Its long been GOP policy to end food stamps. This gets them a little further along the way. The policy to end food stamps is based on their belief that food stamps are just free money for freeloading black people. This ensures it is supported by the deplorable racist bigots that make up the majority of the GOP white base. This policy is just a clear example of many. Sorry to be so blunt - but it needs to be said.
7
This is exactly what you get when you elect a con man billionaire who appoints all fellow billionaires to run the country - Perdue, DeVos, Munuchin, Ross, etc. It's sickening. We qualify, with flying colors, as a banana republic.
13
Where did Christ say we are to only help the “deserving”poor? The hypocrisy of the “Christian” conservatives is nauseating.
11
This is all that conservatism has ever stood for: putting more money and power in the hands of rich, white men. This is the only "idea" they have ever had.
Starvation, filth, disease, climate, environment, mass misery - all are irrelevant to their obsession with greed and exclusivity - shutting out the human race. Conservatism is sick.
Merry Christmas.
7
And an able-bodied adult of working age with no dependents only gets 3 months of benefits in a 36-month (3 yrs) period. You can work more to get more benefits. Not exactly a lifetime of dependency. And so what if a State wants to extend benefits.
https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/work-requirements
"Do right and feed everyone."-- Sonny Perdue
2
Another impeachable offense.
3
The 700,000 likely don't vote, and can't contribute to his campaign, so why not cut them off?
Deplorability continues in the Trump administration, enabled by many, including evangelicals.
4
Why does the headline say that this administration "WANTS" to do the reverse Robin Hood thing?
They "ARE" doing exactly that and have been from the get go!
So in this life and death struggle against misinformation in the media,can we please dispense with the equivocation approach? We're way past needing more opinions speculative of apparent intent. What they actually do makes things too clear to equivocate.
Our democracy is under attack and the weapons of choice are deflection, misinformation and propagation of the "big lie" blurted out of the chaos from the loudest voices in the room.
4
What Trump and the GOP are doing is giving money to their base, while taking it away from "the others". There is not even the slightest attempt anymore to serve all Americans.
4
Trump's philosophy: take away food stamps and give the money to American farmers ruined by his trade war with China. Money counts in our political system and one Midwest farmer's vote is worth a lot more than the votes of the urban poor.
4
Nice to see Gracy Olmstead move from writing for The American Conservative to the NYTimes. We need more eclectic or at least non ideological thought leaders.
The level of politics and social debate in the USA is so low.
American citizens are uneducated people.
2
Dude: This is not news...
"Only U.S. citizens and certain lawfully-present non-citizens may receive SNAP benefits. Non-citizens who are eligible based on their immigration status must also meet other SNAP eligibility requirements such as income and resource limits."
Sep 4, 2013
1
Let them eat cake. And let Corp farmers have their cake and eat it too.
1
An estimated 23,000 military families qualify for SNAP benefits in our bloated, top-heavy Department of War. 4-stars doin' just fine, tho'. Pretty much mirrors the rest of The Land of The Free (old, white, rich men).
3
In the sixties they use to exhort us to 'eat the rich".
Still sounds good to me.
1
Let them eat cake. (Have the motorcade brought around, we're lunching on Macinaw Island)
1
I recall an expose on how poorly beginning airline pilots are paid. One commented that they were asked by HR to please refrain from using food stamps while in uniform.
Republicans Ignore the Recessions They Create.
During the last recession created by a Republican, my (now ex) husband retired from a 20 year long Naval career at what became a REALLY inopportune moment. Passing up the final few months before the crash where he might have gotten a job, he decided to start a business. Being that he's a narcissistic dirtbag, it failed, of course. Our family of 5 ended up on Food Stamps.
We lived in a rural area.
There were NO jobs. PERIOD.
20 hours a week would have been a literal impossibility.
We had his military pension. He shoveled out horse barns. I cracked pecans by hand and sold them at the Farmer's Market.
Republicans seem to think that anyone who wants a job, can, at any time, in any economy simply reach out their hand and get work. It simply isn't so. What they are doing is a recipe for PITCHFORKS and riots.
3
It's not hypocritical to move money towards the performers and producers and away from the non-performers and non-producers. Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. But then you have to feed him another fish the next day, and the next day, and so on. That's called creating a dependency. Better to create it in the producers than in the non-producers. Who would argue against that last statement?
9
Not just Republicans supporting business help from the government. Don’t recall too many Democrats introducing legislation to end farm subsidies.
1
Not to mention the recent tax cut. A very wealthy friend of mine said he's never gotten to keep so much of his revenues.
2
So? What else is new? For as long as I can remember this has been the goal of the far-right ultra-conservative short-sighted flag-waving patriotic true-Americans who "love" their country so dearly. Rob the poor to give to the rich has long been their slogan -- take funds from education, health services and environmental causes to provide the wealthy with even more lower taxes - profits over people - rah, rah, rah and sis-boom bah. (BAH is right!)
3
Another aspect that is being ignored is that food stamps have long been a method to support agribusiness -- by funding the payment of their products. It's for that very reason that food stamp purchases are limited to certain products (e.g., milk and not diapers). So by cutting food stamps, in addition to hurting people who can't afford food, you are also indirectly hurting farmers as well.
3
Nothing new here--the GOP platform for at least three decades and been grounded in welfare for the wealthy. Give the GOP credit, they have been able to hide this uncomfortable truth from their most ardent followers---who receive little or nothing from wealth give away laws.
8
Tariffs paid by American consumers and then Trump diverted those funds to pay the corporation farms bought up after the real farmers went bankrupt.
5
nothing new here -
the left party takes from the rich to give to the poor
the right party takes from the poor to give to the rich
we tend to start with our prejudice - then accept only facts that support it - so pick your enemy - and stick with it, etc.
First, post these farm support statistics throughout rural America. Make sure the family farmers know that the bulk of the "support" is going to the corporate farms.
Second, if the Republicans really wanted to help poor people find work, they would create a new WPA, or CCC, another new deal. If the government provides the jobs, then it can look to the willingness of able bodied people to work. Without accessible jobs, there is no point but cruelty to require work as a condition of help.
4
Okay, I buy into the logic, so let's get rid of all farm subsidies too. The country is running a $1 trillion a year deficit while at full-employment. If we're not kicking people off the dole now, when will we do it?
3
Have we forgotten just five or so years ago when lagging recovery from the republican driven finance industry tanked our economy and millions needed SNAP to live through long term unemployment?
Anyone who ever took a single SNAP dollar and votes for trump should tuck their tail between their legs in shame.
7
Around here, you CAN'T find 20 hours of work! Don't believe me? I have two kids who deciduously apply to jobs, over and over and over again, every day. They are smart, college educated, American citizens, with excellent references and high level skills. Hoping just to find minimum wage positions. Looking since April, over 2,000 applications.
6
The Democrats are again pushing the biggest tax cut the rich have ever seen- reinstating the horrible SALT deduction that President Trump wisely and responsibly repealed
My God,
Giving to the richest
Taking from the poorest
This is entirely shameful.
I pay $80K and more in taxes
This must stop.
1
"The administration’s food stamp cuts expose the cruel truth of Republican hypocrisy"
And about time the rich were given handouts from the government, and if only America would remember it stands for free markets and not for socialist markets, it would be far more socialist society that it has been since for ever, and if America continues to embrace socialist markets it will end up a failure like the Communist Party and all other socialist parties in other countries.
IN THE MATTER OF WHOSE TAXES MUST INCREASE, Elizabeth Warren's got it right. If the to 1% would be taxed 2% after earning a certain number of millions of dollars per year, it would eliminate the national debt and pay for all existing social programs and more. Here in PA, we had another brain dead no-new-taxes numbskull, Tom Corbett, who refused to raise extraction taxes on the natural gas companies. Not to mention neglecting to insist on strict control of leaks from the gas wells. As former governor Ed Rendell put it, natural gas is a $1 trillion dollar business. Not to tax it is plain crazy! Now in PA the state pays the lowest proportion of school funding in the US except for Mississippi. And the gas companies got a handout. Trump's policies are clearly not his. He can't even construct a literate sentence. But his speech writer got it wrong. We The 99% of the People have the right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness and to the Four Freedoms. Trump's numerous business failures always resulted in sticking it to the little guy, while he himself walked off with ill-gotten gains. That's how he's running the US too. I hope that he takes the advantage of resigning so we can start on impeaching Pence. Once he's removed, Nancy Pelosi will be the next President. I prefer her heart full of love to Trump's heart full of hate and greed.
4
Anyone who votes for millionaires loses the moral authority to whine about the government not responding to the needs of working people. As the NY Times reported in 2010 (long before Trump):
"As for Empathy, the Haves Have Not"
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/fashion/02studied.html
You want millionaires, you get this kind of treatment.
I never vote for rich people. Ever.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
2
Someone please check whether the trump "farm"/ properties in Colts Neck and Bedminster are getting farm subsidies because they cleverly placed hay and a few goats around the golf courses.
6
God forbid able bodied, working age, adults without kids should be required to work half time in order to get food stamps. With unemployment at 3.5% these people aren't struggling; they are lazy. Complaints about this common sense move simply lend credence to the old saw that voting for Democrats is easier than working.
As for the farm bill it's been a bi-partisan piece of rotten pork since FDR.
2
The argument isn’t about Socialism, it’s about who gets it.
3
"Government dependency has never been the American dream,” Mr. Perdue said."
Unless your name is Trump and you own hotels for which you can use your position in government to solicit trade or give government powers to family members to self enrich and aggrandise.
As for the poor, well, billionaires need tax cuts!
1
Are we seriously arguing about who gets basic nutrition in this country? Didn’t Christ say something about feeding the hungry?
6
Americans vote, election after election, for the GOP, and that means LOTS of Corporate Welfare and tax cuts for the Rich. The GOP has stood for, and legislated this for decades. It is simply what Americans want and believe, as the composition of the Senate and the House prove, election after election.
3
Perdue along with the industry has some of the most dangerous working conditions in the US. They employ lots of "undocumented" workers and the labor supply is extremely tight for the kind of work and wages the industry pays.
Perdue is one of 18 companies who are being sued for conspiring to depress wages. Wages currently paid put their workers right around the poverty line.
The question is will our Conservative Courts certify the class action? Will the US Justice department under Barr vigorously enforce the Sherman Anti-Trust act against big donors to the Republican party. What standing do migrants, many of them employed illegally have over a system that conspires to keep them in the shadows and accept this brutal treatment?
Will US citizens be willing to pay more so decent wages can be paid to the workers who supply most of the protein that they eat?
This is about a lot more than starving the poor, this is about suppressing wages large Corporations pay to workers. These same corporations are big donors to Politicians who oversea our Justice department and who appoint and confirm our Judges.
Purdue is actively donating money to influence our political system while violating our laws to depress wages. The theft of our government to provide welfare to the rich at the expense of a social safety net that protects the most vulnerable in our society has to end.
4
Why not make food free to everyone, seriously? As a nation we spend less than $200 billion annually in grocery stores on basic foodstuffs. For perspective, we spend 20 times that in healthcare. It makes no sense. So, why not flip the script and make basic nutritional foodstuffs available to everyone for free and only charge for food which falls outside nutritional and health guidelines? It seems to me we could save more money on healthcare than what a free healthy food program for all would cost, if we adopted a free for all healthy food program.
6
Like the tax cut stimulus, the farm bailout leaves out the little guy. And the beat goes on.
7
The cuts are targeted to able-bodied under 50 who want benefits simply because they exist. Subsidies, handouts, tax-cuts for farms, wealthy corporations are atleast to productive members of society, they hire a lot of people and conduct a lot of economic activity. During economic crisis, SNAP and Unemployment was extended, when unemployment is at historic low, these programs should be shrunk to nudge people back to work. I am tired of excuses of lack of living wage, no child care for multiple babies, missing parent and every excuse under the sun. SNAP is just enabling poor chocies and poor behavior, which results is my high taxes paying $20K per year in school cost per child in Newark, NJ.
I understand, at NYT.com, my opinion is unpopular, but: It is what it is.
9
@Realist
Lack of a "living wage" is a FACT
2
@Realist, you completely and totally failed to address the farm/agribusiness welfare.
Maybe let us know why you care so much about poor choices and behavior on the part of individuals, but if they are farmer individuals, or billion dollar chicken processors, you don't. Your taxes pay for ConAgra's CEO to be a millionaire.
