Food Stamp Cuts To Get House Vote In Syria's Shadow

[Triana]

WASHINGTON -- The debate in Congress over whether the United States should bomb Syria may be diverting attention from the economy at home. While the House and Senate hold hearings on authorizing military force, a bill that would cut food stamps is headed to the House floor next week with relatively little fanfare.

"There are 50 million people in the United States of America who are hungry, 17 million are kids," Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said in an interview. "It is something we all should be ashamed of, and the United States House of Representatives is about to make that worse. This is a big deal and my hope is that we'll treat it as such and not just let it go by without a lot of discussion and debate because we're all focused on Syria."

. . .

Next week the House will vote on legislation to cut SNAP by roughly 5 percent. The bill is bypassing the House Agriculture Committee, which oversees food stamps, because it is a priority of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).

"There's not been a single hearing on food stamps at all. Not one," said McGovern, one of the panel's most outspoken opponents of cutting nutrition assistance. (The previous Congress, which wrapped up last year, held several hearings on nutrition legislation, though McGovern notes that the Agriculture Committee's membership has since changed.) "I hope through all this Syria stuff, that we're able to shed a bit of light on this, because I think most Americans, if they realize what's going on, would be outraged."

MORE...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/10/food-stamp-cuts_n_3900545.html

[madrchsod]

1. the sound of silence.......

we have been on food stamps due to medical problems and my wife being on fmla to take care of me. i think this is the last month since she`s back to work and i`m ok. it really is going to hurt those who really need every penny of food the snap program provides. to bad the snap program is`t as news worthy as war.

[Triana]

2. The U.S. doesn't gas its own people. It just starves them to death . . .

. . . in favor of lower taxes for the rich.

[liberal_at_heart]

4. exactly. Death by starvation. Where's the outrage for that?

[Triana]

5. I've been wondering that for the past few weeks...

...

[golfguru]

15. If you wish to see real starvation

go to Somalia. USA has more problem with obesity than starvation.

Since we are a rich country, no one should be allowed to starve here. Food stamps should be limited to healthy foods, such as pushed by Michelle Obama. Then there will be lot of money left over to provide food for more poor people.

[liberal_at_heart]

17. Just because people are suffering in other countries does not minimize people's suffering here.

More than 16 million children in this country don't know if they will get to eat during a given day.

[golfguru]

18. How is that even possible?

We provide free breakfast and lunch to every student from K thru 12.

[avaistheone1]

7. True, the U.S. doesn't gas our own people. It just doesn't provide universal health insurance at a

cost 40,000 American lives per year, most of them children.

I suppose it is okay to have a blind eye to starving Americans, and to those Americans dying due to lack of access to medical care, but it is solely our country's moral obligation to go to war to avenge an unknown number of Syrians who have been gassed by an unknown group whose responsibility can not be verified.

[Triana]

8. +1

Exactly.

I guess the prospect of bombs and war somewhere else is somehow 'sexier' to be enraged about than starving, sick citizens at home who have no way to even survive - even when they work fulltime. And what little social help they get is now to be cut, too.

God damn. Where the hell are our priorities? Where are OUR morals and OUR consciences?

Seriously.

[avaistheone1]

12. That is what I am talking about.

I am writing an email to my senator, Barbara Boxer. She voted for the resolution to attack Syria.

I have come to the same conclusion you have. It is a question of priorities. How did the American people get to the absolute bottom of our leaders priorities? I can't stand seeing Americans slipping behind in every metric compared to most of our peers in the rest of the world. I expect this crap from the republicans, but not the democrats. I want to know from her how her priorities got so out of whack. We have never seen her in our area since she was first elected to the Senate in 1993. I wonder if our representative get so off-track because they do not have enough contact with their rank and file constituents?

Well I am pretty angry and I do expect some real answers rather than her canned rhetoric press release which only raised more ill feelings and frustration for me.

[adirondacker]

13. +100. add to that the abysmal health care and everyday stress of survival and you wonder if

they're intention is to "exterminate" a section of the population.

[liberal_at_heart]

3. I am so disgusted with the whole government right now. We have money for military strikes

in Syria but we don't have enough money for food stamps. They live on their own little planet. They have no idea what we go through in our day to day existence.

[Triana]

6. My sentiments exactly. n/t

[marew]

9. Agree completely!

We have lots of people suffering right here. Sadly they appear to be invisible. I don't understand.

[HangOnKids]

11. Food Stamps Do Not Feed The Miltary Industrial Beast

See those rich fat men and women with business interests in death need more $$$$$$ so they can shop, or get another house, or botox, or a 6th Mercedes...poor people ah fuck em.

[JI7]

10. we do have mony for food stamps, it's just that some people don't want to provide them

[Iliyah]

14. Yep but its ok to cut for snap for guns

[idwiyo]

16. K&R