$1.2 billion a year.
What a tiny price to pay to help 700,000 people.
Is the Agriculture Department going to offer them jobs?
My government's behavior is ungentlemanly, than which there is no more severe indictment.
12
Food Stamps have turned into a form of government cocaine. Once someone is allowed benefits, they become addicted and are reluctant to give them up, and in some respects, I believe may actually promote poverty as recipients, in an effort to retain their eligibility, will intentionally limit (or hide) their income and assets. Essentially, recipients become willing to accept poverty in an effort to retain their eligibility for benefits, and will pass up opportunities to better themselves.
8
A lot of self-entitled responses here from people who will doubtless refuse to admit their own privilege. We'll see how this works out over the long haul, since it is the red states that will bear the heaviest burden of these cuts, and they are already the greatest burden on the system. But somehow voters in those states will still find ways to blame all their woes on democrats.
22
$1 billion a year in savings is minuscule--a rounding error in our $4.45 trillion budget for 2019. It clearly has no real effect on reducing the deficit. Yet it affects 3 million people, yes,some of whom are lazy, some of whom are cheats, but many of whom are desperately in need of food.
Yet Sonny Purdue believes that it is more important to teach a moral lesson to a few miscreants at the expense of those who are in real need.
Punishing the powerless has become a blood-sport for this administration. It's a show of ”toughness” from a President who backs down any time he's challenged by anyone with real power.
22
Here's what someone like Mike Bloomberg or Tom Steyer should do with some of their money: sue the administration on behalf of the people that will lose the food benefit. Are all of them accurately classed as able-bodied? Have none of them really, really tried to find work that would get them out of the program? How much has the government done to aid them find such work? All that on top of the artificial and unreasonable measurement against the national average unemployment rate.
That could at least halt the process, probably past the election in 2020 - then see who is President then.
7
Its about time. Maybe it help stop obesity as well. People would select more nutritious food & learn how to cook. Most of what is seen is more applying for SSI , in thinking they don't have to work of which many abuse the system. Able body young adults getting fat off the system which makes them more lazy. None the less Trump is 100% correct , In my opinion . Food share needs reform is a must. Our country as a whole is wealthy with plenty of work to go around for every able body person. As a whole i hope it stops the fraudulent use of food share stamps in which we pay for others to get. Maybe we might get more stable able body persons to understand food share isn't a free meal paid by others. I agree stamp out the fraud.
2
I’m sorry I was just in the Midwest for the holidays visiting the family farm. I was discussing how farmers vote for GOP and support Trump and expect for their lives to be subsidized when the market fluctuates yet don’t support urban programs like food stamps for a single urban mother. Because of the tariffs many farmers in this Missouri community are being subsidized $90 an acre .
Knowing they are doing away with food stamp programs but still paying these farmers is such hypocrocracy .
21
April is before the election. Perhaps when millions of voters are hungry they won't vote for Trump.
8
I’ve used this before—an observation by the late longshoreman (and writer) Eric Hoffer: a social movement can exist without God, but it cannot exist without the devil.
We certainly know what those in the Republican, so-called conservative, movement think of the poor.
5
I hope these unfortunate people who need SNAP will go to the polls next year and remind our thoughtless and misguided "president" and his Republican cohorts that they have turned their backs on constituents.
"The change is expected to shave nearly $5.5 billion from food stamp spending over five years." Translate that dollar figure into the damage done to those who need this program. Why not shave that amount off our bloated military spending or our "wall" debacle?
10
I do believe that there are many people who really need the assistance, but I have seen one to many times, women paying with food-stamps wearing fur coats, disgusting $100 nails and driving a BMW.
I don't know what the answer is.
4
I'm no winger (of either party), but wonder why it's so horrible that able-bodied adults should be expected to work? Perhaps the assistance they should be receiving is in finding a job?
9
The only thing this is going to happen with this is more crime.
Let's see how President Trump's base likes this. They are mostly people who need and get food stamps.
5
Unconscionable! How long before Trump decides to scrap child labor laws and force SNAP eligible children to work. He is already pushing to allow children to work longer hours under hazardous conditions.
8
I would like to know where the people live who will be cut off - it is the only way I can know whether to be sad about this...... like all bad news these days.
1
Gotta pay for the tax cut for the rich someway. It's a twofer for the Republicans:They get to punish those they hate ("why don't they all just die), and pay for a tiny part of the tax cut as well.
8
An attempt to add work requirements to SNAP had failed in Congress when they had considered the Farm Bill last year. The House rejected it in a bipartisan vote of 330-83, and the Senate voted down a similar amendment 68-30. This subverts the will of the people and is another abuse of power by King Trump. Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas especially to all the wealthy people and corporations who enjoyed tax cuts.
12
Agree, that many may be categorized as "able bodied," but the reality is they may be ill equipped for any type of employment. That is why I think a UBI, such as the "Freedom Divident" that Andrew Yang proposes, should be a part of our national discussion on how to assist those in need.
4
This is a sad commentary on the wealthiest Nation ever in the History of Humankind
Billions of Tax Breaks for giant Corporations and to take food away from people
So petty and immoral
I am so sad for America the country that I Love and My father fought for
14
This is sad. Tax subsidies for the rich, but for those who are poor, cut off food. Well Done Trump. So we will have serious hunger issues in this "rich" country. Maybe Scandinavia can send food subsistence to those in need like they many years ago. Most of us didn't even know they did this.
What a sad excuse for this once great country.
9
What a compassionate, caring POTUS we have, don't you think?
/s
7
Hey Sonny P.,
Give up your farm welfare payments. Since you want people to stop "depending on government handouts" let's stop the government giving away our public lands for free to drill, mine, leave toxic sites near our homes and ruin what little nature many of us can see for free.
Oh, by the way, I forgot about our taxes subsidizing rich people to build mansions on your Georgia coastline. And, we re-build them after each disaster. You sir, are truly your brother's keeper.
13
I agree that people should not starve and I am glad to see they are talking about i the new rules not affecting people with children.
I'm also reading all the comments about kindness and compassion which are certainly necessary, but here is a problem.
There is a huge underground economy,
I worked for the DOL for more than 30 years. When we had in person reporting, people would actually drive up in trucks with company names on them. Without in person reporting it's even harder to monitor who is working and collecting benefits.
People brag all the time about working off the books, or for cash. There really isn't a good way to control this, except to offer people work in exchange for benefits like food stamps. If you are unemployed (truly) and "able bodied" shouldn't you be willing to perform some services for the government in exchange for help? It can be any local government.
Most people who aren't working are happy about helping out in exchange fore assistance.
If you have mental problems, slight disabilities, there should be exclusions for that...AND your local government can help, charities can help.
However, there are many people who take advantage it's unfortunate for others, but should people who can and do work be given food stamps while they don't pay taxes on their work?
I want children taken care of and people who genuinely have problems, but not those already cheating while working.
How do you fix that without some restrictions?
6
Somebody's got to pay for those tax cuts for the wealthy.
14
Well that ends my support for Trump. As a staunch supporter I will now not vote at all. This is simply not right.
5
I saw a DW, German media, video the other day where Trump's staunchest supporters rely on food stamps. This was in Appalachia where 80% of people in the area voted for Trump. Most have no jobs and are relying on food stamps. Yet they see him as great for the country-the best. Also there is a couple out in Kansas the husband works as a truck driver, they have three kids yet are on food stamps. Somehow I think right-wing media will convince these die-hard supporters that the Democratic congress in the House cut their food stamps, and that Trump can't do anything about it. But maybe if they vote in more Republicans next year and take the House back that their food stamps will be reissued.
7
The jobs are mostly in the cities where housing is unaffordable due to a lack of limitations on how many houses rich people can own.
And in most of those cities the mass transportation system was destroyed in the late 1940s to force everyone to buy an automobile, which is no longer affordable because the minimum wage is still stuck at about $7 per hour.
Sounds like an idea that will increase crime and put more people in jail. But I believe some people will get by pulling themselves up by their own boot straps, living under bridges, and riding bicycles to work if they can find an employer who doesn't care how bad they smell.
Maybe this problem could be solved by government funded shower stalls. Or maybe the private sector could chip in for this thee shower stalls?
3
SNAP recipients sometimes sell their benefit cards for cash on the Black market so that they can purchase items that are not allowed to be purchased with the cards. They then proceed to buy alcohol and drugs with the cash while their children continue to go hungry. These cards are sold at a discount to others so that cash can be obtained. Those people who buy the cards are the ones who use them at places like Walmart. Because of these transactions, they essentially are getting discounts on all of their purchases. ALL people involved in this tuoe of fraud should be put in jail!
4
The irony of all of this is that the Red States are more affected by this rule than the Blue states.
6
$50K for a family of 4 and you need food stamps? My guess is that smart shopping is what they really need. We shouldn't pay for school lunches anyway for anyone but especially those receiving welfare or food stamps. That is double or triple dipping. The sad part about the current program, at least in California, is that the schools get federal money for the meals. That encourages them to categorize more in the poverty zone than are really in the zone. As far as low education jobs, Is it really OK to import illegals to do the jobs americans used to do while americans live in government encouraged poverty on the dole? Shouldn't government encourage self reliance. I am thinking of a government recycling center where people who really needed to could turn in say 10 lbs of recycleables for a meal or sack of rice and beans. I've seen women with babies on their backs picking cotton and harvesting rice. So other than a real handicap, there should be no excuse from doing something to benefit the community for a meal.
7
Food stamp money goes to farmers.
Only people with jobs get food stamps. If they own a car to get to work, no stamps.
Able-bodied persons with handicaps, mental illnesses and/or addictions, or owning a car or house, are cut off from food assistance.
4
Under this administration, more than ever before, we are becoming a country that coddles the affluent and afflicts the afflicted.
10
The administration's proposal sounds draconian but the article fails to mention that the work requirement can be met by performing volunteer work for 80 hours a month. For an able bodied person without children this does not seem unreasonable.
https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/work-requirements
6
Do the math, this is about $1571 per person per year. How stingy are we???
4
Schumer is a manipulative enabler. He's talking about people going hungry during the Holidays but this wouldn't take effect until next April.
God forbid people should get up and work and feel they are productive in society. And it's only 20 hours a week! What self respecting person wouldn't WANT to do that?
6
I'm so glad we are saying "Merry Christmas" again.
7
How many voted for Trump? And how many still be voting for Trump? What if those who used to accuse others of being welfare freeloaders suddenly lost their jobs in the coming Trump's exacerbated recession?
You think the above are partisan and irrelevant? We knew the war on SNAP is coming but we did nothing. Now the horse is out of the barn and people preach and moan. You don't need to buy into Bernie's rhetoric, even though it is true. All you need is to be a centrist and Trump would never have happened. All you need is for the Dems to stop backstabbing each other fewer times. When Parkhomenko picking a fight with Gabbard on Twitter, the real beneficiaries are Trump and the Republicans. War on Snap is just a taste of things to come and you have three years of tasting it. Yet, you just complain - powerlessly
1
Tax cuts for the wealthy, starvation for low income children. Your Republican party at work.
9
Oh, I get it, “let them eat tax cuts.”
6
In the spirit of Swift, I guess they no longer prefer infant flesh, but the well-seasoned kind!
1
Time to call our Representatives and Senators.
2
To the morons out there most people on food stamps have jobs it's just that the owners of the businesses don't want to pay a living wage or taxes.
17
I am not standing for this!
3
Another disgusting display of the Trump administration's arbitrary use of power to hurt innocent people and offer them no real alternatives.
9
A couple of thoughts:
The cost of administering the food stamp program is larger than the actual value of distributed food stamps.
Why not just make available a balanced hot lunch for all children? This would be easy to understand, reliable, inexpensive (as compared to distributing food stamps.) It would provide an opportunity to gather all American children for health checks, inoculations, etc. It would be easy to monitor, audit.
Above all we would be caring for ALL of our children.
2
When Trump was first elected, I predicted that he would cut taxes for the rich, cut environmental regulations and cut entitlements. That was somewhat easy. What is not so 'predictable' is the demonstrations to come, especially after further cuts to entitlements for the poor. Then, there will be violence at the demonstrations which will spread as outrage multiplies.
And then, Trump declares martial law and then 'postpones' the next election. For any other president of the USA, I would consider this idea to have been crazy, but not for Trump and not for the zealots who blindly follow him. Far fetched? Absolutely! Beyond Trump's preposterousness? Sadly, not.
6
@The Sanity Cruzer
Sanity, the question of Emperor Trump planning to starve Americans could have some business rationale behind it.
After all, with faux-Emperor Trump’s self serving and short term money making schemes, this contrived food crisis of his might just have been one of his loopy ideas where the timing was bad but where Trump’s underlying business plan was to boost market demand for Trump Steaks!
But don’t worry about the poor and starving, Donnie, if things get really tough for the poor, there’s always enough food — we can simply ‘Eat the Rich’ — how would that business plan workout for you?
3
I had to go on food stamps twice. Once, when they were actually stamps, when I had broken my arm badly, and people would give you the evil eye in stores.
Then, when I lost my job, and you got a little card you could swipe with no embarrassment.
It was $240/month, no fancy steaks there!
Still, I eat really cheap, so it was enough for staples.
I feel bad for families, especially those on seasonal work, who are trying to feed kids on a vanishing budget.
16
My Senator, Senator Grassley, according to local newspapers, has sent himself, roughly, $20K a year in farm subsidies to the total tune of about $400K. Denying people food is not right — I don’t care what the circumstances are!
13
Not to mention the fact that those in Washington haven’t truly worked a day in their life. Wouldn’t we all love to get paid doing what they do!
6
Those able-bodied people are often young people trying to make it through college whose parents have significant health or drug problems, and/or are the working poor themselves. They are people with young children. They are homeless and mentally ill people. They are people who lost their jobs and houses in the great recession/depression of the past decade and haven't made it back. They are the American children of immigrants receiving free breakfast and lunch in schools. Here's a thought. Why don't we tax the wealthy instead including Mr. Trump and those who may not need farm subsidies if we look strictly and carefully at all the federal guidelines? The effect of these rules will be chilling on those who should be receiving these benefits and could hurt the next generation of children. Vote these horrors out of office in 2020.
13
I wonder how many families could be prevented from going hungry if the Trumps would just pay their own far share of taxes and cut back on their tax-payer funded trips to Florida.
16
"The department has also proposed a rule that would close what it calls a loophole that allows people with incomes up to 200 percent of the poverty level — about $50,000 for a family of four — to receive food stamps."
I'm somewhat surprised that you can qualify for food stamps with that level of income. Unfortunately well meaning programs such as food stamps can be abused by criminals and to support a non working lifestyle. Therefore I support cracking down on "Loopholes" that allow unintended applicants to live off the taxpayers.
8
I guess this is what American greatness looks like. Good Lord. I don't know about you, but I'm donating to my local food banks today. It's more important now than ever before for the rest of us to do what we can for the least among us, since the government has clearly washed its hands of them.
That's right, Republicans: take food out of the mouths of the poor. Be best.
9
Heartless and soulless. This is what the US is today.
14
Americans go hungry.
Children put in cages.
New troop build-up in the Middle East. War with Iran?
So much winning.
9
This is a cruel and stupid policy meant to punish the poor for the audacity of being poor in America. Meanwhile, corporations exist tax free and the ultra-wealthy pay less in tax by percent income than the rest of society. And America is no "greater" than before.
So who is really benefiting? It isn't America. It's the same story since the beginning of time; the 'haves' take from the 'have nots'. Trump is merely the latest 'have' to call barbarism fiscal responsibility in the name of enriching the rich.
14
How can you not hate Trump and his cruelty?
11
Starving desperate people to save what Is a pittance relative to the rest of the federal budget, is a disgrace, as well as bad policy. Hunger produces many debilitating effects and reduces the chances of those afflicted to better themselves. This is shortsighted and foolish policy, but true to form coming from the party that has made it clear about its distain for the poor.
9
lovely. now America will turn into an interactive epidemic of hungry, hungry hippos. I predict cannibalism among the very poor.
1
Trump. The original Grinch. No heart; heart of coal.
8
If because of Trump's incompetence regarding trade, our farmers are being impoverished as well as the hungry with massive stores of soybeans going to waste, why aren't the surplus crops being given to the hungry like the long ago cheese donations to the poor?
Trump and the Republicans are killing Americans using government power. The nation is lost forever. You must leave to survive. I am not a Jim Jones. I seek to save lives based on facts, not fantasy.
Those Soy beans could be turned into high protein Tofu.
2
The richest country in the world, which throws away half the food it produces, is about to start literally starving its' poorest.. imagine.
You guys really have lost it, haven't you?
14
“It is heartless. It is cruel. It exposes a deep and shameful cruelness and hypocrisy in this administration.”
Precisely describes the current administration and its leader.
11
Hunger has no part in a great America.
6
Ultimately, the belt is being pulled tighter and tighter, in a wealthy country that is making more money than ever before. Remember, the folks upstairs (the Trumps, DeVos’s, the Mnuchins, etc., etc.) are the ones making these rules.
7
What can people do to help those who can't get food stamps? Donate to the food pantries! Research the ones in your community. See what they need, buy what they donate and give money.
5
Corporate farmers who are Forever Trumpers should be thrilled by his latest attempt to govern by atrocity.
Let's not be naive and forget the Food Stamp program is as much another government hand-out to giant agri-biz as it is a program to feed hungry Americans -- mostly children -- in the land of way more than plenty.
The USDA buys tons of surplus food to subsidize corporate farmers and to support food commodity prices. Food Stamps at least put a patina of general welfare on what otherwise is another agri-biz money grab from US taxpayers.
Like Trump's federal payouts to farmers for lost sales to China, it's another election ploy to make good on the collateral damage Trump inflicts on his core constituents.
I remember seeing reports that so much stigma is attached to Food Stamps millions of eligible recipients never apply until they're beyond desperate when hunger goes from hollow to hurt.
USDA in the past has launched numerous initiatives to increase Food Stamp use because it is so grossly under-subscribed.