Again you prove that trump tapped into a deep well of class and race resentment. And so uninformed! NJ DOES pay more than some states to educate children. Now let us know how much you pay for the middle east wars, Ivanka's secret service protection, trump's propping up the coal industry, or (God help us!) all those lawyer's fees he racks up defending his many scandals.
You folks only want to scold poor dark people in cities. You know, farm families have lots of kids too. Sometimes farming dads run out on THEIR families too, when another baby comes along or the tractor won't run. Sometimes farms buy more acres, then can't keep making the pymts. You know, poor choices.....
The wealthy already are comfortable. It's the poor we are commanded to help.
2
@Realist
"I understand, at NYT.com, my opinion is unpopular, but: It is what it is."
On my scroll you are doing better on recommends than the person above and below. In know you guys on the Right who write to the NYT like to be martyrs but you'll have to try harder.
As for the meat of what you said, there's a lot of truth about SOME poor members of society. The problem is, a lot of others use these programs to pull themselves up - or at least to survive. And you want to yank that away from them?
As for giving aid to the "productive members of society"; why do they need it? Why should the taxpayers give aid to the productive? This is the very definition of corporate welfare.
1
Why hasn't there been a larger protest for the handouts Trump is currently giving farmers? Why are we paying for Trump's economic's mistakes: tariffs?
9
Farm subsidies are the driving force behind the industrialization of agriculture in this country. They make it impossible to fail, so what happens? Big land companies come in and buy up family farms when then retire.
There will be a reckoning over that some day, a redistribution of land. We don't need a bunch of little kingdoms controlling most of the land in the United States.
Farm subsidies were initiated as a means to control food prices, but this has been ineffective and counterproductive.
What farmers really need and desire are free and open markets.
Some people do need help in this country, from time to time, but there are a LOT of people who have made a career of watering at the public trough.
They make no effort to learn in school. They develop no legitimate skills. They're LAZY.
There is not a darned thing wrong with requiring people to work, at least some, to continue receiving benefits.
If someone is on unemployment and a job opens up, they should be required to take it, regardless of whether it's their dream job, in their field, or they have to move. I moved five times in one year, chasing work. A little hard work and sweat never hurt anyone.
We have jobs galore up here in the Bakken oil field, but few people who are actually willing to work hard for really good pay. McDonalds employees are making $18/hr in Williston, North Dakota!
You want work with good pay? No more excuses, it's here.
4
It’s the farmers who are lazy. They get free government handouts. Billions of our tax dollars. How come we don’t let “the market” decide their fate? I’m tired of my federal tax dollars subsidizing the lazy opioid addicts of the heartland.
1
Sadly true all the points the article makes. While general unemployment is low, most of the jobs are low wage while American culture is expensive ! Yes, all of us have bought into "I need nothing, but want everything" consumerism.
Food stamps have to be used wisely. Food stamps do not allow liquor, cigarettes, or to be used at your favorite fast food store. Purchase expensive products and your food stamp is gone but many days left in the month...
Opps, time for me to call in an order of my favorite ...
Vote Blue 2020
2
Feeding the indigent may be a noble pursuit, but the federal government doing this on a permanent basis does not have constitutional justification.
Ratify such an amendment, including a proviso that such permanent charges are ineligible to vote.
All you can focus on is condemning starving people receiving food aid- without a single word of condemnation for the reverse Robin Hood policies and tactics of this administration? I never knew that a descendant of Scrooge live in the USA.
1
@J.Jones wow. Just wow. You seem to long for the days of workhouses, kings in perpetual wealth, and 'public charges' who don't get to vote because they're not worthy.
You've forgotten the entire mission of the Puritans. Shame. (Also, maybe look up the inalienable right in America to VOTE, and why that seemed important to the founding fathers.)
Feeding the poor IS a noble pursuit, and one that our Judeo Christian values requires us to perform. You've forgotten much about your exceptional nation, J. Jones.
You'd rather give tax subsidies 'on a permanent basis' to ConAgra's CEO's wife's 2nd yacht, than allow a poor American to vote. Duly noted, citizen.
1
Trump has never made bones about condemning those he considers less than himself which includes almost everyone even his own followers if they are not billionaires. And even then he would try to throw you under the bus if you looked at him funny or made any remark with which he does not agree
To Trump giving to anyone is not a gift, but merely a transaction. And if you have nothing to give to him your needs do not matter. The wealthy to Trump represent power and to be courted in every way possible though trump hates to do so as they look down on him for his conman ways and antecedents. Trump is a hollow man who feeds off of others though lies and pretense are is stock in trade.
7
People exist. You need to either pay them a living wage for their area or provide a social safety net.
The Victorians tried to do without either. They ended up with crime and squalor like that found in the poorest Third World countries. They also believed unabashedly in punishing the poor for their poverty.
If desperate people came to the workhouse because they were starving, they were forced to work at deliberately pointless and debilitating "jobs" like moving piles of rocks from one side of the yard to the other or turning a crank that didn't actually do anything.
To the Victorians' bewilderment and exasperation, punishment didn't cure people of poverty.
16
Handouts to business and farmers, just another ploy to skew the election. This time by buying votes.
13
Farmers may get corporate welfare for the cancellation of soybean and other main stay crops by China, but that doesn't mean they like it. I would say they know it's not capitalism they are involved in when Uncle Sam picks up the bill for dumped products.
4
Haven’t seen them express their displeasure by declining the aid or writing letters to Congress.
1
@greg what makes you think the other recipients of food stamps "like it"?
The GOP has been doing this for decades. Trump is merely continuing their tradition of catering to the richest people and corporations in America.
What's new is that it's being done so openly. Look at the tax overhaul and you'll see that tax breaks for the middle and working classes go away. Tax breaks for the rich remain. It's called the individual/family wealth and corporate welfare rule. If there's wealth at any level rules for keeping it in the right economic layer win over rules for redistribution or helping others who are less than wealthy.
8
Bravo to this piece written and the common sense of it all.
5
Please, Trump is just continuing the policies that have driven the bulk of the farmers out of business over the last 70 years. When I drive around the neighborhood, I pass patch after patch of green grass a few trees and driveway usually 2 to 4 per mile. Each of those represents a former farm. I live on the remnants of a 90 acre former dairy farm that could not have milked more than 60 cows each yielding less than half the production of today's cows, yet the house enjoys inlaid floors and built in oak cabinets and bookcases. The only remaining dairy farm in the neighborhood milks 300 cows and the operator has a full time job.
Government policy has helped the family farmer out of the industry for the last 70 years or so.
10
guaranteed basic income makes so much more sense, we could then enjoys the savings from eliminating a huge bureaucracy of people trying to determine who qualifies.
4
And yet the Democtrats don't call the Republicans out on this. They are still too busy trying to destroy the party by destroying each other. Result... Trump continues to win the narrative, even amongst his supporters that he is hurting the most
7
As opposed To Buttigieg and Warren who merely make millions consulting for them
1
There is an alternate spelling for Republican: Hypocrite.
The ONLY people Jesus held in low regard were hypocrites.
I have truly come to hate the modern Republican Party.
25
This article did a poor job to prove its point.
Let's forget about our political stands and just try to follow the logic of this content.
A key argument of this article is that (1) the government wants to limit food stamps, and (2), at the same time, it wants to subsidize farmers, so the government is hypocritical.
If (2) is a method to offset the negative impact brought by the (temporary) trade war, as the article admitted itself, how can we say it is the opposite of (1)?
BTW, the title says Trump wants to take from the poor and give to the "wealthy"? Since when have the farmers become the poster child of the wealthy?
3
@SC
They are not subsidizing the "farmers", but Corporate Big Ag; a subsidy payment of $2.6 MILLION is NOT a family farm.
12
Dispensing of lavish aid to "farmers" is not hardly unique to Trump, Perdue, or Republicans. You have stuck on one of the few truly bi-partisan programs. Democrats are just, if not more, likely to lard on the aid. Look at ethanol. Terrible choice for a fuel additive, lower mpg, damage to the engine fuel tank, exhaust, raises the price of food. Yet it is forced on consumers.
6
@Daphne
I guess I don't see how soybean subsidies has anything to do with ethanol. The point is, Trump started the easy to win trade war, farmers supported Trump. The citizens have been denied healthcare (among other things) while we spend billions on corporate farms. If the republitards are against the citizens having access to healthcare, because "its socialism" then following that logic, soybean subsidies is socialism by definition.
Corporations contribute only 7% to the federal government's coffers, we the tax payer contribute 85% of the revenue the government needs to operate and pay subsidies to farmers, and other corporations. Exxon gets billions in corporate subsidies, we pay 100 billion a year to corporations like Exxon. When the government starts talking about cutting welfare, I ask starting with which sector should be the question.
1
Socialism for the rich - free enterprise capitalism for the poor and middle class.
20
The GOP squeeze the 90% to let the wealth trickle up.
12
Vastly increase subsidies to Republicans to NOT grow food, and slash food to 700,000 people who are hungry. Just sickening.
10
It is both surprising and gratifying when someone-sometimes even a conservative-wakes up and discovers that Republicans are hypocritical reverse Robin Hoods. What a surprise!
8
The Party of Billionaires wants to see as many Americans starving to death as possible.
11
Another Republican Party mugging of the poor in America. Gotta collect all that money from the poor and put it in a big pile so rich people can have more for the next "tax cut." And this "tough love" is offered to the rest of us thinking and feeling non-conservatives compliments of all of the "good" people of the "heartland." A heartland without a heart worshiping the Moloch of our day: Donald Trump.
How do these people live with themselves? What, you do it because of abortion? Right. You could care less and I can prove it. Send a million dollars collectively right now to Planned Parenthood and say that you want it to go to young women who would like to give birth but are too poor to consider it. Not going to happen. Fake. You're all fake just like your god Trump.
14
Where is the prophet Nathan when you need him? As Trump’s evangelical supporters may recall, 2 Samuel 12 recounts the story of Nathan’s visit to King David, and the story that made David “burn with anger”: the rich man who stole his poor neighbor’s one lamb to feed to a visiting friend. The trouble is, neither Trump, nor Sonny Perdue, nor his sanctimonious supporters have any shame that would cause them to “burn with anger” at injustice.
10
Dear GOP and President Trump,
I'm sure you would like to follow the rule of the Bible...which says: “The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor.”
Proverbs 22:9 (NIV)
9
Where is the prophet Nathan when you need him? As Trump’s evangelical supporters may recall, 2 Samuel 12 recounts the story of Nathan’s visit to King David, and the story that made David “burn with anger”: the rich man who stole his poor neighbor’s one lamb to feed to a visiting friend. The trouble is, neither Trump, nor Sonny Perdue, nor his sanctimonious supporters have any shame that would cause them to “burn with anger” at injustice.
2
No one has to go hungry in America!!! An old standard: if you don't work you don't eat was replaced by cheese for votes
to successive generations decades on assistance .. no change in that ... then no change again .. no one has to go hungry in
America
1
@SMPH
We claim to be the greatest nation on earth, yet people go to bed hungry, some are homeless, most are both. A country is judged by how it treats its poor, and elderly.
5
I think it is called being Hood Robin.
2
Don’t you love when rich people, who have never been hungry a day in their lives, lecture you on how to be more responsible with your life?
11
@VIKTOR
Like all of the people commenting here that the government should take money from working people and give it to able bodied childless adults who are living in their prosperous parents basements.
Any able bodied childless adult needs to work, go to school or volunteer 20 hours per week.
Yes Trump sits in his high throne and thinks “how can I take from the poor and give money to the rich” and then out loud he says “Mu ha ha ha ha” as he lights his cigar with a burning hundred dollar bill.
3
Being able bodied does not guarantee mental fitness for work. We already don't want to provide mental health care for people. Are we willing to let the mentally ill starve on the sidewalk?
13
@December
Yes. We have several (Obviously mentally ill) that we feed every week at our weekly Church fellowship dinner.
The Schizophrenic Girl is definitely living on the street.
Rural residents may be cut off from Government benefits by the Trump Administration? Most rural residents vote Republican. Let them feel the consequences of their vote.
