The Phony Right Wing Outrage over Obama cutting Food Stamps

[Whisp]

http://www.politicususa.com/en/obama-food-stamps

I am sure that there are countless other examples of blogs on the Right who are leaving out that small but critical detail. The political reality is that Congress was playing a budgetary shell game. I would bet anything that the funding will be restored to the food stamp program long before 2014 rolls around. Congress was juggling some numbers so that it looked like the $26 billion in aid to states was paid for.

Glenn Beck can keep peddling his nonsense about Obama, “going after food stamps,” but the truth is that cut was nothing more than election year stunt designed to make Congress look like they care about spending and the deficit. Obama and Congress are banking on the idea that by 2014 the economy will be robust again, and there will be less demand for the food stamp program, with fewer recipients in the program, funding will fall, so what looks like a cut during the recession, will really be a return to the funding level of regular economic times.

If the Right really believes that food stamps are a scam, along with Social Security, unemployment benefits, and school lunches, then why aren’t they praising Obama for these cuts? Isn’t it a good thing that Obama is getting rid of this “scam?” Everyone knows that the program itself is not a scam, but with Republicans out to divide America along class and racial lines, and with the poor being the easiest targets, people like Glenn Beck see a benefit in attacking the most defenseless people in our society. Beneath the fake outrage is an attempt to further divide America. It is a cynical ploy to win votes in November. Such is the current dynamic that shapes conservative political thought.

[Hannah Bell]

1. "you would bet" funding will be restored, but currently those cuts are on the books.

then you have to explain why congress is playing "shell games" & why they choose to play with the food stamps shell rather than the military shell, or the corporate subsidy shell.

oh, & for the record: what sparked this op wasn't some "right-wing" outrage, but my op here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8966545#8966599

plus, cuts are slated to start in 2013, not 2014:

The food stamp cuts, worth $11.9 billion, wouldn’t go into effect until 2014 — meaning Democrats have punted a bit by giving themselves time to restore the funding down the road...

Compounding the consternation, the Senate targeted the program for an additional $2.2 billion in savings to jump-start a child nutrition bill. That moves the date of pain from April 2014 to November 2013.

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=59C8408B-18FE-70B2-A890455A7ECD83C7.

and it's not just "right-wingers" criticizing the move:

Democratic Congress member Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut voted for the measure, but said, "I cannot in good conscience condone what we have taken away...The bill shamefully pits these priorities against each other."

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/11/headlines/obama_signs_state_aid_bill_after_dems_cut_12b_in_food_stamp_funding

[Whisp]

2. If Glenn Beck is touting this as a truth

then I have some serious misgivings. Everyone should reconsider repeating what that asshole believes.

[Hannah Bell]

3. regardless of what glenn beck says, it's true that as of now, cuts are slated for nov 2013.

you may be correct that funding will be restored, but currently, cuts are slated.

why does the party give such easy ammo to the right, where they can paint themselves as the champion of the "little guy"?

why would dems make such a deal with the devil?

and this, for example, isn't glenn beck:

In a very anti-Robin Hood move, the Senate is robbing the poor to give to the poor. Last week, the Senate voted to slash funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a.k.a food stamps, in order to pay for Medicaid and teachers' salaries. Then later in the week, the Senate took an axe to food stamps again, cutting more funding in order to pay for its recently passed Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, a bill designed to improve school lunches. Two cuts in a week — that's harsh even by cash-strapped government standards.

Increasing the dollars dedicated to Medicaid, teachers' salaries, and school lunches is certainly a noble goal. However, dipping into the wallets of America's poor is kind of an ass-backwards way of funding these programs. As Change.org blogger Jean Stevens recently wrote, the stimulus bill provided more funding for SNAP. In terms of pulling the country out of its recession, that was a great move by our government — every dollar of food stamp money spent generates about $1.70 of economic activity, resulting in a big bump to America's struggling economy. Reducing the money allocated to food stamps just doesn't make fiscal sense.

Not only do these cuts hinder the economy, they hit America's poor at a time when they need food stamps the most. The recession drove an additional six million families to SNAP. "In short, when November 2013 hits, a family of four will see their monthly food stamp benefit drop by $59," Jill Richardson recently wrote on the La Vida Locavore blog. For many folks, $59 buys about a weeks' worth of groceries. It's all well and good that Medicaid, teachers, and students will see much-needed funding increases, but should poor families really have to go hungry in order to pay for these benefits?