So Trump will again up the massive Federal agribiz payouts while saving pennies by taking food off hungry children's plates.
This is more than penny cynical and pound cruel.
This is Republican child abuse.
12
I read both the Times and Post every day. The daily deluge of horrible news is what also keeps me reading the very mundane sports pages as well for no other reason than to allow my mind away from these issues once in awhile. Even sports has become utterly absurd with multi million dollar salaries for losing teams, most of the leagues are rigged and so on, but I have to overlook those absurdities to keep me from topping myself in this nation.
SNAP or better known as food stamps is run in the most absurd ways imaginable as is. A few years ago I was in a homeless shelter and feed 3 times every day with a comfortable bed to sleep in. At the same time I qualified and received enough food stamps to buy any food items I wanted for the most part while others I know, some in my family who worked daily and still couldn't qualify for even the most basic of needs. Make 1 dollar too much and you don't qualify and the low pay along with high rents that's very well documented in this nation makes buying food iffy at best for millions of Americans. This administration is at best a national disgrace and only getting worse by the hour.
9
At the time of my immigration India was much poorer country. Yet it provided free food for millions as a governmental program. It did not alleviate all starvation but helped millions. It would be a shame if the richest country in the world would allow its citizens to starve.
6
I’m not being snarky: please someone explain why Trump’s fan base of lower-income adults (not just those in poverty, but just lower) still support him when he commits such overt acts of contra-social care? Are there local or national organizations whose missions and budgets support educating the masses about this insane man’s corrosive impact on our country - like daily ads in every newspaper, website, bus stop...and hopefully a Super Bowl ad?
4
@Eric Hill
Perhaps because they would rather have a job than food stamps.
2
The USA has the second highest poverty rate in the OECD group of developed economies. Israel currently is number one, but the main reason for that is the vast impoverished and oppressed Palestinian population.
The reality of America in the 21st century, high poverty and record high wealth inequality.
9
If people are hungry, we feed them. That is a sign of a civilized society. A sign of a society going down the tubes is keeping food that you have away from them, in the assumption that they are not working because they are lazy. Look at the statistics--people who are not working are most likely unable to work. These people need food and social services. Not starvation.
7
Trump is running the single most heartless administration since Hoover. We have families that struggle on minimum wage jobs with no benefits, choosing on a weekly basis between food, clothing, housing, or healthcare. People who cannot work because there simply isn't anything available should not be forced to starve. What have we become if Trump and Republicans see this as "compassion"? How Orwellian can you get?
8
What is infuriating about this merciless, malicious, and completely unwarranted change in food stamp requirements is that it purports to "shave nearly $5.5 billion from food stamp spending over five years." Now compare this amount with the Defense Department's allocations.
As reported in The Nation, "In Nov. 2018, Ernst & Young and other private firms that were hired to audit the Pentagon announced that they could not complete the job, [concluding that] that the DoD’s financial records were riddled with so many bookkeeping deficiencies, irregularities, and errors that a reliable audit was simply impossible. Moreover, annual funds that DoD does not use are not returned to the Treasury as required by law, because of a loophole that the DoD uses by shifting the unspent portion into a pool of five-year money that allows them to keep the funds, known as "plugs." In fiscal year 2015, for example, Congress appropriated $122 billion for the US Army. Yet DoD financial records for the Army’s 2015 budget included a whopping $6.5 TRILLION in plugs. There were no ledger entries or receipts to back up how that $6.5 trillion supposedly was spent...& had been 'removed,' the inspector general’s office reported." [https://www.thenation.com/article/pentagon-audit-budget-fraud/]
Contrast this enormous amount with the pittance of $5.5 billion being "saved" in food stamps over 5 years that could be covered 12 times over from the DoD's Army's overage in one year alone! Unconscionable!
12
I haven't had a steady paycheck since I lost my livelihood in 2008. I have a nice resume, a lot of steady working experience. I lost my livelihood at age 52. Eleven years later, I am grabbing money from anywhere. I can't tell you how many applications I have filled out online, no responses, an occasional reject letter anywhere from 3-6 months out, that I don't even remember what I applied for. I am single and able bodied, no children. I do not have family to lean on. I had to apply for assistance which is now dwindling down. Is President Trump trying to kill me? The area that I live in does not reflect the strong economy that is being publicized in the news. I am 63 years old now. I am working under threat of losing the job next year due to downsizing. This is my life for 11 years now. Obviously, what is publicized from the government reports is not reflectiing 100% of the population and the economy. Maybe I should show up at the Trump house for my meals. This is such a bad world right now. This is not the American Dream; it's a nightmare. "Everybody" is NOT given a chance to better themselves. I worked hard all of my life, my savings is depleted, and the application process is all over the internet. This is a broken system. My work history is very credible. So why don't I get called for a job? I'm not stupid. I'm 63 years old. And not even the President of my country wants to help me.
14
I coach youth football, and over the years have had many players on my team that didn't get enough to eat at home and were always so hungry. I fed them whenever I could. This news is heartbreaking, and I remember Sean Mulvaney being so cruel when he announced the plan as White House Budget Director. A man who I presume descends from ancestors who came to this country during the Potato Famine, which incidentally was wholly created by English aristocracy - another bunch of unfeeling and uncaring rich people.
16
It seems to me like we're using taxpayer money to subsidize businesses that underpay their workers. I.e. welfare for the rich.
10
This is another example of the Republican war on labor. The effect of this will drive wages lower and this is probably the purpose in the first place just as the immigration stance is to keep undocumented workers unable to protest otherwise illegal working conditions. This is why the Koch bros factory raided by ice months ago arrested 600 workers and not a single executive. They dont want to stop companies from hiring undocumented workers which would happen if a few CEOs were frog marched out of their offices by federal agents the idea was to set an example for the millions of undocumented workers here to keep their mouths shut. In a country with 6 empty house for every homeless person we are a beacon of hope for the rest of the authoritarian regimes around the world. Well done.
8
Meanwhile, Trump has spent almost 50 million taxpayer dollars on trips to his properties since he has been president, where he certainly doesn’t go hungry. He doesn’t appear to work, either, watching television for hours on end, day and night. Sounds to me like someone who is taking advantage of the government.
10
I guess whenever there’s a day that the members of this administration can’t think of any environmental protections to scrap, they are forced to look for other ways to exercise their gratuitous cruelty- taking away “free and reduced price lunches” from a million of this nation’s children fits the bill nicely.
9
No problem. Now eliminate the $57 billion in farm subsidies. Oh and the $230 billion in oil corp. subsidies. And the $59 billion in steel subsidies. And the $100 billion in defense industry subsidies....
6
On the face of it it seems harsh, but volunteering at a homeless shelter or in the community, for instance, is beneath these recipients - aside from employment?? Tough love that these persons likely would come to appreciate after succeeding.
6
This new rule is needed to off-set the increase in military spending.
4
It will be very interesting to see how this policy change impacts the red state supporters of Trump. Even his base can’t deny that red states lead in the number of people on public assistance aka food stamps than other states. Will red state supporters feel the same way about Trump’s sticking it to the poor policies when their own cupboards are empty?
9
Both of my parents were alcoholics, struggling to survive and hold jobs.
But I was lucky enough to be taken away from my dysfunctional family and be raised by caring and loving nuns. I grew up in a Catholic orphanage which provided for me and my little sister. We both went to college.
Today my dysfunctional parents would be on food stamps. And so would I and my family. Kids raised on food stamps will be on food stamp as adults.
Issuing food stamps to dysfunctional families is like buying alcohol for an alcoholic. The government is the enabler.
Take the kids away and let the adults suffer the consequences of their life choices.
7
The best way to get rid of the GOP would be to allow them to implement all of their policies without opposition. It would hurt for a while but they would never come back after the next election.
2
These programs are usually tied to joblessness. Given the worker shortage and very low unemployment rate, does it really make sense to subsidize those not working?
4
In the rural town where I live, many depend on public assistance. There are very few jobs, as there is no industry, no fast food chains, and no public transportation to take them to the larger town 15 miles away where they might find a job. To make their eligibility contingent on employment is unfair and inhumane.
8
Do these same people manage to find transportation into town when they have to conduct their welfare business?
2
Why food stamps in the first place and not cash payments?
Unemployed people would spend every cent of cash they get, and it would go back into the economy straight away.
Not only that, but via various taxes the state and Federal governments would get a lot of it back eventually.
The Trump-adoring Morrison (Scooter) government here also has a scrooge-like attitude to unemployment benefits but at least it pays it in cash.
We call the Scooter Govt's attitude the poor the Prosperity Gospel in action.
2
"“States do not pay one dime in the cost of food stamps,” he said. “They didn’t even pay for most of the administrative costs. Therefore we should have a federal work requirement on a federally funded program.”'
If the "states" pay for a program or the "federal" government pays for the program, it is all the same taxpayers paying the bill. I live in Illinois, but the federal government certainly expects my money every year just as does the state of Illinois. This is just more of the Trump GOP war on the struggling among us.
8
His point was that the states grant waivers to getting stamps when they don’t have skin in the game.
2
When I was job searching during the recession I was 22 and had graduated from a four year college with honors and about $50,000 in debt. It was incredibly hard to find solid fill time work that paid anything- so I worked 2-3 jobs at a time to make ends meet, making it hard to find time to apply to better jobs. Eventually, I was offered a full time position with Americorps (federal employment) and the recruiter sold us on these positions because we would be eligible to receive food stamps because the pay was so low ($1,200 per month). Such a weird system our country puts people in. It’s easier to make it harder on people that have to survive than make it harder on those that have it easy.
35
Many companies these days are avoiding making anyone full time so that they don't have to pay benefits.
They also change the schedules every week so that it's hard to schedule another job, particularly one that does the same thing.
Add to that very low pay, and bias towards older people, and it can be very hard to support yourself, no matter how willing you are to work.
Seriously, we're cutting FOOD? How mean-spirited can you get?
47
How low can Trump go? Denying free breakfast and lunch to poor children. These are often their only meals and limited to when school is in session. Just despicable.
38
If you think the homeless can be desperate and scary now, just wait until they get hungry.....
32
Given the lack of jobs in many rural areas, this could be the final straw that kills local grocery stores.
30
Through Trump’s lamentable administration the über rich wage war on the working poor, while pocketing vast taxpayer subsidies themselves.
32
@Steve Singer
Exactly!
1
A huge share of these people are poor rural people who voted for trump, expecting that their lives would get better. On the other hand, perhaps this will provide the incentive these people need to move away from the rural areas to places where jobs are plentiful. I had recently mentioned to a friend that people used to go to where the jobs are, and she replied that the safety net has allowed people to stay where they can remain poor, but be in comfortable surroundings of family and friends. Perhaps this will be a good incentive for those that it doesn't kill.
13
While I do agree that some migration is probably necessary due to death of some industries, what should a family do who own their home but have very little chance of selling it due to recession in their community- walk away and be homeless? Poverty is systemic and can take generations to reverse.
4
So we are expecting them to work but not eat?
Close the carried interest tax loophole and it will pay for food stamps for all.
25
Totally wrong. Not only should we not cut food stamps, but we should simply feed the country, the way we make water available at no cost in so many places. Why not? Good food is easy to provide at low cost compared with many other living expenses. It would be do easy to do. Let UBI begin with food so no one has to worry about it anymore. In fact, just feed the world.
8
Also think of the massive surplus of unconsumed food.
3
No need to cut these people off. Simply require them to pick up trash in parks and on streets two days a week/four hours a day in exchange for their benefit. Most will not show up, and forfeit the benefits.
17
I have often wondered why we don’t have rules in my country like this. You have to have time to look for a job but being on benefits for years with no incentive to get off them, does not expand people’s work ethic
6
This is overall a misguided thoughtless comment. Income Benefits where I live are less than $1,000 per month and insufficient to afford housing on one’s own. Most who receive this, do not and cannot own a vehicle. In a rural area, that makes it nearly impossible to get to any kind of work. What we DO need is work programs for people with some level of disability who would like to contribute in some way but lack the resilience and skills to be able to manage full time work, stressful situations and intolerant bosses.
1
Anyone who has worked at all in their life paid into these programs even if they use it now. We paid for it.
What I didn’t pay for was a tax cut for lazy rich criminal families like the Trumps.
59
@Mathias
The top 10% of taxpayer pay 70% of all federal income taxes. We should get even more tax cuts.
It is just plain, flat out, unadulterated, evil. Evil. That is what has taken over the federal government and half of our citizens. Evil. And as a person who is not religious, I don't say that lightly.
37
Let the billionaires prevail. Gross.
14
Unconscionable.
15
I work full time and the money I make doesn't cover rent and food, both of which are through the roof. In fact this week I got a notice the rent is going up yet again, and I live next to a train horn. It's not getting any better out there, folks.
That's why I'm on SNAP benefits. Be great to get off 'em, but I'm almost 60 years old and to be honest, I really don't see much of a future for myself in this otherwise grand old country. Most likely I will end up completely depending on the goverment and the local food bank because the good fairy doesn't exist. The best times in America have come and gone, if you ask me.
43
Yet you can afford a subscription and the time to read and comment in the Times.
2
What is baffling to me, is that only half of your country vote yet millions live on food stamps. Millions voting against sf their interests or not even bothering to vote. Single way up stop this - get people to stop being apathetic and vote
2
@Richard, poor people shouldn't have time to read or educate themselves. They should have no access to libraries or books or newspapers, Unless it's Fox News of course. We should pick out the rags they can purchase and what kind of gruel will be covered by tax payer money. It's an outrage that someone poor should have time to read, comment and somehow have access to the New York Times.
4
Just wondering how the Trump administration will help talk rich corporations and businesses in all 52 states into providing job training, actual jobs, and transportation to match their skewed view of those not working, i.e. not able to find work and get a job despite trying. There is absolutely no movement to do anything like this. Everyone who has enough money benefits from living in a society which allows them to make a living wage or get super-rich. We live in one of the richest countries in the world. No one should go hungry.
I guess the Trump administration theme is
"Let them eat cake."
20
Another group of Americans who are suffering from the Trump Administration's skinflint way of "saving money" on food stamps are seniors. When you're in your 70s & 80s it is physically a lot harder to work (even if you could get work). Yet those seniors who have minimal incomes but have managed to amass savings in excess of about $3700 are now barred from applying for food stamps.
The assumption seems to be that anybody with savings in excess of $3700 must be a millionaire. Not so! And who knows how long such people may yet have to live on whatever savings they have amassed? Thanks to Medicare, so many ways of dying seem to be postponed indefinitely that they may live into their 90s or even past 100 -- and on what?
The reason the Administration must needs save this money on food stamps is that it has given billions of dollars in tax cuts to the very rich, to the 1 percent. This is not the way this country should be run. Those to whom the community has been generous should be prepared to give back to the community, but of course the overwhelming majority of them do not have a social conscience. They must be forced to do the right thing.
I intend to do everything I can to turn these sons-of-guns out of office in 2020. I live in New York, where Trump's opposition is strong. but if I can reach out to voters in the rest of the country and get them to the polls, I intend to do so. Even if it's only by postcards. And that 11/3/2020 can't come soon enough for me.
34
Life expectancy is decreasing in the United States unlike other rich countries. A higher percentage of people in the United States cannot afford food than other rich countries. Now Trump wants to increase hunger. There is no reason anybody in the United States should suffer from food insecurity. A competent government could determine who really needs aid and error in favor of generosity in cases in which the need for aid is uncertain.
21
The philosophically divisive nature of the American culture will always insure that programs like food stamps are used like a toy to toss back and forth by both political parties.
In our America unhealthy debate replaces healthy debate and results in hurting the very people who need assistance.
7
I wonder what Robert Rector would say if he had a health emergency that made it near impossible for him to work or if was let go at work and then found too old to hire.
Many poor people have no access to transportation.
Are not in good health, are helping raise children abandoned
by their parents.
What would you have them eat ?
Their shoes, the plaster on the side of the building they live in,
harvest the grass and boil it to eat ?
Christmas is three weeks away and this change in policy
makes Scrooge look like the most generous of humans.
19
Lived in NYC for 20 years, always in mixed-income neighborhoods where the rich live cheek-to-jowl with the poor (Greenwich Village, Fort Greene, etc). I can't tell you HOW MANY TIMES I stood in line at my local grocery store and watched a well-dressed person, wearing nicer shoes than mine, pay for their groceries with a benefits card. (They ran across all color lines, in case you're heading down that track.) While this is a crass solution to a nuanced problem, the Trump admin is a hammer, and the 99% of us are nails.
5
@KAJ
Tell us... How many times?
15
At least major 60 corporations had 2018 federal tax rates that amounted to effectively zero, and even less than zero. Where is the Trump administration on this issue? Why do these people punish the poor and the vulnerable, take food out of the mouths of hungry children, when the true welfare cheats are sitting in the corner offices?
21
This is not the actions of a powerful country, just a desperate one.
18
Money had to saved from somewhere for critical projects like $1.5 Trillion F35 Joint Strike Fighter program.
We get the government we deserve.
11
$100 million dollars in taxpayer money has been spent for Trump to play golf in the past 3 years. Many corporations have contrived to pay nothing in federal taxes. Yet somehow Republicans think we need to punish poor people by making hundreds of thousands ineligible for food stamps.
How can they sleep at night?
27
200 billion per year. Over $65,000 per year give away to the wealthy in tax cuts. Nearly 2 trillion in lost taxes over 10 years. 20 billion per year to fossils fuel industry, the richest industry on the planet. 20 billion per year in farm subsidies.
The median wage for 43% of the US is around $10. Wal-Mart Employees earn so little they depend on food assistance.
Yet people on heat will yell boot straps at the poor and degrade them constantly while defending the rich. We also pay for all this programs from our wages in case we need it. So any person who works or has worked payer into it.
Anyone on here yelling boot straps deserves a boot to the head. The worship of the lazy wealth like Trump is despicable. How many wealthy people never earned it yet the conservatives constantly chortle about people having to work for it.
19
Really, seriously, what's the point? Someday you should also know hunger, Mr. Trump, so you could understand what it means.