Bail outs to farmers are not the only instance of welfare for wealthy white men. (Are sugar farmers still being receiving those obscene subsidies?)Nuclear plants have limited liability due to the Price-Anderson Act. Gun makers have blanket liability by a political party which is nothing more than a stooge for the NRA. Mining, logging and grazing on Federal lands is subsidized. Oil companies drilling on Federal lands pay a pittance in royalties -- and that's when royalties are collected. Wealthy people who have expensive homes on the barrier islands in the Atlantic and the Gulf have Government insurance because private insurers won't insure them. Water and water delivery systems for western farmers are subsidized or paid for entirely by taxpayers.
Another example of Republican hypocrisy. Help for the average person is "socialism" and a "hand out." Help for the wealthy is capitalism at its best.
14
I am amazed by the gall of Mr. Perdue etal. Just another welfare for the top 10% of American farmers. If we want to have the US stay a democracy, we had better get the likes of Mr. Perdue out of Washington and away from our tax dollars, lest these dollars will find their way to corporate America to the detriment of citizens who need these dollars.
7
The Trumps have always taken from the poor and given to the wealthy, preferably themselves. Donald is just a chip off the old Fred Trump block.
8
Democrats only say they care about the poor when voting time rolls around. After that, they could care less.
2
Perhaps Trump doesn't think there are enough homeless people.
It's also a myth to think that spending less on such a government program will go into another citizen's pocket. When did anything work that way in the US? SNAP benefits for 700K persons is a rounding error for the government.
2
Until the Democrats come up with a real, aggressive strategy for taking from the wealthy and giving back to the poor, the GOP will continue to get its way on this.
2
As usual, the Republicans are playing to the mainstream values of conservative Americans who value self-sufficiency and resent government "interference" in local affairs. They set up the false dichotomy that Democrats and the poor don't value self-sufficiency, or actually promote dependency and laziness either through their own stupidity, or possibly because they even value those traits! Remarkably this nonsense plays with their audience, even though Democrats value self-sufficiency just as much as Republicans do. Democrats just want to reform the system not eliminate it, in order to make it more effective. Yes reform is complicated and time-consuming, but that's life. If you want simple wrong solutions, you'll go with the Republicans. So understandable, so wrong.
Republican politicians aren't simple-minded or even taking the moral high ground: they are politically shrewd and filled with dark machinations. They know this position will play to their base, and will split them off from the Democrats. They aren't really interested in government reform as much as in solidifying their position politically with their base for the next election. This is political knavery of the first order.
5
And why is anyone reading this at all surprised by these moves? Have we not seen this 'take from the poor and give to the rich, preferably dumpster supporters' over and over in the last 3 years. In my opinion the most egregious grift is the so-bank programs, now renamed Conservation Reserve Program, that pay farmers to not farm sections of land. If we paid city folks to not work, what would those farmers call it?? WELFARE.
It will take our country years to recover from the disaster fondly called the Trump Administration.
And sadly, those least able to bear the cost and suffer the consequences will be hardest it.
It is truly a dark stain on our American legacy that this man was ever given access to our White House.You know we're have to have Serpro in there for weeks before the next family can move in.
1
The initial food stamp program was not about feeding those in need but rather a way to reduce the huge stockpiles of food on government hands. The Reagan administration started the attack on government assistance programs with “welfare queen” adds. Then conservatives under Newt Gingrich passed so called “welfare reform “. Today conservatives are trying to reduce public assistance roles with drug testing those who apply. Republicans have never been interested in designing an well constructed program to meet the many needs of those in need of assistance but rather a piecemeal approach. Today it is food assistance programs tomorrow it will be the” entitlement programs “ of social security and medical programs. To conservatives,there are too many “undeserving poor “ and until that changes public assistance will be under attack.
2
This was Reagan’s plan that started in the 80’s.
The Republicans have been on this path since then.
Trump is just part of the Republican dream.
3
As opposed to? Obama is campaigning against Warren and Sanders for being too left. The rich always protect their own.
2
"About 75 percent of total subsidy payments go to the largest 10 percent of farming companies."
Well that`s about the same as for the Trump-Kushner-GOP tax cut for the 1%.
America , we thought you were better than the Trump-Kushner crime family & their abettors !
10
This is not news. The GOP has been a wealth transfer machine for decades. It’s why the US has record levels of inequality. Trump is not doing anything any other Republican wouldn’t do on this.
255
@Larry Roth
This is true.
Republicans are just here to pillage all they can.
They have never cared.
27
@Larry Roth
Democrats are not much better in reality. Many Dems at the federal and state levels have regularly voted in favor of various tax loopholes and an array of financial engineering proposals that favor wealthy individuals and corporations.
11
@javamaster Right.
Dodge is better than Chevrolet !
2
Instead of assuming people don't want to work, why don't Republicans offer public service employment to fulfill the SNAP work requirement? Seems to me that would allow them to pat themselves on the back for not "enabling" anyone.
10
I believe we should prop up small businesses and farms that feed our nation when they have difficulty surviving due to unforeseen circumstances such as bad weather or fire. However, farm subsidies have turned into corporate subsidies that benefit rich fat cats and, in fact, have become just another investment vehicle and tax write off for billionaires.
On top of that, as a country we are not subsidizing the production of varied and healthy foods, but mass production of corn, wheat and soy meant for trade with other countries.
The same issue of subsidies applies to the Petroleum Industry. Why am I, as a middle class taxpayer, subsidizing the largest industry in this country? I think when those subsidies began, it was to help establish growth of our economy. Petroleum subsidies worked, Exxon no longer needs them and should quit sucking off the government teet.
Since billionaires and their heirs are no longer paying their fair share of federal taxes, those of us who do pay the bulk of taxes should be the ones directing how they are spent, not corporations or billionaires that don’t pay into the system. I say cut them off.
13
USDA subsidies in the United States totaled $396.9 billion from 1995-2019. During that period, the top 10 percent of recipients were paid 75 percent of all USDA subsidies. The bottom 80% (by income) got 11% of the money.
https://farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?fips=00000&page=conc&progcode=total
How much food can we buy for $397 billion?
11
Trump is not only cutting food stamps, but public housing, education, and environmental funds the poor depend on. Corporations and banks spent 54% of Trump’s tax cut on stock buybacks, and more on mergers and acquisitions, and predatory lending, which benefit stockholders but don’t produce goods, services, and jobs for the poor. With the exception of Obamacare, the Democratic Party leadership’s pay-as-you-go strategy holds spending on social services static, while neoliberal capitalism exports and automates jobs, drives down wages and benefits, generating low pay, low respect gig economy jobs. It is not just the poor, but the working and middle classes who are one medical expense or unexpected setback away from economic disaster.
8
Why should a church be the place to get support when financial trouble hits, and not the entity which we created, together, our city/state and other government, to which we pay taxes for the greater good? Does the church help all people in the community equally, based only upon need? If not, shouldn't we have a safety net for all Americans, in times of need, be it bad luck with weather (which is going to get worse), being hit with some crazy trade tariff, or, even, some debilitating family illness? What about the people who belong to smaller, not deep pocket churches, or no church at all?
But indeed, the handouts to the rich should stop, and the poor should be getting help. How is someone who is starving going to make a good impression when trying to get a job??
8
Unless I am mistaken, isn't the other major beneficiary of the food stamp system American farmers - from whom the federal government purchases the food? Cruelty is not only wrong it is stupid and bad for business.
6
Regardless of the justification, we all know the intended policy outcome is kicking people off food stamps. Why this outcome is desirable to Republicans remains unclear. Churches and communities and families aren't capable of providing the broad, consistent, and unbiased support needed to sustain a credible safety net. We've proven this time and again. Work requirements are basically asking unemployed working age adults to go off and die. How is that a desirable public health outcome?
Republicans don't have an answer. They celebrate a low unemployment while ignoring labor participation is still at historical lows. A higher unemployment rate would actually be a good sign for recovery. It means more people actually find working worth the effort. You correct this imbalance and fewer people will need food stamps. Forcing people to work in jobs they don't want for inadequate pay only creates a class of perpetually discouraged workers.
You need able-bodied workers to want to work. Otherwise you're just starving people to death.
1
Nice to see a conservative writer saying this for a change.
5
How do you find a job when you are suffering from hunger? Who among us could succeed under these circumstances? Where does all this right-wing cruelty come from? This is not my country.
11
Russian Republicans have to try and make up for those tax cuts somehow may as well put some poor people on a diet.
5
But you just don't understand. The wealthy DESERVE their handouts. The poor DO NOT. It's as simple as that!
6
Wow, some real breaking news. Trump wants to hammer the poor and give breaks to the wealthy.
Who knew??
10
Are we still the greatest nation or the gift wrap?
2
Sonny Perdue's eyes gleamed when he bragged in his state of the state speech about not extending medicaid in Georgia. Watch the video. You can't miss it. Sick man, indeed. Naturally, he is the Christian that doesn't follow Christ's teaching like most pious Republicans who follow Trump, the chosen one, now. Too bad Jesus, he should have read "The Art of the Deal.'
4
Rural voters and their elected leaders used to support food for the poor. Now, they are against that, and everything else, from health care, the ACA, the school lunch program, voters rights, pollution laws, and workers rights.
Not so oddly, a lot of the rural Trump/Republican voters are white (both rich and poor), and beneficiaries of various protections are poor, urban people of color.
Even when it comes to Russia, a country that hoisted an Iron curtain over half of Europe for over 50 years, they insist Russia is more honorable than our own FBI, CIA, State and Justice departments.
It's hard not to assert the inescapable reason.
2
@Almighty Dollar
True, except the majority of beneficiaries of these various protections are not poor, urban people of color. They are mostly Trump's base demographic.
"The U.S. Census Bureau also states that about 28 percent of households that receive food stamps are African-American, while 59 percent are white."
Also military families - 12% of receive SNAP benefits.
6
Wants to?
He's doing it.
86
Politicians get nothing in return for helping poor people. It’s more beneficial and more fun for them to help the rich. When’s the last time a poor person funded a reelection or lent their private jet or vacation home?
9
People ask "what is the government for?"
The US Constitution explicitly gives 6 reasons for the existence of the government. One is "to promote the general welfare."
Yet for decades the word "welfare," a noun meaning "the health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group" (New Oxford American Dictionary) has been a term of opprobrium. A reason for government's existence is to promote something that today enrages people.
From those who oppose welfare we hear crazed things like, "Nobody ever helped ME" (presumably these people diapered themselves, educated themselves, and grew their own food). It is standard practice in modern America to sneer at those who need help, and it is not a "Party" issue: In August of 2014, President Obama signed a Food Stamp cut of $8.7 billion.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obama-signs-food-stamp-cut
And then there was Mr. Obama's Quantitative Easing Program - a snappy euphemism for transferring $4.5 trillion to the wealthy.
In 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton vowed to slash "entitlements" as per the recommendations of the Scrooge-like “Simpson-Bowles committee.”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/04/the-coming-plague-of-poverty-among-the-elderly-clintons-plan-for-gutting-social-security
This is the land we live now in.
It is who we are.
When you are in need, remember: "Ask not what your country can do for you..." Even though, according to the Constitution, "doing" for us is what a country exists for.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
5
@Rev. E. M. Camarena, PhD
The difference is that Obama was forced to sign the cut to continue crop insurance for farmers. Trump has simply issued an executive order to cut food stamps for no other purpose.
False equivalence.
1
@J Anders: Naturally, I expected that reply from someone.
There's always an excuse for Obama.
Claiming that Obama signed the bill because he was a weak president is hardly a convincing justification.
Like it or not, Obama signed the bill. That is a fact. Obama's inability to deal with congress from a position of strength, which you see as justification, merely confirms that he was not yet ready for the Presidency.
But even granting your own false equivalency, how about Bill "End Welfare As We Know It" Clinton? My sole point here is that this cruelty toward people in need is not a party politics issue. You cannot rationalize your way out of that.
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
1
Researchers just determined that giving $1000 to people in poverty created an economic benefit of 2.5 to 2.7 times the amount invested 18 months after the money was spent.
The USDA's own Economic Research Service has found that the same is true of food stamps.
"ERS research has estimated a multiplier of SNAP benefits on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 1.54; that is, an increase of $1 billion in SNAP benefits increases GDP by $1.54 billion and supports 13,560 additional jobs, including nearly 500 agricultural jobs (farming, forestry, fishing, and hunting)."
https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2019/july/quantifying-the-impact-of-snap-benefits-on-the-us-economy-and-jobs/
This wasn't even an Obama-era study - it was published July, 2019. So, once again, the GOP is cutting off the poor and spiting our own economy. Brilliant.
