.com/98886/the-real-impact-of-food-stamp-cuts

The bottom line is that they should have found a better source of funding than taking billions from the vital safety net program for the poor. There is no excuse for that, period. (Not to even mention the fact that food stamps happens to be THE most effective form of economic stimulus.)

[ProgressiveEconomist]

12. Cuts in FY2013? Funds shifted this year could be shifted back in 2012, don't you think?

[inna]

15. fat chance.

in fact, it looks like further and more dramatic cuts are under way.

[Odin2005]

5. CORPORATISTS HATE KIDS!

[caledesi]

6. Love the fetus; hate the child....nt

[bliss_eternal]

14. exactly...

sadly. :(

[theHandpuppet]

16. Corporatists' revenge for passing child labor laws

Their motto: If they can't work, why should they eat?

[dflprincess]

9. Remind them that government food programs aren't completely altruistic

One reason they were started was because military doctors during WWII where shocked by the number of young men who were unfit for service because of childhood nutritional deficiencies.

Gotta keep the cannon fodder healthy.

[old mark]

19. They also provide stimulus for the retail sellers, food producers and farmers...

but the right lovers to point to the old Welfare Cadillac image...especially when times are bad. You can buy a lot of Cadillac for $4.50 a day you save on grocery money...

FWIW, we were food stamp recipients for a few months several years ago when I was recovering from some heart atacks and the following surgery - my wife was mocked in several supermarkets when she told the checkout clerk she had food stamps. We have never shopped in those places since.

The food stamps were absolutely necessary to our financial survival.


mark

[dflprincess]

20. I worked in a grocery store through high school & college

and we were given strict instructions to treat all customers with respect regardless of how they were paying for their purchase - food stamps or cash that's what paid the store's bills & our wages. The problem was that some jerk in line behind the person using food stamps would make ignorant comments which left us cashiers between customers. My method was usually to make sure I was faultlessly polite to the food stamp customer and as rude as I could be to the jerk when his turn came. (And 99% of the time when this happened the food stamp customer was female and the jerk was male.)

[CreekDog]

10. I can't support a cut to the food stamp program

especially since all we are doing for poverty (still not enough) has left us with the highest poverty in quite a while with children suffering more poverty than any other age group.

Obama should've opted to pay for it by reducing some kind of armament we are funding that the troops don't use.

[leftstreet]

11. K&R

[Greyhound]

13. Obscene. K&R

[LiberalAndProud]

17. If the bill had passed, are we talking a 'wash'?

Is it a dollar added to one meal to be subtracted from another? I must ask, what is the matter with us? We buy bombs but cannot afford food. This is frustrating beyond frustrating. Merchants of death in every sense.

[Karmadillo]

18. As long as we can feed the war machine, it's all OK.

nt