As President, you are in a position to help people who could not help themselves.
It seems you are lacking in a basic element of the human disposition, a tendency toward kindness and relieving others' suffering.
Sometimes these are the hardest lessons, Mr Trump.
Please be aware there is not an unlimited reservoir of telerance for people who continually practice cruelty toward others.
16
Apparently able bodied does not apply to those that received the $16 Billion in soybean welfare payments. Wonder how many school lunches one of Trumps golf trips to Florida could buy?
21
I am truly ashamed to be an American when any of my fellow citizens go hungry. We are better than this as a nation, as a community and as individuals.
17
This should translate into 3 million votes for the Democrats. What will the party do to get them?
10
Republicans long-standing war on the poor. Starve the schools, bust the unions and middle income jobs, make sure Apple and Amazon pay zero taxes, then let little kids suffer. Lovely bunch we have in DC.
20
Another "have you no sense of decency" moment, just likethe other piece of news today where William Barr, purported Attorney General of the United States, made a statement that police would not protect citizens who criticize them. Throughout these last three years we have had too many of these moments. When will one of them stick?
5
Well there should be 755,000 more votes for Democrats in 2020.
5
Tis the season!
3
More racist cruelty from the Trump administration. Trump has already siphoned off $16 billion from the same pot of money that food stamps come from as bribes to farmers affected by his ridiculous tariffs. But farmers are white and Christian., Food stamp recipients are portrayed to the MAGA-head zombies that support Trump as "those people" black, brown and certainly "undeserving," and "probably on drugs" and "lazy."
How long can we stand for this disgusting behavior from Trump and his minions?
9
Come on, you Evangelicals. What would Christ say to this?
23
All of these requirements make good sense to me. People need to work for their food, and for their food stamps. In the real world, nothing is free. All food has to be produced, and is the final result of time, labor, and the input of raw materials. Nobody is "entitled" to free food, and despite what Democrats say, with no evidence whatsoever, food is not a basic human right.
73
Of course food is a basic human right. In nature, a human being would merely need to hunt or gather, but in an advanced society, humans need work, which is not always available.
In fact, our society is built around a certain degree of job insecurity. Whenever unemployment drops below a given point, federal reserve rates are tweaked, cooling off growth.
The unemployed play a much needed role in this and they should be rewarded by not being allowed to starve. OR we should have full employment. But then, the rich would have to pay living wages.
196
@Eddie You should not agree that poor people should starve. Morally that is so wrong. Not everyone in America has the same opportunities that others have. Some are born into poverty stricken areas with terrible education and no job opportunities. These people grow up with little to nothing. Now you want to take away more from these people.
Why can't you see the irrationality of stripping away the basic human right of food as a disgraceful act of humanity? Food stamps don't cover gourmet expensive foods, they cover very basic necessities. Yet, so many people like to believe people on food stamps are living large. These people are still barely eating enough even on these meager means.
Have a heart for two seconds and you'll see how disgusting it is to take away food from someone who has nothing.
187
@Eddie ,,, obviously you have never been hungry as my family once was, me raising 3 kids on one income making less than 35k a year, I received a God sent food stamps it allowed me to buy milk cheese juices eggs etc for our family,, I wasn’t working not because I didn’t want to we were in the middle of the 1978 recession, there was NO work didn’t matter how good of a carpenter I was, that was the last time I used government aid, hopefully the only one, Trump is using all this government cuts to pay for his tax cuts for the mega rich, the epitome of hypocrisy, I am sure he will be playing golf while many families go hungry like mine was.
244
Thirty years ago, my young family of four received food stamps for a time, and they were more than a godsend. My husband was in construction, I was a full-time student, and the kids had come eighteen months apart. He made enough money in the summer months to almost stretch through the winter -- almost. He was too proud to accept cash assistance, but I put my foot down when it came to feeding the kids. Even though I was a bit embarrassed to spend the "stamps" (which back in the day resembled oversized, yes, pastel Monopoly money), they made a crucial difference in those humble years.
After reading this article, I'm wondering if Trump's "eligibility formula" would have cut us out of the program, or reduced the benefit. We had a tiny bit of equity in a tiny house, a clunker car (mine), a beat up pickup truck (his). Not much, but adjusted for inflation, probably worth more than $3,500. If that is the case, I'm feeling terrible for all those young families out there who might find themselves in a similar situation. No parent should have to decide: food or shoes?
Here's an easy decision, though -- VOTE.
34
Seems that the agriculture department might take a look at corporate welfare programs they support, which likely would be a more effective way to reduce subsidies for people (corporations) who don’t need or deserve them. I guess those corporate farming operations have really good lobbyists, though.
10
How many would get Food Stamps if Trump would stop golfing?
19
Let’s kick Trump off golf trips!
18
Ah. Our President wants yo make sure there is enough money for his golf trips, etc.
What a shame.
16
Shameless.
9
I find myself wondering what Natives living on reservations where there are no jobs, and the distances are vast, are going to do for food. These changes are cruel, stupid, and unnecessary. People are going to die from this. People are going to die.
14
Only an Antichrist would starve people who are hungry.
20
@PATRICK
Unfortunately, this is not necessarily true. The AntiChrist, for all his "worth", does not hold a monopoly on human evil.
Heartless
9
Will the Fox News fans who get food stamps finally wake up?
20
I believe the answer would be a solid NO!
6
Yay Evangelicals! Victory!
8
I'm convinced the Republican strategy, and attitude, is to let the poor, starve, get sick and die.
11
This newspaper has about five minutes to get every Representative and Senator on the record!
8
The cruelty is the point with these soulless ghouls.
9
Merry Christmas to one and all in Trumpistan!
10
Just in time for the holidays! How Christian of them.
11
Am I cruel saying, "if you can't feed them don't breed them"?
7
@Richard
Yes, that is cruel, because in America abortion rights are now under fire, as is access to adequate birth control.
If you think people should stop breeding, you should support the means to reduce unwanted births.
14
And what if you were the one who was bred yet hungry?
12
I have been on food stamps (which dates me). I didn't like it very much, but my back was against the wall and I had to do it. As soon as I could, I got a better job and got the heck off the food stamps.
Most every one I have ever met who has had to ask for food help would much rather pay their own freight. It is downright demeaning to have to ask for food stamps, even poor people have pride and self respect. And most people who are collecting food stamps are doing so not because they want to, or are too lazy to work, or some such, but because they really have no choice.
This is nothing if not mean spirited. So, I'll leave you with two quotes, apropos both the source of this move and the person behind it.
"Les gens n'ont pas de pain? Puis laissez-les manger du gâteau." (Marie Antoinette)
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (George Santayana).
Think on that for a while.
17
This is disgusting. And disgraceful
10
This is nothing but a cruel policy enacted by people who have never wondered where their next meal will come from. We have seen a lot of damage created by this Washington clown circus and in about a year we're going to make sure it gets corrected. Undoing all these stupid, hurtful, idiotic policies will be nothing but sweet revenge.
8
So people will die. This is evil.
7
Sick, sick, sick. Sick people, sick political party. Welcome to America in the early twenty-first century.
11
So let me get this right... Trump and the GOP give a trillion dollar tax cuts for the big boys to buy more tours and to balance the budget they but a small amount over 10 years.... get a life!
7
Thank goodness. I hate it when American people try to keep themselves and their children alive by eating.
14
This is a sick Christmas present to the children of America.
8
Most people that receive benefits work! They are underpaid or underemployed! Yes they are some abusers but this administration is yelling “Loser” with a pointing finger to people who receive benefits acting like they are opportunistic failures . Shameful
11
Time to get off the perpetual handout and get working
1
@Nycdweller A lot of people on food stamps do work.
7
Sonny Perdue, the rich chicken torturer, has zero credibility and zero empathy toward any living creature, human and non-human.
8
@Carrie
No relation, look it up, which is usually best to do before going public with a comment
1
A friend of mine is 70 yrs. old, single, no children, has such severe macular degeneration that he can't work or drive because he can't see well or read. He has no savings, lives on a small Social Security check that he began collecting after his wife died, but by the time his monthly check comes, after rent, medicine, etc., he usually has about $10 left in his pocket. Yes, you read right: $10 to buy food with. He does get Meals-On-Wheels, but it's really only enough to eat once a day and it's never enough to stretch for more than a few days.
He's been getting help with SNAP but told me today that he received a letter telling him that his benefits - which started out pre-Trump at $75 per month - were being cut a SECOND time from $40 to $27 - per month.
Meantime, a much more able-bodied friend who is 60, also single and childless, but who struggles financially despite working (paycheck-to-paycheck) AND lives in NYC, also gets SNAP - in fact, she gets nearly $125 per month! Wait, WHAT?? Why such inequity among the neediest, most vulnerable people? If my friend who is a senior citizen and blind had $125 monthly to spend on food, he would think someone had just handed him the keys to the kingdom!
Of course Trump is all too happy to crush the poor beneath his feet, but SOMETHING needs to be done. I say VOTE the GOP OUT - it's the only way for this country to regain some semblance of sanity.
20
Try spending just one day eating just one meal or even three small ones and tell me how you feel. Hungry that's how. Fixated on food and where your next meal is coming from.
Think of being a small child and crying from hunger, Get down off your high horses and start feeding your humanity. Think of the food you throw away...And as someone wrote in one of these posts, support and vote for representatives who actually know how to create real solutions to real problems. Hold their feet to the fire.
14
What kind of country doesn’t want to take care of its people?
7
And yet, the administration had no qualms about their tax cuts for the rich. Strangest, cruelest, mist disconnected times I've ever seen. Welfare for the richest, but no crumbs for the poorest. To he logic, please?
8
It's OK to subsidize farmers with school lunch programs that are porvided with substandard and often totally inedible food. It's OK to throw away 280 billion dollars in food annually. It's OK to pour milk down the drain and contaminate bread with soap or garbage so people can't fish it out of the trash bins.
God help us... we are unbelievably corrupt -- immoral -- and ultimately stupid.
OTOH I hope that this latest trick to provide more shareholder profits for those who own shares will infuriate enough people in the Trump zones (some of the food stamp recipients must live there) that those who did not vote before do vote for Warren now... and a few may decide to hold their noses and vote for the Dems.
Where are people supposed to work? Even cashier jobs are fewer - I refuse to use the automatic machines... land often require an agent to help me when I need to pay a bill or whatever. Jobs are all abroad mostly in Asia or Latin America-- so shareholders can have $$.. Meantime the Fed kowtows to the oligarchical system -- as it did not do pre-Reagan. It may be a republic but it sure ain't a democracy, definitely a kleptocracy.
6
Trump knows his supporters will like the idea of taking food from the mouths of hungry children. They think those hungry children are brown or black.
15
Unfortunately the Trump people rather like the thought that people much poorer than themselves are being starved into working. Indeed those god fearing white evangelicals are positively enjoying it. Suffer the little children!
9
Basic food necessities like bread, milk, eggs, flour, sugar, rice, fruit, and vegetables should be freely available to any citizen who needs them without any work requirements. Processed foods should not be able to be purchased with food stamps.
11
@Rob
I agree that junk food should be perhaps limited to a percentage of food stamp dollars (although I’m unsure of a practical way to accomplish this) and luxury items like pre sliced fruit and meat over $10/lb be limited or disallowed but I don’t begrudge someone a loaf of bread and demand they bake their own. Many low income people have neither a decently equipped kitchen nor the time required to prepare everything from scratch. Cooking is also a skill that not everyone possesses. We don’t demand that those in section 8 housing repair their own plumbing so we shouldn’t insist that food stamp recipients prepare all their food from scratch.
6
@Rob Sadly, in poor rural areas, the only store within 30 or 50 miles is a Dollar General. They have nothing but processed food.
12
@Linda I only shop our local DG for soap, TP, and the like, but the one I frequent also has a baking aisle and a dairy case. No fresh produce, but bread, milk, cheese, eggs, flour, etc., are all available. Perhaps this is a regional thing? We're in southern Illinois.
1
Gee, I wonder what’s more expensive for the federal government, those 755,000 people who are going to be kicked off food stamps or the corporations that paid zero in income tax last year?
1747
@Lucia some of the most profitable corporations in America paid no tax AND received various tax subsidies - better known as corporate welfare.
173
@Lucia
These are the reasons why Trump shouldn't be re-elected. Democrats should stop arguing impeachment.
When you pass the biggest tax windfall for the richest 0.01% and for big corporations, and then change the food stamp program, this I cannot condone. Granted this program gets abused, but better the poor abuse it, than the 0.01% abusing taxes/ getting trillions printed by Bernanke to become a 0.0001%er.
90
@Lucia Too bad those corporations aren't creating jobs that pay a livable wage, in contrast to supply-side economics theories.
58
Their cruelty knows no bounds. Clearly. 700,000 now going hungry at Christmastime. I want to vomit that this is the America my children are growing up in. All we can do is pray and give our best activist energy to ending this shameful chapter in our nation's history.
187
@Nadia Nagib Wallace How do you fight Republicans who are devoid of empathy, ignore facts, and just do what they want to do whether lawful or constitutional. A foreign enemy has never damaged us collectively as much as this party has--our country might crumble in 2020.
16
@Daniela So given the choice between free food and a job, you take the food. And therein lies the difference between the uncaring and caring. The caring teaches one how to fish, stocks the river then says "Go fish." The uncaring toss food on the ground and say "Eat." You sure don't seem to know the difference between caring and uncaring. Empathy is one thing. What you do about it is another. No one group has damaged the USA more than the throw food on the ground Left. No one.
@JABUSSE
I have a niece and nephew that suffer from sever disabilities. They both receive benefits, The amount of $ we spend on food stamps is a pittance compared to corporate welfare. When big corporations pay around $11 an hour . and they give them less then 20 hours a week these workers end up applying for government help. THAT IS CALLED COPR. WELWARE.
6
If you want to take away food stamps, then provide people with a liveable minimum wage. When they make that minimum wage, don’t take away their health insurance because they ‘make too much’. Some of my ‘able bodied’ patients do not work because then they actually cannot afford their medications when they do.
17
Meanwhile the same Ag Department will shell out more than $12 billion to placate farmers hurt by Trump’s tariff war. Why? To keep them voting Republican.
14
It's time to seriously take on corporate subsidies. Let's start with real estate, and developers who don't pay taxes. We can then adjust the definition of earned income for hedge fund profiteers. There are so many people in this country who qualify for assistance, who truly deserve help, and yet are embarrassed to accept it. And yet, there are others who feel no shame and who's handouts, which they do not need or deserve, can stock whole food shelves.
5
Keep it up.
Being homeless and being hungry are becoming criminal acts.
Being jobless - or vastly 'under-employed' has become far too common.
Bread and circuses worked for centuries in Rome to keep the populace under control. We are not talking about huge amounts of money to keep people fed at a minimal level - not compared to the cost of a new carrier or submarine. Not compared to the trillions squandered in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So.... why would you cut those benefits? Are we trying to provoke a rebellion?
10
I'm baffled by those whose chief public policy concern is whether an individual "deserves" the thing in question (food, higher wages, healthcare, etc.).
First of all, we all know people who have received more than they deserve in life and others who have received less than they deserve. Let's not pretend everyone is getting exactly what they deserve.
Second of all, public policy is about what's best for society. People starving to death because they can't afford food is bad for society.
It's time for the self-appointed Deservingness Police to retire.
14
First, we eat. Then we do everything else. Not the other way around.
8
This administration's motto should be "Make America Cruel Again."
What do they discuss at cabinet meetings -- where and how to inflict more pain and suffering?
With his pathological lying, embrace of US soldiers guilty of war crimes, antipathy to immigrants, and complete indifference to the looming threat of climate change, Trump's moral bankruptcy knows no depths.
14
I guess someone has to pay for the high up-keep of trump and his family as well as his legal expenses. Also, for the farm subsidies.
10
So $5.5 Billion that won't be going back into the hands of store owners.
11
Why do I get to write off the interest on my mortgage and still be considered a productive member of this society but someone getting a fraction of what I get (in order to buy food)is considered a free loader and a lazy person? Isn't eating just as important as home ownership?
15
If the Democrats persist in persecuting Trump his henchmen and henchwomen will inflict maximum damage on societies' vulnerable people, that is how it is done, perhaps they will use the threat of cutting off food stamps to negotiate some kind of deal to enrich themselves further or to escape the rule of law.
2
What would Jesus say/do? Seriously, as we are coming up to his birthday, December 25th, this should be the question. I think we know the answer.
Nice to know that Trump wants to make it OK to say 'Merry Christmas' again, but doesn't have any idea about the Christ in Christmas.
8
When Scrooge was asked to give to the poor in A Christmas Carol, he refused, saying that if the poor died it would “decrease the surplus population.” Trump, like, Scrooge, thinks that our country would be better off if the poor and unfortunate simply left this earth.
10
Hungry children don't vote. Any questions?
8
I stopped in the middle of the article because it’s too painful to read. The U.S. Department of Agriculture subsidies farmers, right? So, the guy growing the food gets money in order to maintain supply that the person having hard times can’t afford to buy — people in charge of that program should be fired and sent to Antarctica or North Korea!
9
Trump's base is concentrated in poor red states. They ain't gonna be happy about this.
8
Interesting to see self-professed "bleeding heart liberal" cheering on hunger policy.
1
Donald Trump is an able-bodied adult with minimal skills and an observable mental illness. If he were using food stamps, his would be on the chopping block. That we are paying him to eat slop, watch TV, tweet garage and play golf is enough to take my appetite away.
10
How much has it been costing us to have Trump go golf whenever he can?
8
@Jonathan So far, Trump's golf trips have cost taxpayers 110 million dollars.
6
The fundamental issue is JOBS
Charlie Rose interviewed Sir James Goldsmith before the passage of GATT. Goldsmith warned that 'free trade' would lead to the destruction of western democracies. Free Trade would mean the loss of the jobs base in those nations. He was right.
The US would never have developed its own industries without tariffs that protected domestic production. That was one of the causes of the US Civil War. The south could get manufactured goods from England cheaper than from the north if they didn't have to pay tariffs. The growth of industry spurred the growth of the US.