To be fair, the final version of the Child Nutrition Act may not actually slash food stamp funding (the Senate's version of the bill includes these cuts, but the legislation still needs House approval before a final version is created and signed into law). But the cuts to fund Medicaid and teachers' salaries are definitely happening. In fact, the Senate voted to keep oil and gas subsidies in place, but approved cuts to SNAP instead. Talk about adding insult to injury.

http://food.change.org/blog/view/senate_cuts_food_stamp_funding_to_pay_for_school_lunch.

[Demit]

5. This sounds like a case of hollering before you're hurt.

AS OF NOW, people are receiving the same amount of food stamps, and they will receive the same amount for the NEXT THREE YEARS.

Sometimes you need to take care of current pressing needs because they are more pressing. If you're able to do that by borrowing from the future, you do that. To get out of your current predicament. And if you can juggle things so that you're not taking money away from any other pressing needs RIGHT NOW, that's a good thing.

The claim that cuts are 'hitting America's poor at a time when they need food stamps the most' is a needlessly alarmist statement. Things are unchanged for food stamp recipients for the next three years.

[ipaint]

8. 106 Democrats in the house signed a letter to pelosi

protesting the future cuts to SNAP.

"As you know prior to the vote on HR 1586, the democratic majority has provided historic increases in the SNAP program; yet we are now forced to choose between jobs and health care or food for hungry people. This is one of the more egregious cases of robbing Peter to pay Paul, and is a vote we do not take lightly"

http://frac.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/snap001.pdf

[Demit]

11. I don't understand how your post is in reply to mine.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

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[tanyev]

6. Yep, those same RWers would be loudly praising a GOP president who really did cut food stamps.

[ipaint]

7. Selling the humanity of a benefits cut to a temporary program which feeds poor families

in what is for them is a depression which won't be ending by Nov. 2013.

"American food stamps are not generous, averaging only $4.50 a day even after being bumped up in the recession-era stimulus — less than you’d need to buy two meals at McDonald’s. And since the start of the recession, the number of families depending on them has skyrocketed. The economic crisis has pushed 12.9 million people into SNAP; as of April, more than 40 million collect the bare-bones benefits. More than 6 million Americans report no income whatsoever except for SNAP — because they are not eligible for unemployment insurance, Social Security, disability or other programs.

Sensitive to the risky politics of cutting benefits for the neediest Americans, aides have been on a behind-the-scenes push to convince think tanks, unions and reporters of both the necessity and humanity of the cuts. In their telling, it is not a cut at all. It is merely a “technical fix” for years in the future."

...the ARRA increase to SNAP benefits boosted benefits from meager to less-meager, advocates say. “We have been very supportive of the ARRA boost,” says Ellen Vollinger of the Food Research and Action Center. “But it underscored that these benefits are not generous. Anecdotally, we heard that the ARRA boost let some SNAP recipients keep going to the supermarket in the third or fourth week of the month, rather than going to a soup kitchen starting after the second week. They were stretching out their benefits, and purchasing some more nutritious food, like fresh fruit and vegetables.” Vollinger notes that even with the ARRA funding the average SNAP benefit is not really enough to eat.

And FRAC argues that that the situation where the government might actually cut benefits — where in Feb. 2014, a recipient might receive a $400 benefit on their EBT card, and in March, 2014, $350 — would be “devastating” for recipients. “In the 1990s, there were terrible cuts to the program,” Vollinger explains. “But nobody ever started receiving less money . That situation — what will happen if people aren’t well-informed about the cut? What if they don’t recognize that the benefit will be lower?” It has never happened in the history of the program, Vollinger notes."

http://washingtonindependent.com/93443/to-get-medicaid-and-education-aid-to-states-an-unprecedented-cut-to-food-stamps

Could the people who think the punishing effects of the recession/depression on the low income and the poor will end by Nov. of 2013 (the latest date for the cut to the temporary increase) explain how that will happen.

Also what if it was a repub congress and bush cutting the temporary benefit program during a deep recession (a depression for the folks receiving the increased benefit), complete with repub aides expressing the need to emphasize the humanity of such a cut in temporary benefits and to push it as a tech fix.
Would you still defend it as not a cut at all but just a tech fix.

Is it now humane to announce a cut to a much needed temporary program that provides food to families with little or no access to money or jobs to buy it for themselves. How can these millionaires in congress state that the recession will be ended and the need for the increase will disappear by Nov. 2013 when most economists predict that unemployment will stay high for a decade or more?

[mopinko]

9. i do not recall ever hearing of people turned away from the

program because they had exceeded the line item for the program. people that qualify get what they are qualified for, period.

and yeah, attended a town hall meeting of the teabagger that is running in my district, and it is unbelievable that they can get away with this spin.

[Scurrilous]

10. Thanks

K & R :thumbsup: