With Nothing Else to Worry About, Congress Cuts Food Stamp Budget
Hey, remember when the economy went to hell and one in ten workers were out of a job and millions of Americans lost their homes ?
That was awful, but LUCKILY rich people have completely recovered from the Great Recession (and then some!), so Congress is now finally able to tackle the very pressing matter of cutting the food stamp budget against the wishes of the American people. This is Econ 101: in the event of a prolonged economic downturn, 1. fire as many government workers as possible, and then 2. make sure Poors cannot get enough to eat so they will be forced to start a bootstrap business and become makers instead of takers. We've already accomplished number 1, so now it's time to get cracking on the poors:
Monday night, the Senate passed a five-year farm bill that contained $4.1 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) over ten years. This ensures that the only debate now will be about how much to cut—and it’s likely to result in cuts much deeper than $4.1 billion.
To be fair, it's a great time to cut the food stamp budget, seeing as only 48 million Americans qualify for them (give or take.) But on the other hand, this means that there are an awful lot of Poors, and we can't have that, not in the Greatest Country on Earth! The solution, therefore, is to cut funding for the program and viola, there will be less people who qualify, and ergo de facto, fewer Poors!
[ The Nation ]
When did the web of poverty get renamed to Safety Net?
Those corporate types, so good at the re-branding.
The worst thing about this? They'll probably use the shrinking of the rolls as a result of kicking millions of people out of the program to try to claim that fucking over the poor is the best way to make "help" them.