Under Trump's New Budget, If You Don't Work, You Don't Eat: Republicans Are Kicking People Off...

[DonViejo]

Source: Newsweek Magazine




UNDER TRUMP'S NEW BUDGET, IF YOU DON'T WORK, YOU DON’T EAT: REPUBLICANS ARE KICKING PEOPLE OFF FOOD STAMPS

The budget resolution passed by the House on Thursday will push millions of already struggling people off food stamps, leaving the neediest Americans—children and the elderly among them—without food.

The $4.1-trillion budget will take over $150 billion away from several poverty programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps low-income people keep food on the table, by giving them small amounts of supplemental money to spend on groceries—anywhere from $100 a month to $700 a month for a family of five, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

This budget isn't the newest problem SNAP has had to face. The number of people on SNAP ebbs and flows with the economy, but only 75 percent of people who are eligible for SNAP actually participate in the program, the website Snap to Health says. And it's because applying can get really complicated.

Evan Teske, a 26-year-old medical student, needed assistance while he was working for Americorps. After graduating from college in 2014, Americorps assigned him to Focuspoint Family Research Center, which focuses on education from childhood to adulthood. His stipend just wasn’t enough.


Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/under-trumps-new-budget-if-you-dont-work-you-dont-eat-republicans-are-kicking-679749

[safeinOhio]

1. Expect a rise in crime

[KY_EnviroGuy]

8. Yes! And, a rise in incarceration, malnutrition, and...

suicides and early deaths, emergency healthcare, and on and on.

But, don't bother the GOP with facts.

[Doreen]

28. Emergency health care?

Not where our country is going. The ONLY health care will be for the ultra rich.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

32. Doreen, I have to agree - if we continue the way we are now.

I've watched health care cost go up astronomically since the 50s/60s, when everything was handled in our doctor's office, then write them a check for $20 or $25 and go home. Now, just the paperwork makes my head spin. They've added layer after layer of companies involved in even the simplest procedures. That is what must come to an end, along with too much power and money going to insurance companies and major hospital chains.

This will be a very long fight because all those people profiting off health care will fight us at every step. If we can't stop it, as you say, average folks won't get health care and it will take an all out revolt or national strike to get it fixed.

I'm sure it would not work to force all those layers of companies to close up shop overnight, so a protracted transition period would be required. It seems to me that perhaps we should start with single-payer covering basic care for everyone, then gradually taking over the rest.

Like most things human, we've allowed this health care thing to get far too big and complex.

[DonCoquixote]

31. facts

Those problems are what they have a vested interest in. Not a bug, a feature.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

33. You're exactly right, well said.

Privatize everything, then shovel people into their machine - by force or out of desperation!

[OKNancy]

9. yes... food programs are anti-crime programs

Republicans are not only heartless, but really stupid. Morons.

[jmowreader]

22. Food programs are also indirect farm subsidies

Someone who has a lot more information than I can get needs to calculate how much of the money the programs Trump wants to get rid of wind up back in Trump-supporting states.

[Ferretherder]

35. Uh, that's...

...'Morans'.

Look it up in the 'Republicun Thisawrus'.

[Wuddles440]

23. This is all part of their plan.

Higher crime rate = increased gun sales.

[NickB79]

36. That's what they want

A rise in crime gives them the excuse to further militerize the police and crack down on protests.

It also gives the racists red meat, because you know they'll scream about "those" people causing trouble, dealing drugs, etc.

[videohead5]

2. I Don't Think

The Republicans can pass this using reconciliation.the Democrats will never vote for it.

[SharonAnn]

14. All they need is a majority and the R's are a majority in the House and Senate.

Reconciliation only requires a majority.
That's why they're doing it this way.
They'll do everything this way because it's the only way they can get something through.

[ck4829]

3. So Congress will go hungry then?

[BigmanPigman]

4. Ha, ha!

[SammyWinstonJack]

5. Ha!

[bronxiteforever]

6. No food, no birth control, charter schools and plenty of guns

America the beautiful under GOP rule.

[WhiteTara]

7. Get those kids out of those school desks

and into the work force. Work Work Work...maybe you'll get enough to eat and maybe you won't. But don't ask the republicons to care.

[bluestarone]

10. everyday

always something new these assholes do or take away and i'm really really getting sick of it

[Glimmer of Hope]

11. This is just cruel.

[procon]

12. US Ag produces so much extra food that crops are left to rot in the field and milk is

poured down the drain in order manufacture false shortages to inflate retail prices. There is no reason that anyone in the country needs to go hungry when vast quantities of fresh produce gets hauled off to landfills because they don't meet the pretty cosmetic standards that retailers demand. Estimates show about one-fifth of all fruit and vegetables are dumped because they do not conform to the industry standard of perfection.