Free Trade has been an excuse for the headlong pursuit of the cheapest possible labor costs worldwide. Without the protections afforded workers in Europe the US has suffered more. When factories could not be relocated, illegal workers were brought in.
4
Trump has proved himself allergic to honest effort and yet he receives a professional chef at taxpayer expense, among numerous other perks and privileges. Not really fair is it, to use one of our president’s favorite phrases.
11
I work at a non-profit organization, and we are all seeing donations down this year now that few people itemize, and donations no longer help at tax time. The nonprofit organizations that are relied upon to fill in the gap or shore up needs aren’t going to be able to help...with donations down. Trump wants all of us to fund the needy through nonprofits. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get a tax cut however I still donate more than ever...too many being left behind and the safety net has large, gaping holes that are getting bigger. We need to take care of each other because our government no longer will. Social security is next...
20
Trump's personal golf outings have cost American taxpayers over $110 million so far and yet his focus is on 700K people who get a monthly stipend of less than $200 per person for food. Money that goes back into the economy, supports supermarkets, farmers, etc. The thing that bothers most as a middle-aged citizen of the "richest country tin he world" is how mean we are to each other. It's money for food people. Food. Not golf.
47
The Democrats have really blown it. They could have been attacking Trump’s policies on cutting SNAP benefits after cutting taxes for the rich, but instead they’ve gone down this impeachment road with few exit ramps and the voters aren’t focused on much else.
3
@Mark
Real Americans (outside of Texas) can walk and chew gum so we don’t have any trouble finding out that Democrats have been adamant about denying these changes to the SNAP both in law and by rule of Federal agency.
The Farm bill passed last year DENIED THESE CHANGES BEING IMPLEMENTED by the Administration. BY LAW !
14
I have a mixed take on this. If someone is able to work they should. If someone is out of work and looking for a new job they should receive support for a reasonable period. SNAP could be linked to receiving unemployment insurance payments. As for receiving SNAP while working, I lean toward more is better. People should be encouraged to work and the fact is many are not going to make enough to fully support themselves. I don't see $15/hr as a be all end all. It is both not enough and it would be hard for some employers to pay. The alternative is some form of expanded EITC, SNAP, perhaps some other supplementary support, and a job. It would be great if this is a temporary stage and everyone springboards to higher paying work. Some will but not everyone. Yang's basic income proposal makes sense as an alternate. On the other points. The maximum assets limits should be much higher. Savings should be encouraged as well. Likewise eligibility guidelines should probably be looser not tighter. Now the fairness factor comes into play. Basically you would be compressing lower income earners and the middle class. Those making just enough to pay for all these things themselves and those who do nor make enough would be equalized. I don't see the "rich" picking up the tab. There is not enough money there and it just won't fly. we're going to turn to broad based tax at some point. Again, Yang with a VAT of some sort. No easy solution.
4
The major problem with SNAP -- our food stamp program -- is that too few people use it. Nothing improves the health of the destitute better than being fed instead of starving, People with SNAP benefits are much less likely to get Tuberculosis.
Better nutrition strengthens their immune systems. They are less likely to get opportunistic infectious diseases and the rest of the population in turn is much less likely to get those same infectious diseases. That makes SNAP our cheapest and most effective public health policy.
Keep in mind the dollar cost of what we provide is already very little. What 1 fancy steak dinner with everything costs in NYC is about what we give individuals in SNAP benefits for 90 meals for a month. What 1 fancy dinner with everything at a fancy restaurant like Per Se or Eleven Madison costs is what we give a family of four -- 360 meals -- for a month.
13
Trump doesn't realize that food stamps are welfare... for the agricultural industry. Between this and tariffs, will he have any votes left in the heartland next year?
10
@CB
I don’t know if those voters can figure out that math.
5
Making this a matter of political theories is the contemptible luxury of thoughtless crass people whose next meal is a given. Many people aren't that lucky. And the sheer tonnage of food wasted today--literally, today--in this country is so vast that it's creating environmental damage as it rots into methane. Our callousness to some people ends up hurting us all. There's an ugly justice to that.
If this is a matter of more efficient distribution systems, inventory and supply chain management, tax incentives for donors, and subsidized collection and disbursement, then failing to address those small obstacles is inexcusable. But to frame deliberate waste as the Trumpists do, as a matter of abstract political principle, is ignoble.
5
So we give subsidies directly to the farmers. Why not give them to the destitute, regardless of their virtue, who then buy the farmer's produce? True that does not buy ethanol, maybe begging the question... what is agriculture for??
9
A sad day for our country. There is no reason whatsoever why anyone should go hungry in our great United States. We help everyone else in this world, why not those in our own country. Charity does begin at home. Aside from the most obvious effects of this, we will see begging on the street, more crime, undeveloped children and sick adults. The system envisioned by President Johnson and which provided a safety net for those who need it is being chipped away. What have we become.
13
Why are they just got fed ex and some of the other corporations I got big tax cuts to chip in a little bit of extra money didn’t FedEx get $1.5 billion credit I guess Trump has to get the money from somewhere
4
How much does Mr. Purdue pay his employees? Enough to afford food?
8
So so tragic, I've always said that I do not want to live in a country with starving people, begging for food scraps. There was a show on some of these people who, may not have kids, and really cannot work, or work minimally, or do not have adequate transportation etc.
As someone retiring from a real estate career in moderate/low income housing, there were people who seemed fine to work, and I thought it in error, and may have been demeaning, allowing them free rent etc. However, how much is wasted in so many other areas of government spending. If a few people get food + shelter, that should not, that 's ok with me.
The Donald born with a platinum spoon in his mouth, rusting over us all.
8
This is why I cannot respect or even listen to a Trump supporter. Taking away food from people who are hungry so that billionaires can get a huge tax cut, even more than they asked for. Buying an election is one thing, but this is literally from the stomachs of hungry children.
Any person I talk to who thinks this is a good thing, I cannot then respect them. I'm sure there are some who abuse the system but how many billionaires put their money in offshore accounts to save even their ridiculously low percentage of taxes? It may be legal but it's still gaming the system since they can purchase lobbyists and politicians with all that saved tax money.
I would say shame on them but shame disappeared long ago from most Republican lawmakers and their donors.
15
For all the self-righteous commenters here who say food is not an entitlement, what about the one million children who will not receive free or reduced lunch? I used to work in an inner-city public school system, and those free-lunch kids are pretty poor. For some, school lunch is the only decent meal they will get for the day. I currently work in public higher education and many of our students work while going to school and are still food insecure, so they are anything but lazy freeloaders. NYT reported last May 2 that nearly half of our public college students suffer from some food insecurity ("Tuition or Dinner? Nearly Half of College Students Surveyed in a New Report Are Going Hungry").
Every day that I read the news in the Trump era I am shocked at the gratuitous cruelty that is so widely accepted in this country now. God forgive me for saying this, but I hope some of the adults affected by this policy are Trump supporters so they can experience what they so glibly wished on others that they seem to blame for their problems, though I do feel sorry for their children.
15
Most of the individuals getting food stamps can work.Go to any social security office and you will dozen of strong able bodied people applying for disability. They leave the office driving an expensive car. Trump finally is doing away with the welfare problem. In the old days we called it relief and people really tried to get a job..any job for their family.Not true today.
2
@NVHustler read Harrington's "The Other America" published in 1962--if you remember the "relief" days, you must have been an adult at that time.
Merry Christmas, Eb!
5
Most people on food stamps work. Others are too young or too old to work or disabled or sick. Don’t fall for that old Reagan lie about the welfare momma driving a Cadillac.
FEED hungry people!
11
@NVHustler
When rich people don’t work they call it “investing”.
9
The only silver lining here is that it may motivate these people to vote, but I am not counting on it.
3
Hunger in the richest country in the world...I was always saddened talking to parents bringing in malnourished but overweight kids to the clinic. Filling their tummy with high carb food was their way to control hunger. Most of them worked 2 or 3 jobs, dealt with old cars or lack of transportation, and poor living conditions.
Most of them don't vote, either.
10
As many have observed over the past few years, with the modern Republican Party, the cruelty is the point.
How sick do you have to be to give a trillion-dollar tax cut to the wealthiest people in the country, but literally take the last bread out of the mouths of nearly a million people at risk of starvation?
Under the GOP, this country has completely lost its moral compass. Getting this warped political party out of its position of minority control of our government would be a start.
9
Food stamps and the EITC can be seen as handouts to employers, allowing them to cut wages and hours at will. The USDA is not the Dept of Labor.
4
It's great politics. Republicans have long resented "welfare" whether it be money or food or whatever. When I was growing up, even getting a government job was looked on dimly by Republicans, calling it easy money and hardly any work. Ronald Reagan warmed a lot of conservative hearts when he spoke of welfare queens and the image of a Cadillac parked in front of the welfare office was promoted in Republican circles. Donald Trump is doing to poor people what Republicans have long dreamed about, the rationale being that the poor are lazy or deceitful or "too dependent" and they deserve to be cut out of programs like this. The poor are easily stigmatized, shamed for their poverty and too silent, politically.
6
My mother was college educated but out of the work force for 10 years when she left my abusive father. Food stamps and MediCal (health insurance for poor Californians) bridged the gap so she could attend nursing school to be retrained. Not sure who the administration plans to cut off, but most of the recipients are ultimately children. Really? I was expected to go hungry at two years of age because of my mother’s “poor choices”. Have some empathy, Republicans!
16
If there is anything in this country that we have more than enough of it is food. So please let hungry people have access to food.
Some of the richest people that I know shamelessly accept farm and ranch subsidies despite having banked multi millions. And yet they are all for locking children in cages and letting the poorest amongst us continue to slide into Dickensian conditions. Many Americans throw out as much as we consume. But God forbid we distribute food to homeless people. What will they want next ?
14
This supposedly saves $1.1 billion a year at the same time Individual-1 is forking over $1.1 a month to BIG AG multi-national conglomerates that are the largest beneficiaries of the SNAP program to begin with.
5
At the same time subsidizing zombie farms of Trump's making to the tune of 70 billion dollars.
Can someone square that circle for me?
6
The cruelty of conservative thinking and the concept of the great American ideal is truly disturbing. No-one volunteers for food stamp programs or to be fed at "soup kitchens". These are generally last resorts for people who are struggling to make ends meet and have limited opportunity to move out of their present circumstances.
The conservative movement and Republican supporters are truly barbaric. Even more so when you consider that many of them claim to be card carrying "christians" (I use that term generously). To support a political philosophy that actively strips income and opportunity from the poorest citizens and passes it on to the wealthy, under the guise of tax reform", is just disgraceful. To add insult to injury, they now want to remove the minimalist safety nets that are in place to support those incapable of supporting themselves. There is nothing christian (or even remotely faith based) in that.
It is simply laughable the idea that so many conservatives espouse, that individuals, by sheer force of will, can move out of their present situation and to something better and those that can't simply don't want to. To use a christian phrase, "There but for the grace of god, go I". Have a little compassion, for goodness sake!!!
10
American’s contempt for their ownpoor and hungry while being a nation with exorbitant wealth and prevalent obesity is truly fascinating.
10
How do Trump's evangelical cheering section respond to his cutting off support for the needy? Do they believe that one should feed the hungry and clothe the naked? Do they believe that divinity lies in acts of kindness and helping those who can't help themselves?
I think not. From their boundless energy in support of kidnapping children from their parents, cutting food help to those in need, lavishing tax incentives on large corporations for despoiling the environment and abandoning those who are helpless, I'd say that those folks would fit in pretty well in any dictatorship ... as long as they were the dictators.
8
It makes me despise “Christians” and “Christianity”
4
This deeply cruel action once again lays bare the oligarchical values and priorities of the Trump administration. Its mantra is soak the poor and feed the rich. Hence, we see massive tax cuts for the rich and a slashing of aid to the poor. Oh, there is one other priority, using the levers of government to feather his own nest and insure that he stays in office.
6
Food. Such a basic need.
Cutting the food stamp program when the Trump tax revision got rid of charitable deductions which emptied food banks is inhumane and the antithesis of Christian values (here’s looking at you Mr. Pence and all the other attendees of the Wed WH Bible Study).
How do you sleep?
15
And in addition to the lack of compassion for those who will really starve without food stamps the dummies in the Trump cabinet haven’t give a lick of thought to the negative effect on the economy such a move will have. 3 million less people buying less products. These guys know we’re a consumer/service economy right! Like without people buying stuff the economy contracts. That’s not good if you’re a business person. The incompetence is staggering!
6
GOP Plan: Starve enough poor people and we can cut corporate taxes a bit more.
9
Trump knows when you’re busy scraping up enough food for your children every day, there is no time left to go vote.
10
"Feed the babies
Who don't have enough to eat
Shoe the children
With no shoes on their feet
House the people
Livin' in the street
Oh, oh, there's a solution"
"Fly Like An Eagle"
The Steve Miller Band (1976)
"Feed the World
Let them know it's Christmas time"
"Do They Know It's Christmas?"
Band-Aid (1984)
"food is not a basic human right."
Eddie
Md (2019)
4
Merry Christmas! No food for you! yet his followers are still following.
8
Here we go:
The Trump administration gives us tax cuts so people can starve ...
and as a bonus, balloon our national debt.
Good going, Team Republicans for Trump!!
Or is that Team Republicans for Voldemort!!
5
@linda stoll
Overspending created the debt not letting taxpayers keep their money.
1
@A Reader, most of that spending is on our military and interest on our ever growing national debt, not programs to feed people. There are other ways to balance a budget.
2
Elections have consequences.
5
This brutal decision coming from the same department that doled out billions in welfare to able bodied farmers , just to keep their votes coming after dear leader choked off their markets. Brilliant.
11
Despicable, plain and simple. Cutting off millions of hungry Americans from food stamps, while billionaires receive huge tax cuts (and Trump gets extra scoops of ice cream), is shameful.
12
So Trump saves 1 Billion dollars a year in denying over 700,000 Americans from needed food but he gives 16 Billion dollars a year to farmers, mostly multi-million dollar agriculture firms because of his stupid trade war with China.
Oh and Trump gives a 400 million dollar contract to build his Southern wall to a firm, that he has close dealings.
The Trump depravity just gets uglier every day, and the Republicans call this "Make America Great Again".
10
Such an easy answer. Cut off ALL food stamps and welfare and homeless assistance, housing vouchers, etc....
Those who wish to give to these causes can give to charity.
And please stop rewarding poor women for having babies. 7 - 8 billion people in the world many of them poor. No need for more of them.
3
Reader,
sorry but I’m not going to let you off the hook so easily.
You live on this planet and benefit in so many ways from living in a society and a country that has some semblance of stability.
Where there is no stability, where people go hungry and get sick and kicked out of their homes and live on the streets (I could go on, but you get the idea). Where societies are not stable and not capable of the most rudimentary kindness or empathy, all goes to rot pretty quickly.
You, if you have any means, can pay for your fair share. By your words here, I don’t trust you to do it through charity.
6
Let’s be another third world nation! Homeless on every corner. Children begging in the streets for food!
7
@A Reader, I’m sure poor people would like to limit the number of children they have, but the current administration is trying to eliminate the healthcare provisions that give people access to affordable birth control.
Besides I thought Republicans were pro-life? Every child is precious, until they need to be fed, right?
3
Frailty, thy name is woman - Hamlet
Contrivance, thy name is an opinion on the Affordable Care Act -
Justice Antonin Scalia
Cruelty, thy name is...
The Trump Administration Cutting Off Food Stamps For 700,000
3
The 1% don't want to higher taxes, because it wouldn't be enough for them to get by ($27k a day = not enough), but we have the gall to judge a few for getting a few hundred a month for food. Dear God we are a despicable race!
7
@siyque
Give to charity. As much as you like.
2
Somebody better contact Mr Putin fast and ask him to get it reinstated.
3
Farm subsidies for corporate farmers , but cut food stamps.
Bet the white Trump voters will blame Obama!
4
Merry Christmas, America.
7
There are a lot of comments about donating to food pantries in response to this change. Those donations are wonderful but some food for thought is that many food pantries do not allow single, childless, able bodied adults to receive food. This is the exact demographic that is being targeted and who will lose food stamp benefits.
7
@mary
Single childless able bodied adults can work.
3
Vermont State is a perfect example of what happens with Socialism. Think Sanders. Vermont has the most lenient welfare system. Yet it still has a growing heroine epidemic. I work for a company that gives internet at a reduced price to the needy. In my years providing this service, I can honestly say 90% of these people are able bodied. The system has grown soft and created a welfare epidemic. A free ride for people that want to live this lifestyle. It's quite simple. If you want to work, you will find a way to work. If you don't want to work, you will find a way not to. Of course there are people that need this system temporarily, but I honestly believe that it's far fewer than what we currently support.
4
Feed hungry people. No more tax breaks for the rich until there is no more hunger in America. Even if you can’t work (you may be a child, you may be elderly, you may be sick or disabled) you deserve to eat. Most food stamps users HAVE JOBS.
7
It’s all good, people. The trickle down tax cuts will more than make up for this. Just wait.
Keep waiting....
15
Cutting food stamps is a terrible idea and will have a disproportionate impact on elderly women, minorities, and children--especially many children who are already not getting enough to eat because school lunches are so small.
16
@Charlie
This only applies to able bodied adults who have neither jobs nor children. It won’t have any impact on school children. The elderly, anyone 59 and over, is exempt as well. I can’t really say how it will affect minorities as a proportion but women are apt to be affected less than men since they are more likely to have custody of children.
2
No on who is involved in making the rules has any idea what living in poverty is really like for those "condemned to it" through lack of education, abilities, and opportunities.
Here is a personal story: I had a student (actually several) who was eligible for free lunch. I usually sat with my class during lunch because it was a small special ed class. The very first day, a student placed a buttered corn cob in his pocket. I asked why. "So I can have some supper tonight."
I began asking the cafeteria servers for an extra roll or extra something or other, and I brought plastic lunch bags for the child. Most days, he took home two extra rolls from me, and anything else I deemed safe to keep four hours without refrigeration. I educated my students on rudimentary food safety. We found out there was another student who sometimes had no dinner. We worked together to assemble bags for both to take home. Those who lived fairly comfortable lives were incredulous and anxious to share.
What will happen to children who can neither pay for lunch nor save parts of their lunches for later meals?
This is not the America that I've known for 78 years.....
God help us all!
Is your flag yet displayed upside down?
44
@ultimateliberal
This change doesn’t apply to children. It also doesn’t affect the school lunch program. Nothing will be different for the child you are referring to.
2
@mary Circumstances will most certainly be different. If the family is removed from SNAP eligibility, the children will likely be removed from the free lunch rolls. Then, when do they eat?
With all the horrendous "lunch-shaming" that takes place in school cafeterias, how does a child, who isn't served a regular lunch, able to save part of the meal for a snack prior to bed-time?
Is this America?
There go my eggs and oatmeal, I'm not kidding.
13
Gotta pay for those tax cuts for the rich somehow!
16
Trump is now officially the grinch who stole Christmas.
Already 25 percent of us don’t have enough to eat and this rich country shouldn’t shouldn’t allow more people to go hungry.
By eliminating food for the poor, what trump is doing is putting populations more at risk for additional crimes. We are already experiencing daily carjackings and shootings because of the economic divide. Even in the Great Depression they at least fed people.
18
Everywhere I go now in New York/ Brooklyn, 30 degree weather, I see people sleeping out on the pavement. Today I went to Dunkin Doughnuts. There was a man standing at the door, opening it for patrons, hoping that he might be rewarded with a quarter. This is no time to be cutting off people's food stamps, not while the President is billing Secret Service personnel to ride around in golf carts protecting him, while he plays golf at his resorts.
40
Let them eat cake! Specifically a slice of that perfect "Trump" Chocolate Cake. I suggest that all the starving able-bodied men, women and children head South to Mar-a-Lago for Christmas dinner and a round of golf on the President.
12
Gotta pay for that ginormous slice of tax pie they cut themselves last year somehow!
12
Such cruelty from a man whose white privilege status in American society sticks out like a sore thumb. What's next: school breakfast and lunch programs?
9
Unfortunately, yes.
School lunches was all I could think of while I was reading this article.
Many counties who receive “free” school lunch for their students do it with federal monies.
#wwjd
3
If he only had a heart...
12
This is awful!
Trump supporters, get a clue: Social Security will be on the chopping block soon enough, probably just after the election if Trump wins.
11
@GWoo
Obama put SS on the chopping block. Don't rule it out if a Democrat is elected in 2020.
2
@GWoo
SS is a Ponzi scheme. It needs reform.
Now trump has a new moniker, grinch, scrooge. What a guy. This must mean more money for the rich. Sure people should have jobs or look for them. Perhaps even sweeping streets should qualify but what about those that live in areas where there are no jobs or industry? Trump is a sicko.
6
This rule change is so unnecessarily cruel and awful. We over-produce food and the SNAP program merely provides a system to redistribute some of that surplus to poor hungry people. If you think a poor hungry person deserves their fate then you are a terrible person and should be ashamed of yourself. This is just ridiculous. The comments I’ve read in support of this measure are terrible.
13
Do the poor vote?
This is how a democracy is supposed to work. If you cant do whats right for you, should you even vote?
Revolting treatment of people just barely surviving.
12
“The rule, which was proposed by the Agriculture Department”
Really? Really?
What’s the chance that Emperor Trump told Sonny Perdue, “We could save a lot of money, don’t you think, Sonny?”
6
I have a maga brother getting food stamps. He is not going to be happy. Can't blame this one on the Dems, brother.
15
So this is the 'Many children left behind' rule?
6
Cancel the most neediest among us health care, then cancel their food assistance. The evangelical vote is all about money and judges. What a bunch of hypocrites the Republican and their evangelical base are. Send the the farmers 20 billion in tax dollars and starve our children. pathetic
15
Ethnic cleansing. Starve them in the cold, dead of winter. Break their spirit, let them die.
How about this? Take away the non profit status of the NRA, religious organizations, and major league sports and feed the poor and make sure that our vets have the benefits they need.
I don't want to hear from the 1% who play with their diamonds and jewelry like it's food. Yes, I'm talking to you.
14
It’s a cold and cruel Christmas in Trumpville.
13
We need to pay for the billionaire's tax cut somehow! We can't make some people disgustingly rich without causing pain to the poorest among us.
This is the policy of hateful uncaring fascists who believe that God makes his deserving followers rich, so if you're poor, then by definition, you are undeserving.
These conservatives are not only cruel, but insane.
9
Sonny Purdue gives us great chickens but he joins the Trump cabinet of incompetents, grifters and sycophants. Not anywhere does the administration tell us just how much is being wasted on ineligibles. We are to believe this sweeping set of new rules will touch only the crooks. Downright stupid ! Lets burn down the building because I saw a cockroach...must be more of them!
There is also gaping holes in the understanding of "able bodied adult". These rules give hundreds of state agencies the ability to apply these restrictions in a racist unaccountable fashion. Thank Goodness the next administration can get rid of these evil Trump "executive orders" Make sure you vote.
5
Those about to go hungry are the people who voted for McConnell, Trump, Graham, and the rest of the GOP crazies.
12
This is not the right way to finance the $1 trillion tax we had last year. A number of industries--agriculture, petroleum, transportation, defense--receive far more substantive subsidies than the pittance spent on SNAP. How did so many Americans become so self-loathing, so resentful of the infirm, the elderly, and the unlucky, while praising the success of business sectors that thrive on federal subsidy? That kind of doublethink is only possible with well-crafted, relentless marketing, such as Fox and similar media outlets propagate.
29
There is some abuse and some waste, surely, in our approach to offering food stamps. And anecdotes enough to fill books (for either side of this debate). I don’t want more anecdotes nor complaints.
What are the solutions? SOLUTIONS, folks. How do we root out abuse and waste while still feeding children and those who have earnestly attempted to get gainful employment and cannot? All the stories in the world aren’t a solution. I would like more time, space, and energy spent to understanding how — and to what extent and in what cases — our public governance is obligated, morally or otherwise, to respond to hunger.
4
So agree. The easy way is to just cut the roll. The harder work is to figure out where there could be inefficiency, to cut costs without impacting those in need. Also flies in the face of addressing homelessness.
2
So someone gets a few dollars worth of food stamps. So what.
2
The SNAP program (food stamps) should be expanded, not cut. It is proven to stimulate the economy, as well as relieving food insecurity for the working poor, children, disabled adults, and seniors. No one should have to choose between having enough to eat and paying for rent, utilities, medicine, and other necessities.
21
I’m so glad I’ve never been so attached to my money that I would begrudge a brother or sister food for fear someone is cheating the system. There is nothing Christian whatsoever about cruelty, a characteristic that most aptly defines the majority of actions taken by the Trump administration.
27
@JR
It’s not cruel to expect an able bodied adult who does not have children to care for to work for their food.
4
Most of those on food stamps are working. Some cannot work. We’re talking about FOOD. Not riches. But note that the rich don’t have to work for FOOD.
3
If able bodied people now on food stamps are going to be denied them, then their places of work are going to need to come to terms with starving employees. Many places whose employees receive food stamps pay scant minimum wages, well below the poverty line. We have been subsidizing these large corporations for years by feeding their employees. Trump has no idea how many people live in a beggared condition in the United States. Truly Dickensonian.
22
@Barbara Snider
It clearly states that only unemployed able bodied adults without children will be affected. Those with jobs who qualify for food stamps will continue to receive them even if they’re an able bodied adult without children.
2
Who is “able bodied”? Do you really think people choose to be poor? Give people FOOD for God’s sake.
1
I understand the sentiment about work requirements but just remember the radical right wing folks (Koch Family, Heritage Foundation etc.) who control Trump are coming for your Social Security and Medicare next.
Please be warned. I would prefer not to read the comments that state--"we never saw this coming."
15
I have a real problem with freeloaders, but the ones that I reserve the most contempt for are the ones at the top of our economy who don't pay their fair share of taxes.
29
If I was a Democrat running for election in a poor red state (isn't that most red states?) I would talk about this relentlessly, and focus on those who are impacted. This is what we all fear - not being able to eat nor have a roof over our heads. This is about survival. It's real and scary.
14
When something is 'free'.....demand is almost unlimited.
Budgets are not unlimited.
So there has to be a form of 'rationing'.....even on 'free' food.
Sorry.
Or am I missing something here?
4
@kenneth, supply is capped per capita. Growing demand doesn’t affect the budget as supply is inelastic to demand
3
Compassion!
6
But tax subsidies for the rich are ok. The USA has plenty of food—and plenty of hungry people.
236
Those tax cuts to America's beleaguered billionaires don't pay for themselves, folks.
20
Trump is just implementing the policies that too many Americans want implemented. They worry that people who rely upon public supports are slackers who are cheating and exploiting honest people’s charity. If one person in twenty is taking advantage, the emotional response is to treat them all as cheats.
We are all better off assuring all of the basics of life even when they cannot obtain them for themselves. Desperate people do desperate things which often require society to intervene and often at great expense, a real burden upon everyone. Happy people contribute more than unhappy ones. It’s more a matter of what is better for all than anything else. It’s better to relief the desperation than to have to deal with people who are desperate.
7
This was an easy one for Trump. Those affected and are persons of color wouldn’t vote for him anyway. Those affected In red states will vote for him even when he takes away their food.
Sad.
19
This was all about giving his base something to cheer about. And you're right. Even the ones affected will still cheer him on.
8
There are many communities where workers depend on food stamps to put food on the table because their rents have gone up 100%+ in a matter of just 5-6 years. Full employment sounds good but if the pay has stagnated or even gone down while housing costs have soared, then being employed merely means you are less worse off than you would be if unemployed. I find it disturbing that there's money to rescue banks that ought to have gone bankrupt for their reckless decision making, for wars, foreign aid, etc but none for feeding struggling Americans.
15
“government dependency has never been the American dream,”
Hilarious, especially when you consider farm and ranching subsidies that have been going on for decades and generations. Fix those, too, please.
9
Cruel policy.
Bad for farmers.
Bad for grocers.
Bad for communities.
(Food stamps are also an economic stimulus.)
14
Able bodied? Does that include people who are physically "able" but have undiagnosed mental illness? People who are not able to work due to mental illness and do not have medical insurance to address and treat their mental illness?
9
Republicans can't sleep at night unless they know they've made someone's life much worse that day, either for fun or profit.
When has any Republican helped anyone other than himself?
18
Do not be surprised, do not befooled these cuts are going to be tailored and aimed at the communities that did not vote Republican. Just look at what happen with the farming communities that voted for Trump in the south east are getting a considerable amount more per acre than farmers in Washington state and parts of California. even though this ignorant administration started these tariffs particularly against the Chinese the whole nation a price but the Republicans benefit.
10
Our daily dose of inhumanity, greed, and cruelty I presume.
10
The nonreality “fact” that some young man/woman of color somewhere is ripping off the system is enough for Duhnald and his GOP ilk to destroy the system itself.
Though born with a silver spoon in their hands they can’t stomach the fact a poor person gets something for nothing, despite their inheriting everything in their lives.
I believe the saying is they were born on third base and think they hit a triple.
10
At the risk of sounding as if my anger is somewhat displaced, whenever I hear a regressive leftist or conspiracy theorist spouting the nonsense that 'both parties are the same' or 'so and so centrist Democrat is just Republican lite', I'll present a link to this article to refute such ludicrous assertions.
2
They either undo or tell them all, I quick.
Childless, able-bodied people without jobs do not need government assistance, plain and simple.
2
People without jobs don’t have money for food. It’s not that easy to get a job. Especially if you are homeless.
1
The rich hog the government troughs through corporate welfare, the unfettered exploitation of the country's natural resources and free use of its infrastructure and institutions all the while avoiding paying their fair share of the taxes that support and maintain these assets. Now they even begrudge the poorest of the poor the scraps from their tables. We are heading into the Dark Ages 2.0. For shame!
9
Maybe our Representatives and our Senators would like to comment? Vote them all out! And how about the Presidential candidates get on the horn and undo this!
1
In the words of mr. Scrooge, "if the poor are going to die, then let them do so and decrease the surplus population."
5
But at least they can all feel free to say Merry Christmas again!
3
War on poverty gets a new twist.
5
How do Evangelicals continue to believe Trump is “chosen”? How does leaving the poor to starve align with Jesus’s teachings?
9
@Galfrido
While Jesus certainly did teach about helping the poor he also said ‘he who does not work, neither shall he eat’.
1
@mary I wonder what Jesus would do about the man or woman who has to care for an elderly parent and child and is living in poverty and can’t commit to a full time job. Or someone who is 55 and lost their job and no one will hire them because they’re “too old.” Requiring work for food stamps sounds good until you look at the details. Maybe we could require a certain number of hours of volunteer work? Something more humane?
Lest We Forget: A Hungry Man Is An Angry Man.
7
C’mon this is obvious. It’s the only way to get Americans to do the slave labor immigrants use to do. That’s why the Agricultural Department supports it.
2
Merry Christmas from Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and the rest of the neocons in the GOP club.
7
How about the billions(twice the amount of auto bailout) of OUR money given to bailout farmers? Pay us back in food!!’
4
Billionaires get more, people in poverty get less. It’s what Jesus would want.
4
Please tell me how bringing up Baron Trump during a hearing in a simple however misguided example is more disgusting than cutting millions of children’s daily sustenance?
Morally bankrupt.
8
@Picot
It’s not millions, it’s 700,000, and there are no children involved, only able bodied jobless adults without children.
2
If you have bone spurs are you able bodied?
10
Ahh the irony!
Well, there goes his re-election.
2
This current administration takes from the poro and gives to the rich. It is as simple as that. Where is Robin hood when you need him?
3
I'm sorry, how many corporations pay zero or negative net taxes? How many Walmart and McDonald employees are on food stamps because neither can be bothered to pay a living wage? What about subsidies to oil companies? Big agribusiness? Nice contracts to the Military industrial complex? Or the guys who can continue to write off their personal jet maintenance expenses even after us little people tax cuts expire? People debating the merits of food stamps and who should get them wakeup! We are arguing over crumbs.
64
Many of these people whose benefits will be cut off voted for Trump.
Instead of listening to rhetoric from Fox News, Rush and the gang, consider that when you vote for a person, pay attention to what you are actually voting for.
It reminds me of the all Democrats that voted for Reagan and then he turned around and slashed student loan funding and allowed banks to charge $700-$800 student loan applications fees. He also cut education so severely that the majority of the teachers in the country received pink slips.
Savings & Loan crisis, recession, 20% interest rates, high unemployment, arms being sold to Iran, AIDS crisis reeling out of control--the Country was a hot mess.
But...people voted for him because of his funny personality, he ate jelly beans, was a former actor and bought into the facade that he was a horse-riding cowboy.
Many ignored the fact that we was a pro-choice, Democrat who lived on a multi-million dollar estate here in Santa Barbara and just called it a ranch.
They didn't even consider his damaging policies until it was too late.
We are experiencing the same issue with Trump. The majority of people that voted for him need the healthcare and foods and other programs that he is slashing.
I hope they learn their lesson next November.
19
@Gus
We don’t let people starve to death so that they might learn their lesson - period. Got it! Not even our worst enemy!
2
I continue to be stumped by the broad, sweeping claims by this Administration that unemployment is down and new job growth continues to climb in this country, and yet, this bombshell of removing "nearly 700,000 people from the federal food-stamp program" is beyond baffling, if not appalling.
Perhaps those making these decisions have not gone grocery shopping in a while nor even know how much a gallon of milk or a loaf of stale bread costs, but those prices are exceed what minimum wage jobs are paying.
For many families, to merely make ends meet, they must work 2-3 jobs A DAY just to pay for the basics - rent, heat, utilities. There is barely, if any money left for decent food, much less food that is anything but nutritious. Forget fresh fruits and vegetables.
I truly am perplexed at the conflicting and juxtaposing policies this Administration continues to roll out and brag about.
What so many people need, not just want, is a decent paying job so they DON'T have to rely on food stamps. I have never met an individual who bragged about needing public assistance. There is/was no pride in that necessity, just embarrassment and shame.
The only aspect this Administration has accomplished in this new strictly enforced federal requirement is more people will go hungry in addition to being poor.
This is just so wrong on so many levels.
20
@Marge Keller
You mention families not being able to make ends meet but this doesn’t affect families at all, only able bodied adults with no jobs and no children. If someone has a job this doesn’t apply to them. If someone has children this doesn’t apply to them. The family in your example has multiple jobs and kids so this has nothing to do with them.
2
To actually *get* approved for SNAP is a humiliating bureaucratic nightmare.... Hours spent at a county benefit office with decisions based on reams of paperwork: one form missing, a signature overlooked, or even earning “too much” (the cap is $319 a week) from Unemployment means disqualification. All of this is as a single, able bodied adult who just needs temporary aid and will likely get rehired...NJ requires participation in “back to work” programs to qualify for *any* assistance- which means, I must attend their “training” programs at odd hours and locations or risk losing any sort of aid. Which, if you’re working part-time or have children or need a bridge back into stability are basically impossible. The system is beyond broken.
19
@Erin Apparently millions are willing to endure the long lines, humiliation and bureaucracy.
2
Kentucky residents receive the most food stamps in the country.
Those lines must be long.
I say Kentucky carry more of the burden.
Perhaps the key points occur mid way through Lola Fadulu’s clear and informative article. These points are mention of both the 2008 recession and a future “national recession”. Enforced hunger can be easily calculated to intentionally lead to social and political stresses, and consequently to unrest and upheaval. The resulting upheaval will be, in turn, an obvious and necessary rationale for severe future social and police controls on the populace. Perhaps martial law. Perhaps suspension of certain laws and terms of office.
6
Well, those tax cuts for the one percent don’t pay for themselves. Besides, shouldn’t those SNAP recipients be willing to do their part to reduce the deficit and the national debt? (Sarcasm
11
Hardworking Americorp volunteers are paid so little that are they are expected to apply for foodstamps in the communities they serve. They are the lucky ones. Their service will end and generous family members often send them care packages to supplement what little they can purchase with their federal benefits and meager salaries.
Residents of the communities they serve are not so fortunate.
6
Another mean-spirited, moralistic and divisive initiative that couldn't possibly save the money it will cost to implement.
We are the richest country in the history of the world. The U.S. fed post-war Europe (and have reaped the soft power benefits ever since--well, maybe eroded some under the Trump administration). To give everyone below a certain 1040 income level a modest food subsidy would cost a fraction each year of GOP tax cuts for the rich.
So what if "they don't deserve it"? That's a moralistic opinion, but even if "they" don't, we'd know that people in our country aren't going to bed hungry.
Practically, supplying a hundred bucks or so of food assistance each month to a jobless "able-bodied single person" is probably more effective at propelling job searches, if that's the paternalistic goal, than food deprivation. Or making him or her forego laundry for job hunting clothes, or gas to get to an interview, to have food instead.
10
I wonder how many of those 750,000 who are Trump supporters will continue to support him for re-election in 2020? Maybe some of them will go Democratic.
5
The proposed rule eliminating food stamps if you have $2250 in assets is very troubling to me. Most single parents get tax refunds exceeding this amount due to the child tax credit and earned income credit. As soon as they cash the check they would be in violation of of this rule. They would never be able save up an emergency fund or ever get ahead given this rule. This kind of restritive policy will probably be counterproductive. I expect widespread cheating would be the norm. Another bad policy whose time has apparently come.
12
@Fred
I agree with that. $2250 is not much of a cushion, that’s one big home or car repair. If someone received a good job offer out of state it likely wouldn’t be enough to move between renting a truck and security deposits for an apartment or rental home.
1
It’s important to remember that with the GOP: the cruelty is the point.
They kick the poor because they want to and because they can. It began with Reagan 40 years ago and it’s only gotten worse as the GOP has become more and more extreme. Even as profoundly execrable as the current administration is, this kind of thing would have happened under any of the other GOP nominees in 2016 had Trump not been chosen.
Vote them out in 2020.
17
The Irony of this is that it is going to affected people in poor Red States the most.
As the NY Times pointed out this weekend,the majority of poor districts are controlled by Republican legislators.
The poor and rural red state voter keeps voting against their own self interest.
6
Yes government dependency should be eliminated and the place to start is the billions in agricultural subsidies that Mr. Perdue and his friends have handsomely profited from over the past decades. Let’s see how they do in a real capitalist system.
10
So let's see, Trump gives a 1 trillion dollar tax cut to the ultra wealthy and corporations and cuts 5 billion in aid to the poor. Yep, that makes perfect sense.
3
The motivation for this kind of legislation is the idea that there are people who are somehow taking advantage of the system and getting something they don't deserve. Well, I'm okay with poor people getting food they didn't work for.
The number of poor in this country has been on the rise with every Republican administration as they get shut out of education and opportunities that the middle and upper classes get, including myself. So the least we can do is feed them. Most decent societies see this as a minimum.
What irks me are the people at the other end of the spectrum, the filthy rich who have huge wealth that they mostly didn't earn, and instead they're getting tax breaks.
6
Have you ever considered the fact that most of the people you are trying to save, are so unwilling to make an effort to fend for themselves, that you have to drag them in, just to register to vote. Even with your pleading many just refuse to make the effort to register.
Then, to get them to vote, you have to pick them up, drive them to the polls and give them directions. Even so, many miss the bus. Just too busy.
It is not your fault. I applaud your efforts. But some people just don't care enough, even for themselves, to get off the couch. Are we doing them a favor?
2
This is standard Republican orthodoxy. Red meat for voters who relish holding poor folks accountable. Meanwhile, our elected officials don’t have to worry about producing anything meaningful to improve our lives.
3
No Food Stamps for the poor and disenfranchised, but mega-subsidies for Big Agriculture?
7
During the Great Depression the federal government hired people and put them to work. Why can't the government do this today? Was the program a failure?
2
Who is to determine whether a person is able to work, or, for that matter whether they are looking for work but the only thing they can do is not enough to sustain them?
What about "physically sound" but mentally not?
A very complex problem. Why not err on the side of compassion? Oh, I forgot this is the trump era!
8
At 76, I am reasonably able bodied considering my age. I am single with no children. I teach 18 hours a week at an adult learning center preparing students, many of whom are ESL students, for the GED exam—as a volunteer i.e. unpaid. I also volunteer for 2 other organizations.
I live very modestly on $14,000 a year and receive $68 a month in SNAP benefits. (The amount has dropped about $20 a month over the past 4 years.) Seventeen dollars a week does not allow me to buy quality protein, obviously.
I wonder if Steve Acho, the “bleeding heart liberal,” would like me to work 20 hours a week—stocking shelves or working at a fast food establishment, for example—taking a job away from an able bodied uneducated person who might be one of my students. Also, as able bodied as I might be for my age, either of those jobs is beyond me physically. Nonetheless, these are the only sorts of jobs available in my community, especially for someone my age.
Tell me, Steve, what do you suggest?
12
Work requirements are a good idea, and I would also back drug testing to receive public aid. If you can afford crack, you can afford peanut butter. We need a way to police the "loss of food stamp cards" which are then sold for cash and used to buy weed and crack. The program out of control. The country functioned from 1787-1964 without food stamps. Now we reached almost 50 M people at times. Another one of Johnson's wonderful gifts to taxpayers which seems to only grow.
Obama took food stamp usage from 26 M to 46 M. So all we're doing is trying to return the number of recipients to pre-Obama era levels. Which are still out of reach - even if we take another 3 M off the welfare roll.
4
Now that we are cutting welfare payments like SNAP, can we cut back on the farm subsidies in the Farm Bill?
4
This is cruel and comes from someone who has no idea or care of what too many of our vulnerable citizens endure. This isn’t a matter of being a democrat or republican, it’s a matter of decency. But Donald trump lacks decency, among others.
Oh one more thing, when this is implemented watch the crime rates rise.
6
This is beyond shameful, especially when food spoils on the shelves of the largest retailer on a daily basis.
4
It appears Walmart and McDonalds workers will have to fend for themselves to stay fed.
4
"The Trump administration gave final approval to a rule that will remove nearly 700,000 people from the federal food-stamp program by strictly enforcing federal work requirements."
What's the harm?
It's only food. (sarcasm inserted)
This Administration is beyond contemptible and deplorable.
5
No person in a first world country should go hungry, ever. Especially not children. Even if you think someone is cheating the system- so what? To get a little extra food? Hardly criminal compared to corporate america.
10
@Cookie Czar
This doesn’t apply to families with children.
2
Folks, if the trump admin ignored tens of thousands of protest letters, then our comments here do little to right this wrong. Please put the same amount of time into getting out the vote, protecting people's votes, etc., as you do in reading the paper or posting comments. I'll try to do the same.
4
Well how else are you going to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. Poor people don't really need to eat do they?
3
Happy Holidays! Tis the season to be jolly and show generosity of spirit, especially to the poor.
But not for the miserable, miserly President Donald J. Trump and his stingy, punishing Ebenezer Scrooge Party.
"Bah Humbug!" say they, "What better time to cut food stamps for the poor!!"
The Republican Party 2019: The Grinches Who Steal from the Poor to Give to the Rich.
Have they no shame?
Give them coal and switches on Nov. 3, 2020!
2
The Grinch of Christmas steals Christmas dinner from the poor.
Isn’t that special.
3
Let them eat cake. Late stage capitalism at its finest. Scrooge would be proud.
2
Just like everything this evil and criminal administration does, the cruelty is the point. May we all live long enough to see them punished accordingly.
3
In the past, Republicans have always said that as benefits are cut, other organizations will fill in. Perhaps the Republican Evangelicals will fill in the gap? Probably not. They are apt to follow Osteen's lead and pander feel good prayers in their twitter accounts, lamenting that it is God's will if folks lack sufficient prosperity to have food.
18
Yes, we need to preserve the welfare money so we can give it to rich farm corporations instead.
20
It is unconscionable that President Trump makes drastic cuts to food stamps while spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on frequent travel trips for himself and his family.
I remember that when asked during the campaign if he, if elected, would travel a lot to play golf, Trump responded that with all he needed to learn and do in Washington, he probably would not travel much.
He still does not know much but chooses to spend his time, and millions of taxpayer dollars, traveling to play golf instead of learning about government.
24
This is just plain mean spirited and isn't even going to save that much money. There are plenty of reasons that "able bodied" adults aren't working. Some are mentally ill, or barely literate or care for other sick adults. And as for "children" not being affected; what about young adults? My niece and nephew live with their mentally ill dad. They're in community college and work part time. No one has a car. They depend on their food stamps. Their dad is 60 next year, missing most of his teeth, and has many ailments due to years of lack of health care. I wouldn't want him to even wait on me at McDonald's. I'd rather he stay home.
19
@Laura
It doesn’t apply to people who have jobs, are in school, or are 59 or older so all these people will continue to receive food stamps.
2
For some reason, the federal minimum wage is still set at $7.25 an hour, where it's been for ten years. If someone got a 20-hour a week job, and skipped vacations, in one year their pay would be $7,540.00.
That is $20.66 a day, before deductions, before state and local taxes, before sales taxes.
16
And the $64,000 question is: Will this move by Trump cause any of his base to desert him, even if they get hit by the cuts in SNAP?
And the smart money says: No, as long as Trump is against immigrants and abortion, everything else he does is just fine. His base won't even blink. Because they are true believers.
5
If Trump and the Republicans began kicking people off “disability” Social Security, they would risk losing votes for sure. “Drawing disability” is a career path in this red state.
4
Simple solution. Just call them very rich and they will receive all the largesse the Republicans and Trump can give. Calling the poor very rich does not make it so, but saying the rich need tax cuts did not make that so either. Jesus must be reconsidering allowing crucifixes in the Trump-supporting religious "right."
4
The single most common reason for people remaining poor and underemployed is a lack of money. Poor people have no savings nor have they friends or family who can lend them money nor give them a lift to work nor provide child care so that they can work. If they have a car and it breaks down, they cannot fix it. If their children get sick, they must take care of them. The result is that common inconveniences for most people become the causes for losing jobs and housing. That kind of situation makes people feel trapped, impotent, and depressed. People in that situation are more likely to turn to escapes like drugs and alcohol.
Get it. The idea that taking food from people will help them is nothing short of inane. If you want people to fend for themselves, you need to lift them up to where they can do so. This plan just pulls the rug out from people close to desperation.
23
Things have gotten to the point where, if Red state people suffer more than Blue state people do, I am OK with it. I upped my contribution to our local food bank, even though I lost the deduction.
8
Save a penny, spend a dollar. People who cannot eat well, get weak in body and lack energy to deal with life, they get sick and they end up self medicating with alcohol and drugs. Then they become even more desperate and because they cannot find employment, many turn to crime. It's an old pattern well documented since the 1800's.
The assertion that when unemployment is high and long lasting it is because people are unwilling to work is a rather silly idea promoted by people who don't want to spend money on helping others to get by. Unemployment is a result of economies not individuals.
Providing people with good food assures better health, better ability to contribute, and less behavioral problems. Reactionaries like to think that when people are helped, they stop worrying about being able to survive. When they stop worrying about being able to survive, they collapse into a malaise in which they begin to act badly and squander themselves in escapism and criminality, and they refuse to work despite ample opportunities. It's strictly medieval view of life where life is considered God's selection process for eternity and it's utter unsupported by any empirical evidence.
8
@Casual Observer
If someone has the money to self medicate with drugs and alcohol couldn’t they just use that money to buy food which would solve the problem that caused the other problems which led to them self medicating in the first place?
2
Ours is a wealthy and prosperous nation.
If people are hungry, feed them.
If they lack shelter, house them.
If they become sick, heal them.
There are no good reasons not to take care of people who are not as lucky as the bulk of us.
23
@wihikr
Not everyone is simply ‘lucky’. Many people work very hard for their money. Why should their hard earned money be taken to buy food for a fellow able bodied adult when that adult is not working?
3
Oh come now, surely it isn't the height of cruelty to require childless, able-bodied people between the ages of 18 and 49 to work 20 hours a week in order to qualify for food stamps.
Most people in that demographic group work that many hours or more in 3 days or fewer each week.
6
If you're going to cut so many from food stamps, then you need to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour.
10
The citizens of the US own this food. It was bought by D of Ag through farm subsidies to farmers. The food is distributed to hungry people here and abroad. Trump administration can't take food away from our citizens. The argument that this will "save" billions is silly. It has already been bought and paid for. The fact that different departments have oversight is an accounting shuffle. Taxes paid in = subsidies paid out.
9
Let's see Trump eat what poor people subsist on.
He wouldn't make it one day.
Kids are already going to school hungry and falling behind in lunch fees. Add this wonderful new Republican move and we will have a lot of young, empty tummies in America.
There are places in America where there are no jobs. Whole towns are shutting down because industries have left. It's tough moving to a new place after living somewhere your whole life.
People can't afford their prescription drugs or gas for their cars to go job hunting. They can't afford internet service or cell phones.
People get ill, lose jobs, and bottom out. There isn't a safety net.
Opioid addiction has restructured our societies and grandparents are raising their young grandchildren.
People are stressed out from constantly thinking of the future and from worry.
So great, reduce food stamps. Pile another problem on the shoulders of the poor. Don't you all get that many people are struggling to merely survive?
We need to help each other make it.
This concept is entirely foreign to the Trump regime.
11
@Sparta480
This only applies to able bodied adults without children. Don’t worry, it’s not going to result in a ‘lot of young, hungry tummies in America’.
2
And yet he lowered taxes for the ultra rich.
13
"The states do not pay one dime in the cost of food stamps" says Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation. Where does Mr. Rector think that the monies that the federal government spends come from? Our taxes. From our homes. In the states. It is our money that needs to be spent to provide services. Not Mr. Rectors.
8
If you are hungry in America I suggest you knock on the doors of the richest Americans who got huge tax cuts and ask them for food.
8
Why is the middle class propping up the wealthy? The wealthy and Corporations are the ones taking advantage of government welfare, not poor folks!
9
Wow this is just so pointless. 755,000 people. The average recipient gets $127 per month in food stamp benefits so roughly $100M per month or $1.2B per year. Just to put in in perspective, that's only 3x annually our military aid to Ukraine that Trump is currently in hot water over.
Let's say eventually all 3 million people get cut. That's $4.5 billion in savings per year. Trump probably looks at that and thinks, "Gee I can save $4.5 billion by just cutting food stamps. Nobody else has had the guts to do it - but I will!"
The problem is I doubt his mind can deal with scale. The 2019 Federal budget was $4.4 Trillion. So that $4.5 billion "saved" by having American citizens go hungry only shaves 0.10% off the federal budget. So stupid, pointless and cruel.
8
We can only hope that Trump will be eating prison food within the next few years.
19
What could be more fitting from this heartless administration?! “Merry Christmas to all, especially the rich and to corporations, to whom we gave a big tax cut and to the poor and middle class....well you are on your own! It’s the season to take away food stamps...who needs food?” Seriously every day is an assault on decency, compassion and kindness!
8
The so-called billionaire Trump should donate some of his fortune to the country's food banks. We will soon see from Trump's tax returns that he isn't a billionaire, doesn't pay taxes, doesn't give to charities. His only charity was the Trump Foundation to enrich himself. Just another confirmation that Trump is the most incompetent and corrupt President in the history of the United States. A complete disgrace to America.
6
A person who is a cheat and a liar believes that everyone else is a cheat and a liar. I’m glad to hear of the protests, donation will be made weekly to my town food pantry until some sanity returns to the good old USA.
7
It is shameful that Trump has targeted poor people, and republicans (who are always happy to squeeze the poor) are gleefully celebrating the fact that more people will go hungry in the US as a result of their policies. How indecent. Abhorrent.
When the rich victimize the poor, they should not be surprised when the poor rise up. Remember the French Revolution!
4
But government dependency by American farmers is ok. Farmers get bailed out. Everyone else is left to fend for themselves.
25
@dc brent Perhaps farmers get bailed out because the majority vote republican or reside in swing states?
3
@dc brent
Farmers work.
3
@JAG Yes farmers do work. And many of the people are often working more than one job but are paid so poorly that they need food assistance.
Farmers can actually receive government assistance simply for not planting a certain crop
5
I'm a bleeding heart liberal, but there is no reason for an able-bodied person without children to receive food stamps. Or any assistance, for that matter.
Citizenship or residency in the United States doesn't guarantee you a comfortable life. If you aren't working, then you have to accept whatever poverty comes your way. I work my butt off, and live within my means. So can you.
The situation is different if the person is actually disabled. And I don't mean disabled like my lazy cousin who is on permanent Social Security Disability because she gets "nervous" at job interviews. I mean actually disabled.
It is also different if you have children. I want kids to be cared for in this country, even if their parents are horrible losers. Get them the food, clothing, shelter, and education they need, so hopefully they can break out of the cycle of poverty.
A single, healthy, childless adult? Suck it up, buddy. Get a job like everybody else. No jobs? They move where there are jobs.
216
@Steve Acho I would agree with you, if we had universal health care like civilized, advanced nations, if jobs actually paid a living wage, and if so many single, healthy, childless adults weren't discouraged from pursuing higher education by the prospect of lifelong debt.
372
@Steve Acho Many many people on food stamps work, but our exploitative employers, including the U.S. military, do not pay them enough to eat. Minimum wage does not cover most people's expenses.
462
@Steve Acho -----Aim that same anger at a government that pays city folks farm subsidies also, that should be your next target because that is even more egregious than a single person getting some food stamps.
207
So the economy is great. Sure. Fine. How about we stop subsidizing farmers because of their dependency due to trade wars? Able-bodied adults don't have the American Dream of government dependency, right?
69
I can't believe some of these comments just because people will be required to work a mere 20 hours a week to continue their SNAP benefits. That is equates to five 4-hour shifts. The world is not going to come to an end because someone is required to work this little amount. Come on, people! Taxpayers are working 40, 50, 60, and 70 hour weeks. Where is the concern for them?
20
Oh for God's sake. Did you read the article? Much of this will be in areas of high unemployment. There are no jobs. Your cruelty is bizarre.
12
So, Lyn, you think it's reasonable to require a person to work a "mere" 80 hours per month in order to qualify for a maximum SNAP benefit of $194 (the limit for a single individual)?
Like you, "I can't believe some of these comments."
3
Is the government going to provide jobs for people who do not qualify for food stumps but are unable to find employment?
6
Strange how this stupendous job market appears so much more obvious to the wealthy than to those seeking employment.
29
Maybe now the less fortunate Republican voters will see that they have been bilked. Tax breaks for the richest, reduced healthcare and less food.
13
Having worked for supermarkets for many years in both rural and inner city areas I can tell you that many supermarkets and stores would not survive without food stamp revenue.
This policy will have long term severe negative effects on communities, as stores will have no choice and have to lay off employees or close locations, leaving fewer places to shop locally for people who don't have cars.
Meanwhile the super rich get more tax cuts.....
Vote like your life and your country depends on it.... because it does.
45
As others have noted, many food stamp recipients are truly unemployable, even in a booming economy, due to mental illness issues, chronic health issues, etc. This is going to lead to more petty crime, burglaries, drug dealing, prostitution, shoplifting and scamming. Some marginal people will be pushed into homelessness, since some of their rent money will now have to go to buy food. All of which has its own economic cost, including arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating desperate, hungry people. I'm assuming as a given that Republicans don't care about the humanitarian aspects of these cuts, but I think this is going to be a net negative from an economic standpoint as well.
30
I’m confused. Doesn’t Congress have a say in Food Stamp program coverage? A president whose only concern is to provide tax cuts for wealthy citizens like himself can define a safety net program out of existence if he so chooses? Obviously the public comment process is useless. Just another preview of the pain to come for all but the “have-mores” if the current occupant of the White House is re-elected.
9
If the federal government is going to impose work requirements for adult food stamp recipients then they should also have work programs available to people. There are plenty of people out there who would love to have a consistent 20+ hours per week of work.
The fact is that many can't cobble together even that many hours but not for lack of trying. Many businesses don't guarantee hours, they cut hours and add hours at will, they demand that employees be available but then don't provide hours. Juggling multiple jobs when shifts keep changing is just plain hard.
Those of you who think these people are losers -- and deserve to have their food stamps cut off -- should volunteer to work at a food kitchen. You'll see that the person facing you could very well be you or yours.
As for children, they are the people who will someday be working to support us (think Social Security and Medicare -- we pay that forward). They deserve to be fed.
16
Plans to cut very basic assistance to US citizens and immigrants alike have the stink of Stephen Miller all over them. These plans are perhaps the most offensive and troubling yet proposed by this administration and represent one more reason Trump, Stephen Miller and the nationalists must not be passing laws.
The preamble of the Constitution requires our leaders to "promote the general welfare" of its citizens. If you can no longer support the Constitution, it's time to leave.
12
All I can say is a paraphrased quote by Demosthenes giving a speech in ancient Athens over something very much like this (the rich assuming they had zero responsibility to the poor).
"History judges the greatness of states not by how well they take care of their strongest but by how well they take care of their weakest."
Republicans take note. History is watching.
17
This need to be broadcast on FOX, and all forms of news. Maybe then people will vote this president out of office. He pardons those who have committed war crimes and goes about doing this? I would consider this a crime against humanity, and the people of the USA directly.
maybe we should not pay off some of the dictators with our financial support. Maybe we should tax GE, GOOGLE, Microsoft, AGRA BUSINESSES, OIL and others making them pay their fair share.
And aside:
Jesus may have said the poor will always be with us, but doesn't make it right. And John Cleese as Robin Hood in Time Bandits said the poor are necessary part of the economy.
So what's it going to be? Do we just accept the statements as fact and shrug our shoulders and scurry on, or do we do something as one of the richest countries on the planet?
I wonder if these 700,000 people are allowed to vote and will vote, and for who?
3
Secretary Purdue knows a thing or two about welfare. Big Agra has been getting billions in tax payer subsidies and tax breaks and price supports. One day of corporate welfare would probably cover 5 years worth of food stamps.
Spare me Sonny .
23
How many of these people support Trump? For those that do you have to live with your vote and I have no sympathy for you. For those that voted for another candidate I think we need to take care of our people and let Jerusalem and other middle east countries take care of themselves
.
1
It’s hard to pull yourselves up by your boot straps when you have no boots. As if any additional evidence were needed to highlight the shamelessness, greed, and meanness of the soulless Republican Party.
13
I propose someone kidnap the trump administration, tie them to a chair a là Clockwork Orange and force them to watch the doubleheader It’s A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol.
Are these classics considered left wing socialist yet?
6
To paraphrase a famous Republican president: There you go again.
2
Happy holidays, Trump voters! Hope you feel even better about your president and the GOP while we head into the season for which Jesus is the reason.
12
Let them eat cake.
8
And how much has USDA given to big Ag. to pay them off for the bone-headed Dump trade wars? Billions. Dump and GOP make me sick.
8
This is even more cruel when you recognize the sheer amount of U.S. Taxpayer dollars being spent on Trump's private properties and enriching his family! Need a list? Just search for the following on The New York Times:
Trump’s Corruption: The Definitive List
By David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick
October 28, 2018
7
It is more economical to let them die earlier that to continue just barely keeping the alive. BTW, why don't we encourage smoking?
4
I once qualified for food stamps as an able-bodied full time gym class instructor living in San Diego in the 1980's. I procured a job in an El Cajon gym, 19 miles from my less than extravagant rented 1 BR apartment near UCSD where I went on to attend classes. I did have a motorcycle that needed transmission repair which I couldn't afford, so I bicycled 38 miles round trip to teach exercise classes for minimum wage, at that time around $4.75 per hour. Needless to say, I burned a lot of calories daily and my grocery bill gobbled up a decent part of my $120 weekly take home pay. San Diego rent was high then, as it is now, so I really had little money left over for food.
Anyway, I actually qualified for food stamps (woo woo yeah).
God Bless America.
Then the Food Stamp qualification was quantified; I was eligible for $12 per month.
Hardly much help, really.
I imagine this sort of generous Gov't hand-out level is still in effect. Or it may now be worse.
For those opposed to Food Stamps, please be aware the program is not generous, at all.
There are abusers, granted, but the program is generally not generous.
Making it onerously less generous hurts so many truly in need.
22
It seems this is what gives meaning to Mr Trump’s life, wielding power like a hammer. Suffering of innocents is a heartrending thing for most people to witness. There is something profoundly missing in those who can’t feel anything but smug satisfaction.
Comparisons to Scrooge are not apt. He found redemption in the end.
11
I imagine that there must be some in Trump's "base" that will be affected by this, and I can't seem to muster more than that thought because at this point my brain has fatigue from these mind-numbing decisions and I don't want to know how conservative media outlets are going to spin this...
4
I searched Fox News’s website for mention of the changes and there was not one word. They know their audience - and many will surely be affected.
8
I am a retired senior, and I receive food stamps because my Social Security check is so small. If the second proposed rule kicks in, I will not be allowed to save money to pay my property tax bill, which is higher than the assets rule. I will have to choose between my house and eating. There is no 100,000 dollar a year income in my future. This rule will produce beggars on every street corner: old and sick people going to work as an object of pity, standing in the weather.
30
It seems that the Trump administration won't be satisfied until we turn the country back more than a century with people starving on the streets. With income disparity and the challenges of modern living, no doubt many will go hungry under these new rules and find their ability to work even more diminished, creating a vicious cycle. What a cynical holiday "present" this administration has given to what must be a very uncaring and unsympathetic base if they agree with this proposal.
7
In regard to cutbacks in the Food Stamp program: Food banks are typically full of high carb and sugary foods, including canned foods and about 25 percent of the meat is not edible. Food stamps give Diabetics, as well as normally healthy people, a chance to deal with this. Make America great again - by making It less healthy? I don't get it.
12
These policies are not only cruel and supported by a false premise, but they will also cost the U.S. economy more in the long run than the SNAP benefits do. The economic recovery is not uniform across the country, and there are many counties in many states with high unemployment rates. Few counties in MS have unemployment rates below 4.5%, and at least one has an unemployment rte of nearly 12%, followed by another with a 9% unemployment. West Virginia has more counties with rates above 5% than under, with a few at 8%. Many more states have small to significant pockets of high unemployment. These are all generally areas where there few, if any, jobs of any description to be had.
Depriving anyone of proper nutrition has both short and long run health consequences and negatively affects productivity. In the case of children, hunger negatively affects not only health and physical development, but also learning and intellectual development, guaranteeing lowered ability to compete for jobs as an adult.
These policies are both gratuitously cruel and costly. This administration clearly lacks advisors with both economic competence and and moral compass.
10
Will the Department of Agriculture take an even-handed approach to federal subsistence matters by kicking an equal number of farmers off federal farm subsidy programs? Or is that predominately white demographic too much of the Trump base to stand for equal treatment?
8
What am I missing? We are bailing out farmers (especially corporate farmers) at twice the rate of the Great Recession auto bailout. We bailed out billionaires and multinational corporations wit "tax reform". We got stuck with a $1000 bar bill at Mar-a-Lago for Trump staffers. Hefty Trump gets two scoops of ice cream at taxpayer expense. If we're paying for crops produced and meat processed at bailed-out farms, are we burning this food? We seem to resent government aid only when it's bestowed on the least of our brethren.
11
Helps fund the tax cuts for the wealthy. Sort of a Republican win-win.
5
I can't seem to get rid of the bile rising in my throat. This is so unfathomable my mind is spinning. I wonder who will be screening these individuals. It can't be a fair process. My heart bleeds...
6
Read the latest 2020 IRS SSA projections today. Reduced SSA monthly. The COLA won't cover it. Won't even pay rent and increase in Medicare premiums. Unaffordable. And all this information is being distributed online. The citizens most affected do not have access to the information. And food.
4
You need bread and circuses to keep the masses from rising up in revolt.
An empty belly leads to revolution.
The REAL unemployment rate has been over 20% since 2009, at times equalling the worst of the Great Depression. The only reason we haven't seen bread lines stretching down streets is government benefits. Check your local food pantry and you'll see just how bad things really are.
8
I don't know which is worse: New York City's Human Resource Administration (HRA) or Trump and his crew.
I am disabled, fall below the income requirements and have been fighting with HRA to re-certify my food stamps since late August. My food stamps were cut from the maximum to $16 because the HRA is including income I stopped receiving in February 1992! I provided HRA a letter confirming that I stopped receiving said income more than once. I submitted the appropriate documentation on time. I kept my interview on time. I did everything I was asked to do. I heard nothing from early September to mid-November. I only received notification from HRA in a letter dated two days after I filed a complaint.
Apparently the only way to get a response from HRA is to register a complaint online -- because no one EVER answers the phone. In one 8 hour period recently, I tried 30 times to no avail. I went in person to the SNAP Center in East New York. I was told that a revised decision would be made in "5 to 7 days." That was over 2 weeks ago.
I depend on food stamps. In November and now December, I have been forced to use money budgeted for other bills to buy groceries. Why? Because of the utter incompetence and lack of regard HRA employees display for the people they service.
And now that monster Trump is threatening this help altogether? I have been on both sides of this power struggle. I am now helpless before people who don't care. And I have never been so demoralized.
7
@Concerned Citizen
I've lived in New York City for nearly 40 years. I've lived in the same apartment for 36 years. I worked for most of that time. Where do you suggest I go when my life is here? I have a suggestion where you can go.
Ah, I'm reminded of that great American humanitarian, Mitt Romney who, speaking to an audience of spoiled, privileged oligarchs had the the gall to state that 42% of his fellow citizens are "takers." Never mind, he was born with tens of millions in the bank and never worked an honest day in his life. Yet, he (and many other Americans) seem to forget that the government is, indeed, responsible for helping those in need.
I'm afraid that a lot of Americans are simply out-of-touch with reality after 30 years of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh propaganda. I'm reminded of the famous question: "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" Bah.......
7
Plenty of welfare for the military industrial complex, corporate agribusiness, polluters, coal, oil, and the rest of the denizens destroying the planet, but hey! Those poor people! Trump has already spent millions of our tax dollars on his golf trips!
I was on the school lunch progam, and it helped a lot. My family received government surplus food too (spam in the plain metal can, powdered milk, potatoes, etc.).
It is easy to judge others on a full belly. But hunger creates panic, pain (yes, your belly does ache with hunger), and desperation. The sums spent on SNAP are paltry compared to we spend on the military industrial complex alone, never mind welfare for big coal and big oil.
8
In 2017, 40 million people struggled with hunger in the United States. Add to that number the nearly 700,000 people who will no longer receive federal food-stamp program benefits.
The mindset of this administration defies logic not to mention compassion or common decency.
Despicable doesn't even begin to cover the contempt felt by this decision.
6
But plenty of $$ left in the budget for corporate welfare and checks to farmers.
5
This is something to be applauded able bodied people with no dependents being required to work for their handouts. Why in the world should people not have to work for things I work hard to pay my taxes for what so people can be lazy and stay, every store front in New York has help wanted signs there is no reason for people to expect handouts from others without showing some will to improve their lot
6
The farmers who are suffering under the trade war will suffer more with this cut. SNAP benefits the farmers immensely. A lot of food our farmers produce feed people on food stamps.
Enjoy your welfare subsidies while you can, red state farmers. More pain to come.
5
If we push people to starvation maybe they will finally take responsibility for their lives and get high paying jobs. In contrast, the only way to promote tidal waves of economic expansion are to incentivize the wealthy by tax cuts ie giving them even more money. Why aren’t incentives the same for the two groups? Aren’t both human?
Our public policy is a convenient fiction fueled by greed, opportunism, racism.
4
So Walmart, Amazon, and the rest of the low wage employers won't be able to teach their new employees how to apply for food stamps?
6
Hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations but taking away stripping food stamp benefits from people who are, beyond argument, very poor.
Is this the America in which we wish to live?
4
Since Mr. Trump states he is in love with the North Korean dictator, it makes sense that starving people would be an activity they both enjoy. Kidnapping children and locking them up from their parents, some being adopted out without their parents, this is a form of emotional starvation. Meanwhile Mr. Trump and GOP Members of Congress engorge wealthy donor-class citizens with huge tax breaks and investment windfalls. What monster do we have in Washington who starves citizens of their dignity, yet pardons immoral war crimes?
7
Well there are 700,000 voters that have been enabled.
4
@Bill YES!!!! I hope so!!!
I read this and burst into tears. I lost my business due to staggering rent increases in San Francisco in my early sixties. if I hadn't had food stamps I never could have made the transition to another business. Needless to say, I wasn't hireable for a "real" job. This country is beyond sick; it is in late stage terminal cancer. 1789 can't come fast enough. I've never hated anyone until Donald Trump was elected by extreme corruption in the United States.
11
@Linda God Bless You!!! You have my empathy and sympathy. So glad to hear you made a successful transition. Hang in there friend and get to the polls early on election day. Our nation is better than this and we are all just one election away from proving it.
3
thank you, @Marian! I am a dual citizen of the United States and Canada and want to stay here, but the cruelty of this administration and its cult followers makes me very depressed and sad.
2
The idea is to break the food stamp aid-farm block aid compromise, where both get funded.
The Dems cut aid to the farmers in revenge.
The poor starve, family farms eaten by corporations, and farmers reduced to serfdom.
That is some seriously evil stuff.
4
Why should anyone in this country have to go hungry? I am disgusted by these people. And I am deeply saddened that the most vulnerable among us have yet, more suffering to endure at the hands of these cruel con men.
6
I surely hope those hundreds of thousands of people being unceremoniously dumped off needed support remember this on election day.
There are zero excuses left for them to vote against their own best interests.
Horrifying!
5
Um, this administrative is bailing out the "farmers" - otherwise known as agro-business - at 28 million. Double the amount Obama spent to bail out the auto industry.
5
Im all for this as long as we cut out aid for “able bodied Farmers” and also “able-bodied oil companies”.
If the poor and hungry aren’t allowed assistance from the state than the door is shut for everyone
8
This monster of a man continues to administer his office with the cruelty of a sociopath. If he isn't implementing the caging of children at the border as a legitimate political act , or supporting torture as acceptable, or risking citizens life with the allowance of methane in the air or animal and coal detritus in our rivers etc etc , he now is attacking all poor kids because someone cheated, maybe , on a nickels worth of food stamps. I could maybe feel a little better if he , for example, said "any corporation that makes more than a billion dollars does not get the tax cut ". There are many many corporations that make far more than the bucks Trump says he will save. His only reason is cruelty which will, no surprise, hurt our black citizens mostly.
3
Anyone voting for Trump and the GOP supports Trump & The GOP policies.
1
Fits in perfectly with all the rest of his behavior.
4
Just another step on our road to greatness.
3
Wow, what a very “Christian” move by the Republicans. They must be so proud of themselves.
God, on the other hand, would likely be appalled.
4
Ebenezer Scrooge also hated the holiday season and suggested the people who say "Happy Christmas" should have stakes of holly struck through their hearts.
What horrible actions from this administration. Words do not suffice.
4
I think you need to have been down unable to do the groceries for a few times to understand what food stamps and public help are about. President Trump never felt hunger of his life, or done a real job ever. He just can not get it, or he wouldn’t do this. He’s just good throwing paper towels rolls at survivors of storm and flood in Puerto Rico without getting what is really going on. He’s totally disconnected from reality, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and will die with one too.
5
I can’t think of a better word - this is pure evil. And I’m sure Sonny and Donny are happy that I feel so. Their pandering to our worst instincts is truly deplorable. But at least their logic is sound - don’t let people rely on the government - force them to do the “right thing” - if they starve first, all the better because it’s their fault.
What has our society become?
4
Trump and all the US billionairs and US skoff tax-law corporations can pay their fair taxes before stealing from the poor and deprived.
Here on Christmas. Bravo Mr. Trump.
Try living on foodstamps, yourself, and see how it is. You might lose enough weight to be cogent. You eat an entire month's worth of foodstamps in a single morning.
How dare he!
2
This is not going to go over well with the Republican base.
1
Farmers are getting paid hush money, more poor people go hungry, and Trump postpones China trade deal til after elections. Come on!
2
Sadly, the only good in this will be when it catches up with the poor Republican voters through starvation. Careful what you wish for red states. Maybe then they will see that they have been bilked.
2
Gotta pay for those tax cuts for billionaires somehow, amiright?
2
Meanwhile, according to Forbes, Trump has spent over $100 million in taxpayer money on his hundreds of days at his own golf resort. Trump spends our money for his trips to line his pockets, and the people starve. And this is nothing. An anecdote of the kleptocracy.
Starve the people of food. Starve them of education. Lie relentlessly. The trap for autocracy is set.
This cannot pass.
4
Put some children in detention facilities while taking food out of the mouth of millions of others.
This sounds more and more like a War on Kids.
2
Another crime against humanity by an inhuman administration. When will we as a nation rise up and put a stop to this madness?
2
Just one more piece of evidence that the republican cult is intent on treating US citizens as serfs while the royals eat well.
1
Trump has blown our deficit to the trillions. Hit up the middle class and the poor. They cant fight back and they dont contribute to campaigns. They also dont vote as much as they should. Trump hates the poor. They dont wear designer clothes and they shop at Target.
1
Appalling what the Republicans have done to this country.
What is worse is we put up with it.
Nobody votes.
3
Just another example of making America great again.
Be careful what you hope for, my Republican compatriots. Those gates outside your communities are no more than decorative.
3
The cruelty is the point.
2
More American Puritan cruelty. I’m disgusted with this country. I want out.
1
The times should always include a frame of reference to provide context. The FY19 submitted federal budget is $4.4 trillion. Revenue was $3.4 trillion.
This is not about saving money. It’s a shameful reflection of myopia, greed and misplaced attention. It demonstrates willful negligence and contempt for those who most need help. Disgusting.
4
Compassionate conservatism at it’s best.
2
Has anybody in the Trump family ever had to support a family of six on $55,000 a year? That’s a couple of golf outings for the Old Hacker.
2
“Government can be a powerful force for good, but government dependency has never been the American dream,” Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, said. "---says the man in charge of billions of dollars of farm subsidies that have been going on for decades.... Milk, Corn, ethanol, land bank, cotton, tobacco.......
2
I wonder how many people we can help with food stamps for the cost of one of Trumps golf outings
2
The republicans always spoke of "Death Panels" when Obama was in the Oval Office. Well, here they are! So maddening!
2
This is heart-breaking...What a cruel bunch we have here...
1
Thankfully we've now got a President who wants to cut waste and fraud. Some food stamp recipients deserve and need help but many are just lazy and could be working like the rest of us do.
2
Any word on when Trump plans his next false display of Christianity?
3
That's what Repubs do. Elections have consequences. You betta believe the administration is protecting the wealthy in every way possible!
1
While our President spends hundreds of thousands on golf carts; he cuts food assistance to close to a million people.
Making America Great Again... I think not.
1
Rewrite the headline to say, "Trump Gets Hundreds of Thousands of Food Stamps". It's another success story.
Nothing wrong with accountability. But some people actually need this program. Trump doesn’t know poverty or real work. His daddy bailed him out. He brands his loser brand.
1
Starvation works in lots of male led third world nations. Kids and their mothers, aka "the breeders", are the first to go which brings about almost immediate results. This strategy seems to be working in both the Central African Republic and Yemen.
If this is the goal of the brightest in our Federal legislative body they may bring us to this level in short order.
1
Where are all the “Christian values” members of Congress now?
2
If you starve them, they'll likely be too distracted to vote
God I wish Republicans would magically evaporate en masse so the rest of us could work on building something that deserves to be called a civilization.
5
@Melanie - Maybe the Rapture will happen and spirit them all away, leaving the rest of us to build, if not the Kingdom of God, then something that could be called a country of common human decency.
When the worm turns, those responsible for this intentional cruelty will find themselves on the hook.
If you or someone you know looses their food 'stamps' because of this, the proper response is to join us to vote these scoundrels out of office. No one in America should go hungry to pay for tax cuts for overfed fat cats like Trump.
"Whoever gives to the poor will not want, but he who hides his eyes will get many a curse." Proverbs 28:27
3
Take everything away from those who have the least, and continue to bolster those who need the least. Savage.
1
Back in the 1860s, Sitting Bull refused to sign a peace treaty, after the US had repeatedly violated other treaties. He said, after touring Washington DC, and seeing many people with fancy fur coats and fine jewelry, and also many blind people and amputees begging in the cold....why should he expect us to care for his people, when we do not even care for our own.
In his society, the old and disabled were cared for by the young and able.
3
Well, when you give a tax cut to yourself and your rich buddies and the deficit downright explodes, you have to cut fat somewhere. The Republican disregard for common people is once again on full display -- yet it's the "coastal elites" that Trump, Fox and Graham paint as the bad guys.
2
This is monstrously cruel policy, even for an administration, which has been unfazed and unburdened by concern to alleviate needless suffering.
The image of a porcine president, stuffed with KFC and Big Macs, depriving children and adults on the lowest economic rung of basic sustenance is absolutely sickening.
So while he indulges in weekly golf jaunts and whines out loud at every opportunity for being held to account for his malfeasance in office by the party that still cares, he flaunts his toughness by striking out against the most vulnerable of our citizens.
Shame on all who try to defend this.
1
Wow, I can't believe the silver-spoon born billionaire who literally has a golden toilet is going to cut benefits for the most vulnerable! I mean, who could've seen THIS coming?
1
The unremitting cruelty of this administration is a stain on our history that may never wash out.
2
Can the NYT please investigate and report on the demographic makeup of those who will be victimized by the cuts?
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
oh please, please, please let most of those impacted be from Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Alabama, Iowa, Wisconsin...you get the idea.
1
Whose favor does Sonny Purdue win with these draconian rules?
It takes a tough man to revoke a tender chicken.
1
I honestly think that the majority of commenters did not read the article, the whole article. They look clueless for not reading the article.
2
Do all these non English speaking illegals doing so-called “ jobs that Americans will not do” ( many of which I did in my impecunious youth) have a high school diploma?
Out illegal immigration problem is a symptom of a labor problem —people who won’t work.
2
What is a society. If it can or feed it’s poor and hungry. Republicans have such a sickness to allow this medieval cruelty
Today's GOP: "If we can't get your vote, we'll just starve you to death."
1
Gives new meaning to the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
CAn everyone just stop talking about jesus. Geez...many don't believe, like myself, and even if I did, he has zero to do with this. This all the work of a singular devil.
"Government can be a powerful force for good, but government dependency has never been the American dream,” Sonny Perdue, billionaire Republican Jesus spokesman said.
The cruelty is the point- Adam Serwer
1
They are evil, heartless and a stain on mankind.
Outlaw abortion only to starve people to death - what a bizarre political party.
1
This administration has declared war on Christmas, just like the Grinch, a worthy doppelgänger for this president.
This is very much like what happened with Medicare during the Reagan administration. My father had an engineering degree. He also had heart disease so severe that he was unable to walk up a flight of stairs, and was on 24-hour-a-day oxygen. He was taken off Medicare because, as the person who informed him of his removal from the program said, he could go get a job sorting pencils.
So we paid for his oxygen and his many medications ourselves, on my mother's teacher salary.
We didn't have that much when I was a kid...
7
I don’t disagree that able-bodied people could work—but are parents going to receive free childcare for their kids while they’re working? Currently, if people can get jobs that pay them $8-10 an hour but they have no transportation or affordable (free) childcare, how can they afford to work? Many smaller cities and rural areas have no public transportation... I grew up in the Midwest, on and off public assistance—school lunch through high school, Medicaid some years, food stamps some years. When parents have no affordable childcare, they can’t work all day. (Or night). Resources are needed to transition people to making greater contributions and supporting their families.
25
@Received assistance now educated and working The changes are for able bodied people without kids.
4
Well why not? And might as well throw in another tax break for the rich. It’s not like the scales have been tipped in their favour for about 30 years.
31
Agree. I give out gift cards to my staff some times and my payroll department just told me they need the names of all the people because they need to be taxed!
All the while billionaires like Trump and corporations like Amazon pay NOTHING. And my staff at $14 hour???? They want to tax their gift card of $25 bucks. So sad , working people never get ahead
This single action demonstrates the reality of an American under minority rule by the GOP. In combination with the "income tax reform" that kept taxes almost exactly the same for everyone except those with 7-figure incomes, the picture of Republican America becomes clear. We will be the wealthiest nation in human history, but only because 99% of the citizens are working for the benefit of the 1%. Since January 2017, this country is quickly becoming one abomination, under God with liberty and justice for a few.
59
This can all be handled at the state level, with states like New York and California offering state-level food stamps to its residents, and taxing other residents accordingly in order to fund it. Perhaps people will migrate from less generous states to NY and CA to obtain the benefit, but that's okay, it's no different from the international economic migration elsewhere that so many people support.
7
You mean like all the massive international economical migrations tonthe Americas since 1492? Your ancestors did not leave their country because everything was peachy for them in the motherland, you know.
2
Problem is that revenue from blue coastal states is already being funneled to red states in the form of subsidies, Medicaid, “relief” because of Trump’s trade policy, etc.
Let the red states pay their own way for a change.
2
If a person doesn’t have enough money for food, how do you expect them to get to CA?
3
This makes it politically easier (for Democrats) to cut farming subsidies (Republican voters). The deal has always been SNAP/food stamps for lucrative farming subsidies that usually benefit mostly larger corporate farms.
If lower working class people need to make financial decisions based off of limited resources, perhaps farmers do as well.
16
Once again, the poor are punished for being poor. The amount of money given in food stamps is so small that there is hardly a benefit. Never do we take money from our inflated defense budget, but only from human services. People who work 40 hours a week in jobs that pay $10 per hour, have to apply for food stamps. Companies like Walmart, Amazon etc who pay no taxes and pay employees as little as possible are the ones who need to pay their workers a living wage !
62
"It's perfectly fine to require people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, as long as you remember that not everyone has boots."
We are all just one medical illness, one job loss, one national disaster away from being in a situation such as this. Kindness and compassion cost nothing. Not everyone has the same opportunities as you did. As one person so eloquently stated in these comments "a hand up is so much more effective than a hand in the face."
40
Once Republicans get food off the table their next step will be to take health insurance away.
It is hard to believe that one party can be so mean spirited at this time of year, or any time of the year for that matter.
They simply don't care.
28
Since Trump wants to reduce food stamp benefits for so-called able-bodied people, can we reduce the tax benefit that the very wealthy have been enjoying from the tax cut bill? After all, they have plenty of money that they can spare for needed expenditures for infrastructure and other necessities.
17
"It also wants to prevent households with more than $2,250 in assets, or $3,500 for a household with a disabled adult, from receiving food stamps. "
Government is now a tough love mommy but still a mommy that expects her citizen children to liquidate their assets below $2,500 so they can qualify for food stamps. The poor have never been as good at hiding their assets as the rich, but I have confidence in American pragmatism and as despair is the mother of invention, despair will step in where the tough love parenting of the government leads them no choice. Let's hope that those able bodies get themselves to the voting booth and that the rest of us do what we can to help them vote the Republicans out of office for decades to come. Being hungry is not something easily forgotten, as my parents who lived through the Great Depression used to teach us.
27
How about federal work requirements for billionaires and millionaires who pay little or no federal taxes?
18
@LIChef
They already work. That is part if the reason they are millionaires and billionaires. Extremely successful people work all of the time on various simultaneous projects.
2
This is sarcasm, right?
Good luck getting the next farm bill through. The urban-rural coalition in Congress was forged on subsidies for farmers coupled with subsidies for food-needy. If Trump tears that apart, look out farmers.
20
People who are already rich, and even immensely rich who do not need the extra money get a tax cut, but the poor and needy who cannot find work are told that for their own good, they need to remain hungry.
The difference here is that the lucky rich show their gratitude to politicians with lots of campaign money.
If you understand this, you understand the Republican party.
17
It states able bodied adults, it doesn't say anything about children.
So ppl who are using the excuse of the governmnet is taking food away from children by doing this? If those parents of those children, are able bodied adults, then as a responsible and loving parent they should be willing to work for the food stamps. They should be willing to do almost anything to put food on their kids plates.
I'm left, but I think they should work, if they can.
7
Trumpism's protagonists believe that motivation should come from pain, and that the strongest pain is the best motivator. This results in cruelty, but they hardly notice that at all. It's much more important that no one "cheat" than that their government act in a supportive manner. Those who do not work must be punished, unless they're born rich of course.
I support a more or less opposite position: That *everyone* get food stamps without qualifications. I believe that is cheaper and better for the physical and mental health of all. I also believe that the best motivations are positive, not negative. If we want people to do what others tell them to do at a "job", we should probably make that job more directly meaningful, rather than embracing it as a means to an end.
4
The only reason I'm taking this in stride is because I think the housing shortage and homelessness in Southern California are an even bigger crisis. I think how to put a roof over your head (especially in the cold wet months) seems a bigger challenge than how to put food on the table. We don't have enough shelters whereas we do have food banks and charities that hand out food.
I understand the situation is different elsewhere.
1
People need to realize that there a lot of people who abuse these programs. I live in an area of central NY with some pretty serious poverty around, and there are little kids who, when you ask what they want to do when they grow up, will tell you straight-up: "I want to be on welfare like my mom/dad". It's their goal in life - live off the state. Sit around playing video games, drinking and watching TV. That's their aspiration.
Yes, we should help people in need, but state support should not be a lifestyle. And I'm a Democrat who absolutely abhors Donald Trump.
7
@Mike I do not believe that you are asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up and they respond that they want to go on welfare like their mom and dad. Poor children are intensely aware of their poverty and I have yet to encounter any poor child that was "proud" to be in that predicament. Children are not responsible for their circumstances and are almost always embarrassed to be known as depending on any kind of charity.Your comment is stigmatizing and defamatory. In a just society we should all agree that no child in America should be hungry at school or go to bed with a grumbling belly.
3
@Mike:
". . . there are little kids who, when you ask what they want to do when they grow up, will tell you straight-up: 'I want to be on welfare like my mom/dad'. It's their goal in life - live off the state. Sit around playing video games, drinking and watching TV. That's their aspiration."
I don't believe you. Actually, I KNOW you aren't speaking the truth.
3
There really is no “welfare” any longer. SNAP benefits, Medicaid and maybe a Section 8 housing subsidy, but that’s it. I don’t know how one can survive on that.
1
SNAP benefits supplied roughly 40 million Americans in 2018.
The budget is around $70 billion.
So (3/40) * 70 = $5.25 billion in "savings".
I leave it up to you to calculate what is left of the subsidies Trump has given to farmers because of his trade disasters.
9
Here in Michigan the asset limits were just raised to 15K and will remain so.
2
The savings can help fund another corporate tax cut...
6
The woman I’m pursuing works a ton of hours, has a child, but doesn’t qualify for food stamps. She doesn’t have heat or hot water. She goes without food (and does she get mean when she doesn’t eat) so her daughter can eat. I help where I can.
If big companies get a tax break, then lie about how they are going to invest the money. The least we can do is expand food stamps so people like my special lady friend don’t have to go without.
8
The low unemployment rate doesn’t take into account the working poor or the active military members who depend upon food stamps to feed their families. Nothing makes you feel more vulnerable than not being able to feed your family.
3
''It also wants to prevent households with more than $2,250 in assets''
You can't get a reliable used car that will get you to work for $2250.
If you are living in a house or apartment your security deposit could be more that $2250.
Next up, prosthetics including false teeth and burial insurance counted as assets.
They won't be happy until they have Pottervilles (A Wonderful Life) established everywhere.
And your children's kidneys, an asset that needs to be accounted for.
12
Trump not only wants to keep immigrants out of the country but he also wants to place an undue burden on our own citizens who may be not so fortunate as to find a job or a job with a livable wage.A good job market is not to be counted on-a recession can happen at any time.Already the young and older workers have trouble finding jobs and their employment rates are nothing like the overall unemployment numbers.There are people who would be judged as able bodied who are suffering from mental health issues and. Could not hold a job.Mr.Trump , for one, should be sympathetic to those unable to hold a job.He has not made a secret of his older brother’s struggle with alcoholism.There are many who cannot work because of substance abuse and poor health and many women do not have child care or are caring for the elderly.It is cruel to insist that three million people lose food stamps because the labor market happens to be good at this particular moment.
4
@JANET MICHAEL
You DO know that allowing illegal immigrants into this country only makes these issues worse by straining programs such as these...right?
2
The assertion that this has something to do with a strong economy is sophistry of the worst kind. These rules will remain in place when the economy goes bust, which it inevitably does Then what happens?
The right wing really hates the poor. It makes no difference to them that healthy people are more likely to get and hold a job, or put less burden on the health system. They just hate those people, not even recognising their humanity (an interesting case of projection.) I have been on food stamps and believe me, I didn't want to be. It was mortifying.
This change to the program is just one more nail in the coffin of the already paltry American safety net, and they won't stop until it's buried once and for all. Then - in honor of the season - the poor be like to die and decrease the surplus population.
5
A holiday gift from Trump to his political base, and thumb in the eye to the poor and hungry. Remarkably, the two groups are largely the same.
7
If only we hadn't passed that completely unnecessary and lobbyist-driven tax cut for the wealthy members of our society totally able to afford to pay so much more than they already don't...I feel like maybe we could have taken some of that cash and fed the starving and the poor. Or am I just basking in that old absurdity called common sense?
7