Why isn't all this food being sent to food banks and distributed to everyone who needs to be fed? At the very least, open the fields to the gleaners and bus in everyone who wants to go get the abandoned crops.

[modrepub]

17. Snap for farmers

Food stamps were originally a price support system for farmers. It's taking money out of the economy in the long run. Not sure how this impacts corporate farming

[airplaneman]

27. I actually believe 80% + of our food is wasted.

Whats not picked at the farms.
What is not picture perfect.
What stores don't sell before the bogus "best buy" day.
What consumers waste and throw away items past their "best buy" date.
Just personal observation tells me 50%.
I know people who work in the industry that are aghast at what is wasted on the farm and through the process.
Americans are #1 on a lot of bad practices.
-Airplane

[Bayard]

13. Throw papertowels at them

[handmade34]

15. "every dollar spent on assistance pays for itself and grows the economy"

research shows....
study after study proves... the Republicans are vile


study after study after study........

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/the-economic-case-for-food-stamps/260015/

http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/29/news/economy/stimulus_analysis/

https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-boosts-retailers-and-local-economies

for god's sake, even Fox Business admits the benefits of SNAP!!
http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/05/24/how-food-stamp-cuts-could-ripple-through-economy.html

https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/bc_facts.pdf



http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/food-stamps-statistics-snap-economic-benefits/

https://www.snaptohealth.org/snap/the-real-benefits-of-the-snap-program/

https://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/policybriefs/pdfs/PB7-SNAP-Trends-Antipoverty-Impacts.pdf

http://www.weeklystandard.com/feds-encourage-food-stamps-helps-local-economies-everyone-wins/article/648477

SNAP is also a stabilizer from the perspective of the American economy. Because the number of families getting benefits increases as unemployment and earnings fall during economic downturns, the program serves the Keynesian function of boosting spending during a recession, which in turn stimulates the American economy at a moment when stimulus is needed. The SNAP program fills both of these stabilizing functions automatically

https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/reflecting-on-snap-purposes-spending-and-potential-savings/


and on and on and on.......

[KY_EnviroGuy]

34. Thanks for assembling this list of links - very handy.

Will copy and save for locking horns with a certain class of idiot we know all too well.

[The Wizard]

16. Republicans

Driving down wages for the working class since 1981.

[not fooled]

18. At the same time

pukes are pushing for repeal of the estate tax to ensure a different, just genetically luckier group can live their entire lives without working.

Oh, and of course, this current blighted proposal is horrible policy. pukes don't care--facts and research be dammed. Gotta cater to all the phony xtians who want to see the poor beaten up on.

And as capitalism continues to eliminate good jobs. Capitalism continues to not work well for a large number of Americans.

[airplaneman]

26. I see it as the icing on the cake for income inequality to repeal the estate tax.

10 year ago 400 people owned 50% of the wealth.
Today 20 people own 50% of the wealth.
Its headed for one person owning 99% of the wealth.
The elimination of the estate tax almost guarantees this wealth if forever locked away from the commons.
-Airplane

[Cicada]

19. Paris Hilton and Walmart heirs starve?

[Initech]

20. If we really want to trim the budget, why don't we end corporate subsidies?

These companies that make billions get free money and it's costing us trillions.

[They_Live]

21. That's what I keep saying too,

But they just won't listen.

[Bengus81]

24. $150B here and another $150B there and pretty soon....

Trump can foist his tinkle down for the rich and not bust the budget. Poor people will die.....probably didn't vote for Trump anyway.

[Loyd]

25. Biblical Bullshit?

I think there's a line like that in our National Book of Fables, but I could be wrong.

[Yupster]

29. Very difficult article to read

What's going on at Newsweek.

Read through this paragraph.

"In 2009, about 32 million people received SNAP benefits. The number increased during the great recession to an annual high of 47.6 million in 2013. Then, as the economy began to improve, it was down to 43 million in April 2010. And it's continue to show. From April 2015 to April 2016, it was all the way down by 1.9 million participants.

So it went from 32 million to 47.6 million in 2013 due to the great recession. Okay, that makes good sense. Then as things started to improve it was down to 43 million by 2010. Huh? Then the last two sentences don't make any sense to me at all.

What's going on at Newsweek?

[renegade000]

30. I hate these headlines...

The substance of the article is that people *are* working, but for peanuts, so they need SNAP. But the dumb headline is sure to make people think they're just kicking all the "lazy moochers" off assistance.