8
@J Anders Sonny and Don won't have to listen to the ERS anymore. They've been moved to Kansas City. Many are retiring or taking other jobs. All part of the plan- downsize the government by getting rid of the pesky scientists. See: Mulvaney's grand strategy
It's refreshing to see this confrontation of our skewed system of welfare from a (presumably) conservative voice.
3
The people, stories and excuses change, but the Republican policy pattern is always the same. Take from everyone else and give to the corporate rich. The party culture is corrupt to the core. It will never be anything less than evil.
5
You can't "expose" what was, long ago, already fully exposed. Yet this structure of "they've really done it now" or "they have finally revealed themselves", etc., raises a troubling issue: people don't get that Republicans have been for a long time, and are now of course, deceitful pro-plutocracy authoritarians and worse -- they are our National Socialists.
5
"Wants to?" Already is--particularly to himself and his family.
3
“The administration’s food stamp cuts expose the cruel truth of Republican hypocrisy.”
Although things weren’t always as they are now, so many situations now expose the cruel truth of Republican hypocrisy, it’s become difficult to keep track of them all.
At present, and over the past thirty years, the Republican party’s purposes have become transparent, negative and unAmerican. So, a healthy dose of pathetic hypocrisy has regularly been administered with each step taken in their attempt to consolidate a hold on federal power.
— Use gerrymandering and voter suppression to gain a perpetual majority in the U.S. Senate.
— Pack the federal courts with openly partisan judges.
— Allow Republican presidents to do whatever they please. Anything!
— Obstruct Democratic presidents, no matter what they attempt to accomplish. Obstructing the Dems. is the key!
— Deny that truth exists. Deny fact. Deny science. Deny reality.
— Admit nothing. Pretend Trump is just one more perfectly valid president. Deny his unfitness, rudeness, blunders, ignorance and embarrassing behavior.
— “If we Reps all repeat the SAME nonsense, again and again and again, it becomes (kinda) true.”
So keep repeating the party line!
— Power is more important than truth, more than dignity, more than justice. Power is more important than morality, more than honor, more than virtue, more than the dreams of our founding fathers, more important than anything!
— We Republicans are in the business of gaining and keeping power.
9
That's not hypocrisy, it's SOP for Republicans. It has been for years and years.
5
Mr Trump already takes from the middle and lower economic strata while giving tax exemptions to his business benefactors.
Cutting nutritional aid in the form of food stamps is merely bragging rights being celebrated by Mr Trump.
Lets not forget Mr Trumps maneuvering that encourages American poultry producers to relocate to China.
Mr Trump is a modern day Marie Antoinette.
Let the poor eat chicken nuggets, he says
2
The author is absolutely correct - and hasn’t scratched the surface of the tens of billions of dollars in handouts the idle rich receive from American taxpayer dollars. Tax-favored status for passive investments, like real estate and securities. Fat military contracts and contracts for privately operated prisons and detention facilities. And the mother of all handouts, that $1 trillion package of tax goodies that flows uphill to the rich, while the working class taxpayer gets nickels and dimes in ‘tax relief’ — and much of that is being grabbed back in tariffs on the stuff sold at Walmart and Target, et al.
The point of most of the Trumpublican Party program at present is transparent: cruelty and Schadenfreude. Stick to the usual scapegoats and pander to the irrational resentment of the loudmouthed, malevolent minority. We’re back to the Republican paranoid fantasy world of ‘welfare queens,’ ‘lazy liberals living off the fat of the land,’ ‘immigrants invading the country to steal our jobs,’ and ‘Mooslum terrorists.’
Meanwhile, the top ten states that are most dependent on federal tax dollars to survive are all deep red states that take billions more in federal aid than they pay in federal taxes — all subsidized by those lazy liberals whose vibrant economies and diverse, educated populations pay for that phony ‘conservative’ Trumpublican narrative.
If Putin put Trump in the White House - as it appears he did - his payback is huge. This nation is being torn apart.
10
I'm not sure how inducing hunger in someone makes them a better candidate for a job.
6
Do not forget that in the beginning the mantra against the Affordable Care Act was "Repeal"... period. Later as their own constituents saw the value of this program in their lives they were forced to modify that to "Repeal & Replace".
Of course they did no such thing in the two years they held majority in the House & Senate along with a republican President with pen in hand. On the contrary they attempted every trick in the book to decimate the Affordable Care Act while simultaneously having nothing to replace it with.
Billie Holiday could have been singing about money and how republicans wish to control it for the wealthy when she wrote the lines;
Them that's got shall get
Them that's not shall lose
So the Bible said and it still is news...
Rich relations give
Crust of bread and such
You can help yourself
But don't take too much
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
4
Anyone notice something? The crickets chirping from the so called Christians in this country. This is another example of how perverted religion has become in this country, the Catholic Bishops, and every religious leader should be screaming bloody murder at slashing benefits for the poor while giving huge tax cuts to the rich.....but again, crickets...
The reason is simple, the religious, especially the religious conservatives, have swallowed hook, line and sinker the GOP/Ayn Rand/Benthalmite idea that the poor are poor because they are lazy and don't want to work. It is very much like Victorian England, where the Anglican and Catholic churches actively supported this idea, and promoted the horrors that were work houses and debtor jails.
This from people who follow someone who told them the poor are the blessed and our duty is to the poor and weak, not the rich. If they don't personally believe the poor are lazy, they stay quiet, because the GOP is delivering on their real notion of being Christian, being anti LGBT and especially with abortion. Worse, the religious liberals, who probably are outraged about this, stay mute because they don't want to offend their 'Christian brethren'.
This shows that Madison was right, when talking about the seperation of church and state he said when they combine, you end up with an oppressive state and a corrupted church, both of which we see in the world of Trump and the GOP.
3
@music observer Conservatives idea of helping the poor is first feed you and your church brethren in the social hall first, then give the left overs to the needy in the community. At least that is how it works in our local Southern Baptist Church. This patriarchal body is proud of their work.
2
The latest toxic/inhumane GOP plan to undermine the food stamp program with “significant reductions” is based on GOP ideology that asserts poverty relief programs will turn the safety net into a “hammock”; that food stamps turn the inner city into a “culture of dependence with legions of moochers, Ronald Reagan's welfare “Cadillac” queens, anchor babies, illegal immigrants”, ad nauseum. According to these derisive geniuses, removing food stamp/SNAP benefits, Medicaid health insurance, etc. is necessary to compel the unemployed to work even if their children suffer in the process.
Discredited supply side, trickle-down, voodoo economics has consistently failed to deliver good jobs, or recognize that government aid and investment is often a crucial lifeline. Belief that low-income Americans do not deserve a helping hand derives from the wealthy 1% private corporate business ideology asserting that the US is a meritocracy where only the most deserving rise to the top. If you’re sick or poor, you’re on your own, and those who are more fortunate have no obligation to help. In fact, it’s immoral to demand that they help. Alarmingly, many still believe the ludicrous myth that welfare recipients receiving public benefits such as Medicaid, food stamps (SNAP),etc. are "takers" rather than "makers" which is untrue for the vast majority of working-age recipients.
6
It is more fundamental than this....
Trump wants to take from everyone and give to himself personally.
THAT is who Trump is... and his enablers and co-habitating grifters in his administration use his selfishness to press their own special interests. He is an easy mark for such exploitation.. you just have to make him think it is 1) his idea. 2) convince him he personally benefits. 3) is something he can personally take credit for.
3
Everything he does is impeachable. When will we get started on the long list of crimes against humanity?
3
"People who are able bodied, and not working, don't deserve a handout" - Anonymous hard working American-
I've often wondered why poor white people and poor black people are viewed differently by politicians as well as by the people themselves. What I realized is that these food handouts are viewed through an ethnotribal lens at the subconscious level. Members of the white ethnicity (in say West Virginia) are totally happy receiving welfare and SNAP benefits but don't want those of the black ethnicity getting it and will vote that way. They themselves may feel it's alright for themselves to get it, because they are the same ethnicity as those handing out the food. Turns out at the top level, the members of the white ethnicity feel the same way. The memebrs of the black ethnicity are for the most part out of this ethnotribal loop, except for their Democratic representative. This dislike for any ethnotribal food transfers then gets transferred to those trying to make it happen, the Democratic party. (For the record, every human alive is the same race, where we differ is our ethnicity. For any doubters, please post for everyone's enlightenment the table from a modern medical or biology text which outlines "The Races of Man". You won't find it because it's totally made up and almost a Jim Crow concept that one's skin color makes them a whole different race of human).
2
This is unconscionable. The website Feeding America, representing a network of over 200 food banks nationwide, states that "For more than 15 years, the Feeding America BackPack Program has been helping children get the nutritious and easy-to-prepare food they need to get enough to eat on the weekends. Today, bags of food are assembled at more than 160 local food banks and then distributed to more than 450,000 children at the end of the week." That doesn't even account for all the children who receive weekend food from backpack programs. At an elementary school near me, a team of neighborhood volunteers collect and pack food for children attending the school to take home for the weekend. I'm sure that school is not the only one to have such a program.
What kind of country are we that so many people, primarily on the right, resent food assistance to poor people and believe that this minor benefit is what determines whether or not they are too lazy too work? This in a country where the president claims to be a multi-billionaire, two Democratic candidates are acknowledged multi-billionaires, and the average net worth of the entire Democratic field is $12.9 million? Only four of the candidates have a net worth under $1 million. I'm not faulting those candidates for their wealth but simply pointing out that we as a nation simply do not grasp the reality of wealth distribution and, especially on the right, believe it is the poor who deserve no aid from the rest of us.
4
Taking from the poor to give to the rich is what Republicans do. Why so many poor people vote for Republicans is beyond me.
7
How does the saying go? It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man going to heaven?
I don't understand that those who have so much as so tone-deaf to others who have so much less.
You can't take it with you. Act like a human being!
5
If you work one minimum wage job full time, often you need a second job to pay the bills and still not have enough left for food.
So, the poor are going to compete among themselves for low wage jobs in order to keep food stamps.
That is, if they have cars or some other method of transportation to get to their job.
4
Wait a minute -- these people are just conning the system, right? They are lazy and on the dole, right? That's what Fox News and the Republicans say, so it must be true. As a Republican voter, I certainly don't think and reason for myself, so I believe whatever they tell me.
3
I think Republicans have missed the point of food stamps. Food stamps are supposed to keep people who can't afford food from starving to death. How can you afford food if you are not working? And if you are working, why would you need food stamps?
This policy makes zero sense. They might as well just get rid of food stamps.
73
@Mr. Adams
According to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CPBB) in 2018, 81 percent of SNAP households with a non-disabled adult, and 87 percent of households with children and a non-disabled adult, included at least one member who worked.
https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/most-working-age-snap-participants-work-but-often-in-unstable-jobs
Every dollar they make is counted against the food money they receive from SNAP. Our economy simply isn't paying them enough wages to eat.
81
@Mr. Adams
That's what they want to do. End the program.They see most poor people as lazy bums watching TV, grifting off the government. Of course the billions of corporate welfare is smart policy. The fact that Fedex, a extremely profitable company got a billion dollar tax cut, well that's just smart policy. And of course the Republicans get the majority of the cash that they spend on their campaigns from the very companies that got the bulk of Trump's tax cuts, well just ignore that, it's simply a coincidence. Cruelty to the poor plays well to the Trump base. If you are poor or hungry, well, that's your fault. Many Republicans thinkthey are doing the poor a favor when they rip the food off their plate.
57
@Mr. Adams wrote: "And if you are working, why would you need food stamps?"
A common situation is people who work in fast-food, retail, or restaurants.
If you are not a manager, you're making minimum-wage or maybe a couple dollars an hour more than minimum-wage but that's usually it.
You may not even have a set schedule and instead be "on call" which means you have to call in 2 hours before your shift is supposed to start to find out if you are working--if you are not you don't get any hours which means no pay.
Even if you have a set schedule, you'll likely be kept below the full-time threshold. When business is slow and payroll gets cut so do your hours--it's entirely possible to end up with less 20 hours a week during slow season.
If you do the math--working at, or not much above, minimum-wage and getting less than 40 hours week--it's entirely possible to be working but still need food stamps.
64
Isn’t it interesting that you can buy sodas and soft drinks with food stamps, but you can’t buy an already cooked rotisserie chicken?
In my grocery store a 12 pack of sodas is about the same price as the cooked rotisserie chicken, $4.99.
That chicken will feed my family of three adults for at least two meals and then we make soup with the carcass.
Just another reason.....
Vote Blue.
No Matter Who
2020
18
I recall a story ran in the NYTimes last year. It was about a 12 year old boy who died of cancer. It featured a friend of this boy who helped raise money for a headstone; something his mother could not afford. As I recall the mom had 4 other children at home. She quit her job to be by her dying son's bedside.
If she was on food stamps she'd be cut off from food stamps because she was taking care of her dying son? Is this what we should expect from compassionate conservatism?
10
@KF2 - Just to be fair, the article does say that the new rule does "not affect food stamp recipients with dependents, those over age 50, those with a disability or pregnant women." Therefore, this woman would not be affected by the new rule.
2
@KF2
Yes, that is exactly what we should expect from compassionate conservatism. Because that phrase is nothing more than a focus-grouped slogan made up by people like Steve Bannon to cover for the real goals of the Republican party.
It's just like the "Migrant Protection Protocols" that are being used to keep asylum seekers sitting in one of the most dangerous areas of Mexico while they wait for a hearing.
5
But a lot of caregivers would be affected. Those who take care of an elderly relative certainly would be. I took care of a friend with cancer for a year, since we were not related I got no help when I had to cut my hours back. Thankfully I had family that helped. I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t. Even with the help it was a struggle.
2
This regime has been consistent in its ability to strike at working class Americans and to lie about it. Consistent in its ability to justify trillions in hand outs to the MEGA rich and corporations as well as to large farmers. If the regime would force companies to pay a living wage we wouldn't be in this predicament in the first place. Americans need to start waking up to the corporate welfare paradigm rampant in this country and stop worrying over a single Mom buying jarred spaghetti sauce with food stamps. The GOP mantra is getting old.
10
For 8 years, Barrack Obama had a chance to take from the wealthy and give to the poor. And yet he kept giving to auto industry bosses, oil tycoons and bankers. Mr. Trump follows the same path that most US presidents have taken in the past. I do not understand the outrage - the way he acts is within the political norm. And, after all, the norm is what both the left and the never-Trump right, would like Trump to follow.
4
@Paul
Barack Obama had the Democratic votes required to pass his policies for only around 60 days of his entire presidency. Because during the rest, either Robert Byrd and/or Teddy Kennedy were out sick (or deceased). Then Scott Brown was elected to Kennedy's seat, and Obama no longer had the super-majority that was then required to pass legislation in the Senate.
He used that short window well to get the ACA passed. The only other opportunity he had to get Democratic policies enacted was to take Trump's route of ruling by executive order. Obama issued some when dire need arose, but Trump has used them wholesale to take policy-making away from Congress and consolidate it in the Oval Office.
We should not wish that Obama had done what Trump has, rather we should push for legislation that makes it impossible for another president to do an end run around the Legislative and Judicial branches of our government.
4
Obama had to contend with an economy in free fall. Nobody was going to go for expanding the safety net then.
1
There should be a way to determine if the person is unable to get more hours than he or she has. If the person cannot find that work, they should get their food.
In answer to others speaking about childcare/working, the article says the new rules don't apply to those people with dependents. At least, that's how I read it.
2
The dependents thing seems to apply inky to children. Those taking care of elderly relatives don’t get anything. And they are in dire need in this country.
1
@Anita We probably could develop a system to make that type of determination, but with programs like food stamps, those types of reporting systems generally are more expensive than the amount of money they save by eliminating "freeloading." It really doesn't make good economic sense to ratchet up administrative costs when they won't be paid for by eliminating a "freeloading" problem that is, in most places, pretty small.
Beyond that, studies have shown time and again that the implementation of these types of requirements inevitably results in throwing many people off of assistance who are absolutely qualified to receive it, because the reporting requirements are difficult to impossible to comply with consistently for people living on the margins. One would hope that this is not a desired outcome!
It's the old "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" philosophy that underlies Republican cruelty, as any social safety net is deemed "socialism." Same old mantra, same old heartlessness. Yet the GOP has no problem cutting taxes for the rich. People should remember this when they go to the polls November 2020.
6
In the Republican vision of the world:
1: nobody who is willing to work in the Weat goes hungry - unless their job was destroyed by the big bad government.
2: excessive social programs sap people’s willingness to work.
3: trickle down economics creates jobs.
.
Once you believe these three falsehoods - and most modern Republicans do - it makes sense to slash food assistance for the poor. As they see it, the cuts taking money away from the big bad government, and giving it to job creators, who in turn will hire people and we won’t need food assistance any more.
6
@ZAW
Except the glaring error in their calculations is that adding work requirements costs more money in administration and paperwork processing than food does. Kentucky's administrative costs went up 40% when they implemented work requirements for Medicaid.
Of course, this is really a feature, not a flaw, to wealthy Republicans, because a lot of that money flows to government contracting companies they own.
5
@J Anders That is one of the more glaring errors in the Republican view of the world. Yes.
.
I always chuckle a little when a Republican tries to tell me he supports smaller government. They don’t. They support less regulation of corporations and lower taxes for the rich; but not smaller government. Certainly not more efficiency in government.
8
As part of these proposed cuts, there is a provision that states if you own a car that is worth more than $2250, you don’t qualify for benefits. So we want people to get jobs to qualify for benefits but if there is no public transportation to get to that job and they own what I would assume is a pretty basic car to get to their job, they don’t qualify for benefits.
17
A car worth less than $2250 probably doesn’t even run.
2
That's been the trick since the beginning of time. Why do you think they are poor?
And why do you think the wealthy are wealthy? Did they do all the work themselves? Did they secure all the infrastructure, energy, safety, water, public services, everything, themselves?
5
The Trump base, continually squeezed by Trump policies, never wakes up, and only confirms the low wattage inside most of them. When Trump was a candidate, it was all about "better cheaper health care, etc. etc." which of course, we haven't heard about since he got elected. But the 1% got their huge permanent tax cut - the only Trump legislative accomplishment.
Things are different in a cult.
8
@Paul Shindler - I listened to some of the Trump supporters being interviewed in Hershey, PA, today. They all thought he's doing a wonderful, wonderful job and that the Democrats are being so, so, so unfair to this man who is fixing everything that's wrong with the country. The LUV him!
@Paul Shindler The problem here is Trump hasn't bottled up some tainted kool-aid in a bottle with a fancy label and a high price manufactured in China for the MAGA's to swill. Your welcome.
He began his real estate helping his dad squeeze funds from the poor.
And he just was ordered by a judge in New York State to pay $2million for misuse of funds for years that should have been used only for charity—but which he spent on himself—from his foundation.
Now he is taking food out of the mouths of babies and children if they are poor.
13
I do not support trump and do not support the food stamp cuts. However, the title suggesting that those saved funds will be 'given' to the wealthy is pure misinformation. At best you could say trump wants to take less from the wealthy in the form of lower taxes. That is a big difference, please.
2
No, it really isn’t. The wealthy still end up with more, and everyone rise with less
1
FYI: majority of Food Stamp recipients are Military families.
One glaring aspect of how the Trump administration operates is doing an end-run around the democratic process. Because the regulatory agencies tasked with implementing progressive policies are part of the Executive Branch, Trump and the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that backs him have figured out that all he has to do is issue an executive order changing the procedures involved. Not a single vote in Congress required.
Even though House Democrats held firm and tied SNAP funding to the renewal of the farm bill (and the billions extra Trump wanted to pay off Republican-voting farmers for their tariff impacts), smart GOP backers like the Koch brothers had already figured out that if they could just get a Republican president they could get just about everything they wanted by rejiggering the regulatory agencies' policies. We've seen it time and time again over the last 3 years - the plain purpose of a law is to do one thing, but Trump subverts it with an executive order to department heads he has picked for their willingness to do his bidding.
True, some of his executive orders have been struck down by the courts as contrary to the intent of the law. But getting to that result requires his opponents to spend lots of resources suing him, and by packing the courts Trump is creating more and more opportunities to get a judge who will say what he's done is okay. The end game is truly to consolidate all power into the presidency, because it's much to buy that than Congress.
6
Wants to? He and his rich friends have already done so.
8
Your right and ability to vote is one of the only things holding back Trump from taking directly from your pocket. The Impeachment directly hits this point.
6
Notice the hidden communist context used by this conservative: wealth is collective; “you didn’t build that"; there is no private property; economic equality is a political ideal. Altruism, ie, man as a moral slave of man, is common to communism and conservatism. We move one step closer to the street battles between nationalists and communists in 1920s and 1930s Germany. See _Atlas Shrugged_ for tomorrow’s headlines.
1
One big difference: those farms are producing something that each and every one of us need. They are supporting vita, industries in a challenging time so that those industries can continue producing. That is in no way analogous to paying generation after generation of deadbeats more and more of other peoples' money to sit around doing nothing. I would venture to guess that many of you commenting have never seen the idle poor sitting out on their porches en masse, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer while you go to work to pay for it all. I have. I have heard little kids say, "I want to grow up and be on welfare like dad," so they can sit around playing video games all day. There's an apartment house for the "economically disadvantaged" on my block; one of the downstairs apartments has a TV so big you can watch it through the window from across the street. Every 6 months a Rent-a-Center truck rolls up snd delivers a household full of furniture, TVs and whatever else, and 6 months later it's all out on the front yard and the poor folk have moved on. It's like clockwork
I am a lifelong Democrat and I abhor Trump, but so many on the left have their heads in the sand on this stuff. Living off the gubmint has become a lifestyle in this country. I have no problem at all telling people to get a job!
6
3 months is not much time to get a job. Especially if you have barriers to working, such as illness or disability that’s not enough to get you disability, but affects your employability. You can want to work, but you can’t force employers to employ you. Having an obvious health issue puts you at a severe disadvantage.
I know for fact at least once in my life had my employer known about my vision issues I would not have gotten the job. And it would have been their loss cause I worked out far better than many perfectly healthy people that got hired. Still employed there almost two decades later.
4
@Mike - "I would venture to guess that many of you commenting have never seen the idle poor sitting out on their porches en masse, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer while you go to work to pay for it all."
Yep. I have. In VT and NH and Western Mass. Heck some were/are in my family. A few junk cars and snowmobiles and the shiny pick up with gun rack. A couple of dogs (5 in the case of my family). Avid Trump supporters.
Good ol' boy Republicans complaining about all those people who don't work. Some even have "bone spurs" or something.
Why are we bailing out farmers when people are starving. Obviously they aren’t doing their job of feeding America.
4
Not mentioned in this piece are the proposed cuts to the school lunch program - cuts that would eliminate school breakfasts and lunches for needy children who, otherwise, would not get a hot meal.
I live in New York City and, in the winter, when snow threatens the school system, one of the most grueling decisions our Mayor has to grapple with is whether or not to close the schools. By closing them, you see, needy children would have to do without a hot meal.
The amorality and cruelty of Trump and his cohort are staggering.
Whom would Jesus starve?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/trump-administration-rule-could-end-free-school-lunches-for-about-500000-children/2019/09/24/4c488f66-def1-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html
NOT my president
337
@Ninbus Trump is not my president either, but child hunger predates him. He didn't care about that fifty years ago. That they mayor has to take that into consideration when closing schools is a travesty.
I wonder how often children in civilized countries are sent to school hungry. About as often as their parents go bankrupt from medical bills, I suppose.
15
@Ninbus
"Whom would Jesus starve?"
Jesus didn't rob from hard working people to give their money to thieves and free loaders.
So calm down.
1
"“Government dependency has never been the American dream,” Mr. Perdue said. “We need to encourage people by giving them a helping hand but not allowing it to become an indefinitely giving hand.”
Why do we as taxpayers continue to give huge subsidies year in and year out to Big Oil and Gas when they certainly don't need the money.
Big Ag has been receiving an indefinite giving hand for years and years with subsidies, crop insurance and now tariff payments.
33 Members of Congress received farm subsidies over the past two decades while sitting miles away from the nearest farm, they too have been taking indefinitely from that giving hand.
21
Eternal giving hands are only for rich corporations.
Increase the proportion of the population who are living on the edge or slipping into want, and the proportion of the population who can buy more goods and services, shrinks and lessens overall demand. Lessen overall demand and opportunities to invest and to lend with high likelihood of returns also decreases. Starve the poor to save the rich on taxes, reduce the rate of economic expansion and the opportunities for the rich to acquire new wealth. Trump makes money on rent activity not on wealth creating activities and he's an incurious fellow.
3
All this means absolutely nothing unless or until Trump's base, who will be disproportionately effected by this and his war on the Affordable Health Care Act, finally sit up and take notice that when he and Republicans speak about making America great again -- they mean it only for themselves.
9
Well, let's see: new SNAP program requirements that could possibly affect the ability of 700,000 adults to have enough food could translate to a large number of those people voting Democratic in 2020.
Removing the cruel humanitarian outcomes, if we look only at the possible political repercussions of such a policy, it's really a dumb move.
5
@Cate Sure is because food stamps buy food that farmers grow. Why would you kill the golden goose unless you were short sighted and a short fingered vulgarian?
Yeah. The Trump administration is going to go down in history as being the dumbest administration ever. Look at the boneheaded thing he did to the Kurds. It hurts us, certainly causes the Kurds to suffer, and the only winner was Putin.
If it were not for a lifetime of vindictive cruelty espoused by both Trump and the Republicans I might believe that the work requirement was well-intentioned and not a diversion, a lie, from the intent which is to hurt people.
Remember what was admitted by Trump supporter Crystal Minton as to what motivates Trump and his base: "He's not hurting the people he needs to be”.
That says it all. Winning is to see that people are hurt, not just doing well for ourselves.
3
Sonny, endless war and socialized defense has never been the American dream, either.
Maybe if we ended the $1.5 trillion debacle in Afghanistan, we could help a few of our citizens at home.
4
Next up: Social Security and Medicare. Just wait...
11
President Obama increased the SNAP program and we found people who should have been working were benefiting from this free handout. It was high time that people who were able bodied found jobs and not gaining on the government’s dime. There was so much abuse going on in the food stamp program and it was the middle class who paid the price for this waste. Food stamps should be reserved for the the truly needy and not for those who have no desire to get a job. Work increases one’s self esteem and also helps the economy. No one ever suffered for obtaining gainful employment.
4
Unfortunately this kind of thing (along with ACA repeal and the loss of pre-existing conditions coverage for millions of his supporters, who live in red states with extremely poor health measures and outcomes) is what is needed to clue in Trump supporters. It's just a terrible shame that people who didn't vote for him also will suffer.
4
Trump and his Republican cohort don't "want" to take from the poor, they "are" taking from the poor and giving to the wealthy. Take a look at Fox news any morning of the week, and you'll see them doing yet another expose about all the homeless people living on the streets of L.A., or San Francisco, or Chicago, or...you name a big city with minorities. They aren't suggesting solutions, or offering long term answers, just displaying their disgust at the audacity of these poor people to live in our country. These "news" items expose Trump's deepest thoughts about poverty in our nation. He doesn't like it and he wants them to go away.
Trump world doesn't take into account drug or alcohol addiction, mental illness or incapacity. Trump doesn't want to see the poor. Fox doesn't want to see the poor. Republicans don't want to see the poor. They all just want their money.
6
Patrick you can always show your compassion for those in need by bringing them into you home as I have done. Don’t wait for the government or other people to address this horrible situation, you can help!!!!
2
It’s not just Trump who wants to take from the poor and give to the wealthy—it’s the entire Republican party. And Gracy Olmstead is absolutely right when she says that the Administration’s food stamp cuts expose the cruet truth of Republican hypocrisy. This cannot be overstated.
The Republican party has become an obscene cancer on the political stage, and it unabashedly panders to the lowest instincts of their voters. Republican members of Congress seem blind, deaf and dumb about the reality of American life for those who live outside of the large metropolitan areas of the country. And let us remember that most of these Republicans have had no trouble accepting money from Russia, some of it funneled through the NRA. Could we say that they are “on the dole” from our primary adversary?
10
This headline is ridiculous. I've met many people that are young and completely capable of working in NYC housing that choose not to. They sit outside smoke weed and chill with their friends. They don't look stressed at out all whereas those without assistance but still poor look like their backs may break. Now let's review why because this is where the problem really is the issue. If you start working in NYC and you make $1 above the threshold you are thrown off housing, food stamps and most gvt assistance. I fully support self sufficiency there's pride that goes into taking care of your own, but if Trumps wants to do this then he needs to address an adequate phasing out problem for ALL gvt programs. The system we have now is completely broken and punishes those getting off assistance and tells them sink or swim. Why in the world would one risk getting off gvt assistance when your rent goes from $700 a month to $1,500 over night and you have ZERO help and are kicked off gvt healthcare? Do you think all of the sudden someone is going to go from $10k to $60k overnight?The answer is you have no incentive. Zero. This system traps people into poverty and drains the middle class of tax revenue. I do get disgusted by youth in this system that chose to sell drugs on the street or find other ridiculous forms of work to dodge the system, but perhaps it's the entire system that needs to be changed to change this mentality.
Perhaps they sell drugs on the street because they know very well that if they go get a low wage job (which is all they will be able to get) they are going to struggle mightily. Drug dealing pays above minimum wage. People aren’t stupid, if they can’t make a legal living some of them will choose to make an illegal one.
Did you just figure this out? I knew it from day one I started to vote in the election.
GOP wants to cheat at every possible turn; and when they get caught - they will yell and scream.
3
The Democratic party has endorsed and enabled a culture of poverty since the enactment of programs in what is known as "The Great Society". Although these programs were needed and helped millions, including my family when I was growing up, Democrats have expanded and used these programs to maintain a voting block that is their only means of maintaining political power.
If the people taking advantage of these programs can be aided in finding meaningful employment through education and training, which is the underlying effort of stopping welfare benefits to the "able bodied", these citizens might grow to realize how poorly they are being treated by Democratic policies that keep them enslaved.
3
@John Gilday
57 million Americans now work in the gig economy, where their working hours usually fluctuate wildly.
Gig workers earn about 58% less than full-time employees. Add in the fact that they aren't provided any employer benefits such as healthcare or childcare, and you have people who are extremely vulnerable to any government policies that heap monthly paperwork requirements on them to eat.
We are the richest nation ever to exist on this planet. My foreign friends are already aghast at how many of our citizens are living in the streets. I have no idea what I will say to them if more of our people start starving in them as well.
3
This is true. Two of my 3 jobs are gig economy jobs and it’s a lie that you work when you want. You work when the demand is and that does vary wildly. Impossible to plan a budget this way. Trying to find a regular job that will either hire full time or work with my other employers is very hard. They all want to hire part time but they don’t want you to have a 2nd or 3rd job.
1
When Kentucky implemented work requirements for people to keep Medicaid, the state's administrative costs went up by 40%.
For people who often work a different number of hours each month, simply dealing with their end of the added administrative burden can cause them not only to lose benefits they are entitled to but also their jobs. Government offices where they need to file monthly income change reports are only open business hours and often located far away from where they live and work (particularly in rural areas).
These are people who mostly live in the lower tiers economically - simple things like lack of transportation and childcare are already burdens on their ability to work more hours. (Ever tried to find preschool childcare outside of a 9 to 5 workday?) Now they not only have to find those resources to work, they also have to find them to meet the new paperwork requirements for food stamps - time and expenses that are completely unpaid and that they are supposed to take out of their already-precarious financial resources.
Add in the fact that when the federal government says "disabled" it means a person who has qualified for Social Security disability payments. For people other than ex-military with service-related disabilities, this requires being 100% disabled. There are millions of Americans struggling with disabling conditions that do not preclude them from working at all but certainly prevent them from being able to earn a living wage.
13
Isn't that the traditional Republican slogan - tax the poor, feed the rich. Yet, for some very puzzling reason, this is described as 'conservative.' Progressives have been more concerned with upholding conservative values such as dignity of human life and keeping the environment clean, than Republicans are. Republicans have hijacked the term and it's important for Democrats to reclaim it back.
9
Trump's massive expansion of farm subsidies is simply buying votes. If the free market were to play out under Trump's trade war(s), farmers would get shafted and consider voting for someone else - but they'll vote Trumpublican as long as it doesn't hurt them. As for the poor, he doesn't need to buy their votes, either they don't vote as a matter of course (uneducated poor), or they vote Republican against their own interests because they're told to blame "others" (white poor), or their right to vote is suppressed (minority poor).
7
Elect compassionate politicians.
Stop voting against your own economic interests.
I'm talking to all the TRUMP BASE. You voted for someone who does not care about you or your wallet.
12
Let’s return to the days of tying farm aid to the food assistance programs. Democrats control the House. Why can’t they refuse to fund this lavish farm welfare, and tie the needed assistance to a functional Food Stamps program? Probably because they are on the corporate take just like Republicans.
@Jazz Paw
House Democrats actually did exactly what you suggest. The farm bill was passed only after Republicans agreed to fund SNAP at the same level as previous years.
What Trump is doing is what they've done to every law they don't like - issuing an executive order that changes the regulations around how those laws are carried out. Since the regulatory agencies are part of the Executive Branch, he can do it without a single vote in Congress.
Some of his executive orders have been struck down as contrary to the law, but unless Congress was careful to specify procedural steps for enacting the legislation IN the legislation, he and the conservative think-tanks and backers have figured out how to make an end-run around progressive policies without having to use the democratic process.
3
As a republican retiree on the way to my weekly volunteer job at my county homeless support agency I really have to respond to your broad brush smear of anyone who supports the president and his policies. While there are some genuine people in need, I also see a lot who come in for assistance many of whom that seem to be habitual moochers. Their vocation is to look for freebies wherever they can, food, shelter, money, etc. They aren't stupid or defective but quite the opposite: They have chosen this way to live and actual work is not part of the equation. I think this new rule is a good idea, but unfortunately the moochers are clever and will just seek out freebies from other well meaning organizations who enable them to continue their unsustainable life choice for the way they live.
3
Keep it up republicans. When people have nothing to lose and no other options, revolution comes. And by the way, what are all these billionaires taking in money going to do when the very people they need to spend that money have nothing to spend? Sooner or later, unless something drastically changes, heads are going to roll and it won’t be the poor.
11
@Patti
I agree with your comment. Conditions in America today are paralleling those of the French Revolution: extreme, desperate disparity between the wealthy and those at the bottom of the income ladder and extreme government debt. People react badly when pushed too far.
2
So why should people who need assistance "ideally . . . find that support in community, family, churches and associations"? Why shouldn't the wealthiest country on earth pledge that no citizen will go hungry, poorly housed, poorly educated, and uncared for in times of illness? Oh, Ms. Olmstead is a conservative. Private charity is fine, but public assistance might take a few cents out of her pocket, and the wrong people might benefit.
13
Truth be told, Trump's food stamp cuts are merely a continuation of a long line of bipartisan neo-liberal policies that began during the so-called "Reagan Revolution," seeking to roll back the New Deal gains of poor and working-class Americans and redistribute surplus wealth upwards. Some of the most destructive of these policies were the product of Democratic administrations: Clinton's 1996 welfare "reform," his 1994 crime bill, Obama's 2010 mortgage "relief" plan. The Republicans have no monopoly on hypocrisy, and no corner on cruelty.
Call them "Blue Dog Democrats" or "corporate Democrats" or "neo-liberal Democrats" or just the "mainstream" -- they all gotta go! Taking from the poor to give to the rich is not a sustainable model for a civilized nation. We have a choice now between socialism or barbarism.
4
Let’s call all of this what it really is: Evangelical Protestantism as public policy.
SNAP recipients should be forced to work, regardless of their circumstances, because “The Lord helps those who help themselves.”
On the other hand, God rewards the faithful – meaning that agribusiness titans must be doing something that the creator of the universe deems especially praiseworthy, so why shouldn’t they receive special treatment?
9
@Scott, surprisingly, many people believe the saying “The Lord helps those who help themselves" appears in the Bible. [It doesn't, as apparently you are aware.]
It's incredible that some also view Donald Trump as having been chosen by God.
1
Republicans are always quick to cut welfare for poor people, including poor children, the elderly and the disabled. But to corporations, Republicans cannot give away enough taxpayer money. From the super-rich and powerful pharmaceutical industry to the fossil fuel industry, the GOP LOVES corporate welfare. Trump and the GOP have increased corporate welfare shamelessly. It's basically a gift to themselves -- wealthy, privileged, stock-owning White people.
Capitalism is vicious. But, because of Republican policies, the US today has the most extreme system of capitalism anywhere in the world. Republicans are continuously finding ways to make America's economy more and more extreme.
This kind of extreme inequality. which leaves people without basic health care and causes many to become homeless even in such a wealthy nation is not only un-Christian, it's immoral.
11
Just tough love, Trump style. Evidently many people have told him that poverty, inaccessible health care, dilapidated housing and inferior education are great motivators to get slackers and welfare queens back into high-paying jobs. That would also explain his popularity throughout Appalachia and other red hat regions where people await with great anticipation.
3
Trillion dollar windfalls for the rich and corporations so they can hoard even more and the war on the poor continues.
Impeachment - nicely wrapped and under the tree this Christmas.
4
$1000000000/yr tax break for top 1%
$1000000000/yr Fed deficit/debt increase
$1000000000/yr interest/debt to be paid back by 99%
hard working low wage tax paying Trump base
and by giving less food to poor, including poor Trump supporters
4
Being poor is a choice, or self-inflicted, is a message that continues to persist as the GOP mantra - even for Trumpsters who are sliding further into poverty.
4
I’m baffled by the evangelicals who devoutly revere Trump & Co. Isn’t the Christian ideal feeding the less fortunate and lending a helping hand to those in need?
10
most of the people who need to know these facts - and they are facts - are trump supporters who rely on fox news, trump's tweets, and their like-minded neighbors for information instead of responsible news outlets like the nytimes.
only when these folks venture outside the conservative news bubble can they hope to educate themselves on the lies trump has sold them, and make a better choice in 2020.
3
Aren't these recipients spending these funds at stores? These stores hire people and order and transport goods. The spending takes place in areas that depend on it. The retailers will reduce staffing, inventories, and admin services. And they will also get to pay less in federal and local taxes.
The situation just becomes worse for all involved ...
8
Work requirement for the able bodied to receive government assistance?
Not a totally bad idea on the surface.
Private sector inadequate - for a host of reasons - to offer those jobs? Ok, then why not a New Deal style Federal jobs program? There is a lot that needs doing, starting with infrastructure. And the cost may not be a lot more than current costs.
5
People who lose food benefits because they cannot find steady part-time work are not needed by the economy, and the Invisible Hand that controls markets will not give them the resources to continue. What awaits them is hunger, malnutrition, lack of clothing and shelter, lack of hope, and ultimately death through suicide, self-destructive behavior, or illness. From a market perspective, we should carry these people only if there is a real chance they will be needed in the future, just as seasonal businesses will carry some of their workers off-season so they can quickly expand in the next season.
The extent to which we already pursue these policies is revealed in life expectancy figures of booming and shrinking areas.
We have helping the poor and concern for the least among us as an exception within our market economy. What we need is for the market economy to be an exception within our concern for the least among us and the community as a whole. The market economy would be a large exception, tolerated because it does many necessary things better than any other way we know of, but not exactly admired or given excuses for its misdeeds.
5
One factor not mentioned is child care. If you're working a minimum wage job it literally costs more money to work more hours than it does to work part time. Let's assume your child is in school from 9:00 - 3:30. Now assume you need 30 minutes to get from school to your job. That means you can be at work from 9:30 - 3:00. That's 5.5 hours/day or 27.5 hours/week that you can work. Now let's say you want to work a full 40 hours/week. At the current Federal minimum wage those extra 12.5 hours/week will add an extra $90.63 (before taxes!) to your already small paycheck. Problem is you now need to find 12.5 hours/week of daycare that costs less than $90. Good luck with that.
14
@Cyclocrosser the change says single abled bodied with no kids.
1
I've been going back to fundamentals. Namely, the Preamble to the Declaration (We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all humans are created; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness); and, the Preamble to the Constitution (We the People..., in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare..).
Embodied in these still-revolutionary ideas, are not selfish individualism, but collective (not in the Soviet-pejorative sense) responsibility and action: if we don't hang together, we shall hang separately. All humankind is our brother and sister, and we our the keepers of our brothers and sisters. Noblesse oblige.
We are the Government. The government does not exist, disembodied, as some 'other', apart from the people.
I'm tired of modern Republicans, who claim that welfare payments, SNAP support, child support, even Medicare/aid and Social Security, amount to some kind of dependence-breeding, loafing- and laziness-instilling handout.
We have NEVER been talking about socialism or communism. We have ALWAYS been talking about full realization of the ambitions of the Founders and the Framers, as expressed in the Preambles.
Seen in that light, Trump and modern Republicans, and the voters who put them in their places of power, are seen to have abandoned our founding ambitions.
9
The wealth tax tax middle class Americans. Not the rich billionaires and Wall Street. If this is not disclose let me make one point Pres. Donald Trump gain $260 million from this deal. Not the American people and billionaires have given a pass Scrooge for Christmas.
3
@Rick Johnson : it is what the GOP has wanted for decades. Socialize costs, privatize profits. Give money to the rich fore doing nothing. It is no secret, and what their constituency wants them to do.
Democracy in action.
6
Able-body people that can work ideally should not be getting government aid. Ideally, there should be employment opportunities that allow for them to pay for decent shelter, adequate nutrition, transportation and medical care. Is that the case? This is a complex issue that requires thoughtful strategies and solutions borne from diverse thoughts and experiences.
Maybe if we had a President that had a track record of strategic thought and a congress that spent more time solving challenging problems vs engaging in silly destructive political battles we could get somewhere.
Minimum wage, unreasonable medical costs, availability of nutritious food and access to reliable transportation are the associated problems that must be solved to really make it feasible for an able-bodied person to get off of food stamps.
5
@LDJ
Another issue for me are the Walmarts of this country. These companies were already awash in cash on their balance sheets before TRump’s corporate tax cut made them all richer. Employees didn’t benefit at all, they continue to earn such low wages that many, many need food stamps. What they need is a big raise! Get them off depending on the government for food and stop forcing taxpayers to subsidize greedy companies with tax breaks.
2
The American Dream does consist of government dependency, since the wealthy depend on government to tilt the playing field in their favor. But the dream is available only for those successful enough to deserve it. In a competitive environment, winners win and losers lose; only in sports do we find attempts to build up the losers so they too have a chance of winning, and this is because sports makes its money by keeping the spectacle interesting. In a competitive environment, winners work together to preserve their advantages against losers, and compete with each other only when these advantages are preserved and only in ways that do not weaken or diminish them.
5
Trump is and has been giving to the rich(tax cuts), and actively taking from the poor- so many examples I don't know where to start and funding his golf trips with our tax $.
9
The Democratic Party's tolerance for millions of undocumented workers is a contributing factor that leads to lower wages, fewer benefits regarding jobs for America's lower income citizens and legal residents.
Yes, the Republicans deserve plenty of criticism, but the Democratic Party isn't doing America's lower income residents any favors.
2
@Michael simple answer, make them tax paying citizens. But it would do nothing for those on food stamps. Good distraction, tho.
I'm amazed, but you also have to see it from the Republican perspective. As Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan noted in 2012, the contribution to government revenues comes from workers with wages and wealthy investors, while a massive chunk of the electorate pays no taxes at all and only take money/benefits from government revenues. Food stamps and welfare make sense when the economy is in recession or depression, but we're basically at full employment, and those who can work should be working for their own independence and contributing to society. Also, reduction in these programs may force companies to increase wages, since companies like Walmart can keep wages artificially low specifically BECAUSE its employees can supplement their wages with government handouts.
1
@JG Most people with benefits are working and paying taxes- payroll taxes pay for these benefits-- and still not making enough to get by.
3
@JG you really believe this? And what is the massive amount who pay no tax and take benefits? Do you mean social security? Any data? Which source?
2
@JG
You’re blaming low-paid employees for needing food stamps in an era of high employment?! That’s the fault of the Walmarts in this country who grabbed their corporate tax cut and stashed it in company coffers. Not a raise for any of their employees! As a taxpayer, I’m furious that companies are getting away with this while my taxes are still supporting programs like food stamps. Of course we need to feed hungry people but it’s time rich companies were somehow forced to pay a decent wage to their employees so they can feed themselves and their families.
3
This trend started when Nixon took over from LBJ, accelerated under St Ronnie and has reached its apotheosis under King Trump. There is nothing surprising about it. How dare LBJ try to make the Great Society available to the unworthy? Remember that Trump was in university when LBJ made his Great Society speech. LBJ got a lot of it done, from the civil rights act to the voting rights act to the fair housing act to Medicare to Medicaid to Headstart and Foodstamps. Trump and those of his ilk have never forgiven LBJ for it.
3
@James Ricciardi
Far be it for me to defend Tricky Dick (who I think should have gone to jail for conspiring with Kissinger prior to his election in 1968 to have the Vietnamese scuttle the '68 Paris peace deal, thus prolonging the war for 6 more years for NO reason.....) but I do think it is important to remind ourselves that Nixon was for cheap/subsidized school loans, national healthcare, and some safety net programs, including Headstart (though he tried to trim some of its costs). Nixon grew up poor, delivered fruits and vegetables for the family business every morning starting at 3:30am during high school, and he lived in a tar paper shack while in law school at Duke University, where it obviously snows. I think Nixon, despite his social and foreign policy conservativism, did not have the knee-jerk attitude that "if people are poor it is their own fault" that is currently fashionable among Tumpets, many billionaires including Steve Mnuchin's wife and Education Secretary Betsey De Vos, many tea partiers, many libertarians, and many so-called fiscal conservatives like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.
2
@Michael I am not buying your fruit and vegetables. Nixon's Southern strategy was an immediate repudiation of the civil rights act and the voting rights act, both of which had enormously positive financial affects for the minority races in the US.
2
@James Ricciardi
You are right, and I am "trumped" (you'll pardon the expression, please). I would just ask you to consider that his positions on civil rights and voting rights were entirely political strategy, possibly with some racist roots, but likely not motivated by criminalizing the poor. But--to your more salient point--motivations not only are hard to know, but they don't change the actual outcome. Again: based on everything I've read (and I believe I've read every biography published on him, and all of the memoirs published by his cabinet), Nixon did not hate or seek to punish poor people simply for being poor.
1
The GOP has been nothing but a misery machine since the advent of Ronald Reagan. Their singular goal being the concentration of all wealth and opportunity into the hands of approximately 100 people.
One has to wonder if, upon waking from his sleep, Donald Trump and the rest of the Republicans think to themselves, "What can I do today that will create the most misery and hardship for the most people?" - Particularly the poor and middle class.
10
@Chicago Guy : The GOP has been winning election after election, too. Face it, it is what Americans want. It is what they vote for. It is why the Dems have been losing for decades. The GOP message of freedom and self-sufficiency wins every time, mostly because Americans are more happy to punish those who are poorer instead of investing the effort to lift everyone up.
1
@gratis
"The GOP has been winning election after election" - uh, no they haven't. They have stolen, rigged, gerrymandered, elicited foreign intervention, lied, misdirected, and committed election fraud. And with all that, they still haven't won the popular presidential election vote since 1992.
Thanks to our corrupt and distorted elections, the GOP has been able to subject the "wisdom of the majority" to the incalculable "idiocy of the minority".
As a college student who lived in a shelter and then lived in public housing as well as was on food stamps not everyone is lazy and people ARE working hard. I did not get on food stamps to rig the system or whatever else some rich white people tend to think. I was on them because I ended up in a shelter and they helped me get back on my feet. I have since gotten my own apartment and I am back in college. People are working hard. the problem is a lot of rich people tend to be narcissistic and too entitled to care about others. I have learned to focus on myself and continue to work hard and pursue my dreams and not let American culture make me depressed and suicidal. I hope other people can benefit from food stamps like I did because it did help me.
15
Your headline "Trump Wants to Take From the Poor and Give to the Wealthy" is both obvious and pertinent. It is what he has always done one way or another. He doers not, however, restrict this to financial, no, he takes away people's dignity, career opportunities, education, reputations and by his policies sometimes lives. He is a complete and utter disaster for the Office of the Presidency, the country, the allies and indeed the whole world.
3
This is fantastic! I see how our city has been trashed by able-bodied drug users (though their substance abuse likely qualifies as a disability). At least this is a step toward legislation that tells young men and women that they must hold up their end of the social bargain. This liberal is very happy! Sometimes the trump administration can do something right!
2
It's so depressing reading day in and day out about the path the GOP is choosing to walk. Working to end the ACA, locking up immigrant families, doing nothing about gun control, cutting taxes (and raising incomes for the wealthy and corporations) and now reducing those who will obtain food stamps. The motives of the current administration play out daily in messaging and actions that serve to undercut what I had come to take for granted as American ideals. Compassion, and the ethical and moral commitment to value each other, and to govern as if this mattered.
2
It's called "Reverse Robin Hood." (RH took from the rich to give to the poor.)
2
Well said!
The deal has long been subsidy for farmers in exchange for food subsidy for the food insecure.
Why change it now?
Many farmers have a rough go of things, but it’s hard to be sympathetic to the ones that support Trump, while he causes trade wars that devastate their industry.
Also, much of what farmers produce, say corn, is not needed by anyone. It’s a Keynesian Kabuki theater, where a cast of farmers are paid by the government to go through the motions to produce corn that has insufficient demand. (In Keynes’ terms it would be more efficient to pay people to dig holes and fill them in.) Next, they put corn ethanol in gasoline and create another product nearly no one wants.
4
the phrase "working poor" does not reside in the lexicon of republican speak. Food, housing, transportation, type of work, health, age of children, community schools. All these are necessary for families and single people. Those with jobs, making decent money, worry less about them. Those who are looking, or working and hoping for better, need help. repubs tapped the tax money to build a wall - a healthy, educated people do better in all ways. Their children do better, the parents do better.
2
A very good way to bring about some change is to publicize in rural communities the names and amounts local farmers and ranchers, their neighbors, are getting from the farm subsidies! The sham belief that “we’re all in this suffering together” would wake locals up. Also helpful would be to publish regularly the salary and benefits their congressional rep makes. Lack of information about such things is a very real problem in red states like Nebraska. While everyone is complaining about their financial situation, some are making bundles from federal tax money.
3
I think that requiring some form of work for food stamps is a good idea; however the work has to be there. More importantly, I think that food stamps should only be able to be used for staples and not things like snacks and soda. I worked in one of those ever-present small box stores in an area that used food stamps heavily. Unskilled workers, some with two part-time jobs, qualified for food stamps. Many people on food stamps are working poor. It did bother me that they shopped in the most expensive place and bought junk food with their stamps. It would be simple to code out junk food. Cigarettes and alcohol purchases are not tallied and the same could be done for over priced potato chips, sodas, etc. The sellers of this stuff could care less. In fact, they love it.
2
I suppose that the administration will offer no job matching or counseling to secure those required 20 hours of employment? What about child care so those hours can be reasonably achieved? How about a transportation voucher to get to work and do daycare drop-off? This rule is clearly meant to be punitive and not productive. Nothing more, nothing less.
2
Well, as they say, the rich get richer. Another attempt to get "them", but it will probably wind up hurting more Trump believers than "liberals".
2
"Poverty is a reality for many individuals and families. But unless you've experienced poverty, it's difficult to truly understand. The Community Action Poverty Simulation (CAPS) bridges that gap from misconception to understanding. CAPS is an interactive immersion experience. It sensitizes community participants to the realities of poverty."
I took a CAPS class in my community -- I drew the identity of a 75 year old, mostly healthy, homeless man living off modest Social Security. The class had multiple identities in various levels of poverty. By the end of the 4 hours of navigating local resources, jumping through the various resource hoops and trying to do all this utilizing my local bus system, I was happy to have the identity I did. I watched disabled, elderly, newly released prisoners, veterans -- but the hardest were single moms/dads trying to navigate the same hoops while also dealing with school, childcare, doctor appointments, while trying to find a job … again most trying to do this utilizing mass transit/schedules available.
I thought I was raised poor but not this kind of poor. I had food, clothing, a decent house, a caring parent, a strong network of church and community - I had a feeling of security. I didn't think it then, but I had so much compared to so many.
I'll never forget this poverty simulation experience - talk about getting a double helping of empathy.
Joe South sang it "before you criticize and accuse, walk a mile in my shoes."
17
Same argument and proposals since the 1970's. Tax cuts for rich and cripple the diets of the low income. Remember the Reagan plan to count ketchup as a vegetable in school lunch? I see growing, not shrinking, need for food pantry assistance in what some would see as prosperous communities, but in every community there are many minimum wage jobs...and less than minimum wage workers. This is mean spirited.
5
I have a family member who lives in a one room attic apartment, works around 26 hours a week, and is again this year complaining that the minimum wage is going up again. Last year he was convinced the raise would "hurt people" because the rich businesses want to make a particular amount of money, so they will fire people. Well, he didn't get fired (unemployment is down here), he made more money than the previous year, and his boss is again telling him the sky is falling. So he is again saying they should not raise his wages. I just...don't...get it.
4
@Jacob
Some people prefer to put economic philosophy (say, belief in the fantasy economics depicted in Ayn Rand's books, or--say--belief in the "workers paradise" described by communist theoreticians ) above their own experience and above what they can empirically observe. I think this "falling in love with an idea" is inherent in religion, extreme political views, iconoclasts in any field (and we need them!), and teenagers.
Sounds, too, like your family member is also ruled by fear. And that is also human, and perhaps has been confirmed by his or her prior experience.
2
@Michael Very true. He's very religious, and terrified of losing his terrible job he has had for years. He constantly complains about it, and continually says he's going to do this or that to get a new job. But it's been years and he never does.
The aim of the Trump's and Republicans' Farm Bill is to buy votes and ensure that Trump will get the electoral votes in many states in the Midwest and South. Because food stamp is part of the Farm Bill, it's an easy calculus for Republicans to take from the poor, minorities and likely Democratic voters to give to the constituents who mostly likely to vote Republicans regardless of the disastrous consequences of trade war on the agricultural sector.
The Farm Bill has always been a subsidy to the US agricultural sector. It's unfortunate that food stamp, and thus the poor and monitories, is part of the Farm Bill and the welfare of the most vulnerable Americans has become a bargaining political tool. It's worse now under Trump and this is how democracy has become in the US. Democracy for the haves, the fews, and the connected. Tribalism reigns in the US. Americans are divided by classes, races, incomes and where they live. And this is the future because the dormant worst instincts of this country have risen to the surface.
5
Why shouldn't the government required able-bodied men and women to work a minimum of hours to eat - especially in this era of low-unemployment? Any why are 50+ exempt from the work requirement? I see people over 50 everyday in retail jobs. Trump is in office (and will likely be reelected) largely because people were and are fed up with all the free handouts with no strings attached.
@Pam: is the government going to create the jobs for these able-bodied men and women to do? As in some sort of mandatory make-work scheme? Because, seeing as we live in an era where there is little (if anything) which a machine can't do better and cheaper than a human being, there really isn't any alternative. GM can now make a care with one-fifth the human labor it needed in 1970. And under those circumstances, it's a safe bet that the private sector won't be doing the hiring.
5
Let’s just assume that the wealthy are more talented. Then why not unleash their creativity by not supporting monopolistic policies. $28B/700000 is $40K per person. Much less would do. It makes us feel better if we can step on other people’s character. Shouldn’t we put effort into stopping that. It costs less and benefits more. $700B to rescue banks, none to borrowers.
2
Wanton cruelty has become a key part of the GOP identity in this millennium. And they've discovered it plays well with many of their supporters/voters, who have a strong need for a group to look down on.
22
It's not Trump. Even if he was not the president it would be the Republican party's program, on food stamps, the environment and so on. The focus in the next election should not only be on the presidency, but more importantly, on defeating Republican candidates both at state and national levels.
11
I am certainly no fan of Mr. Trump or his policies, but after spending the last 30 years as a social worker, I must admit that our system of handouts perpetuates a culture of dependency. So many folks receiving SSI and food assistance have become paralyzed with fear of losing their subsidies. Too often government assistance kills the spirit and causes people to redefine themselves as unable. I often wish I didn't know what I know and didn't see what I see. My work was easier when I was inexperienced and idalistic.
5
@Ray And what about the rich farm corporations that are basically created by people already rich to be government subsidy sinks? Nothing. You didn't address the point of this essay at all.
It's always the poor who have to prove they are worthy of handouts. The rich just feel entitled to them.
38
This has been going on for a long time. The GOP favors welfare for corporations and the rich while making life harder and harder for struggling Americans. I'm glad that the article focused on the GOP because, all too often, articles act as if it's all The Donald and that he exists in a vacuum all on his own when in reality the GOP created the space for him to exist in our White House.
21
So whenever they're discussing immigration the NYT perpetually asserts that there are all these jobs that Americans can't fill, so we need to import unskilled labor or fields will go unharvested, buildings won't be built, and landscaping won't be done.
Yet now they seem to be claiming the opposite - that we have all these able-bodied Americans who are willing to work but can't find even a part-time, unskilled job? So which one is it?
Similarly, I think you'd find that most Americans don't want to waste money on anyone - period. However, one of the key differences between the handouts going to farmers/agribusiness versus the Trump admin's proposed cuts is that the farm subsidies at least go to those who are working and contributing something (food) of value to America. Similarly, I think most people are perfectly happy to see those who need help continue to receive food stamps - provided they're willing to put in some legwork and help themselves.
Given how many of us in white collar professions put in 50, 60 or even more hours in a week, a requirement of 20/week seems pretty attainable for a healthy adult under 50 with no children...
5
@Jon P Those farms aren't contributing anything. If America needed that food, the farms should make a profit. "Let the market decide"
5
@Jon P
@Jon P
People constantly talk about urban liberal elites who are out of touch with the rest of the country but what about all of those oblivious conservative elites like Jon here? Living in NYC, working 50,60 hours a week he can't imagine how people out there in the country can't just get up off the couch and get some of sort of job.
It's this kind of person who doesn't understand (or care to understand) what a life of precarity in an economically depressed place really entails. The kind of person who doesn't understand that getting to a job in such areas requires a car, an expense that is out of reach for most individuals. And there are so many other hurdles that the poor in this country face.
But Jon and his ilk ignore all of that. From a generous perspective, it's because they lack imagination. But actually, they're just cruel.
@Jon P Uh the farm subsidies go to farmers who may have grown nothing at all or not been able to selll their product- which is no different than someone else's business failing. The only real difference is Republican voters see welfare recipenets as nonwhites and thus will crush them whenever they can, meanwhile farmers are white "real Americans" thus will always have support of GOP base.
Is this even going to save that much money?
Unless we just let people starve this just creates more burden on lower and middle income families who will be helping to keep relatives from starving after their food stamps get cut. We are pretty much at full employment in the US- there are not a whole lot of "freeloaders" floating around out there.
We are not going to see them get jobs, we are not going to see them die of starvation. We are going to see them turn to relatives, food banks, theft etc. to eat.
10
You are right about not saving money but we have tens of millions who haven’t been in the job market for a long time
Why do we continue to glorify "work" as though it has some holy meaning? Turning one full-time job into 3 gig-economy jobs is not some heroic act for "job creators," and forcing people to fabricate unecessary work to justify consumerism is not helping our society.
41
Quality comment.
It's a bipartisan thing.
President Obama signed a nifty little ten billion dollar cut in food stamps in 2013.
And, he was willing (as part of the ever popular "grand bargain") to chain Social Security increases to the CPI (Consumer Price Index) which rises much more slowly than the currently used measure for increases.
Which, if it had ever come to pass, would have meant a twenty-five percent reduction in benefits for Social Security recipients over ten years.
So you see, they're all trying as hard as they can to get you to help yourselves. It's a character building exercise.
3
Looking at the responses to this article causes me to wonder again how far we have descended into a dog eat dog world. Apparently, the fact that there are people who cannot feed themselves on the wages they receive indicates the correct response is to let them slowly starve.
The SNAP program costs 1.6% of the federal budget. There must be some fraud and waste, 5% of that, 10%; 0.2% of the federal budget, maybe. Of all the pointless controversy that this administration could stir up, this represents a dismal low. Right up there with locking children in cages.
There are able bodied people who truly are unemployable. There are people of marginal intelligence, people with no skills, people who live in pockets of poverty and high unemployment. What should guarantee them the basics of life like food, shelter, physical safety? They are human beings and we as a nation have the resources to provide those things, that is what.
79
@AnEconomicCynic
Thank you, that is a wonderful comment.
Add to the able-bodied who cannot work, people with short-term or long-term mental health issues, people with young children and no available child care, people who need to care for elderly relatives.
Food, shelter and safety are yes, human rights, and the richest country in the world (and in history) should at least try to make these available to all. SNAP works .. why touch it. Shelter is more difficult to solve, see homeless population in many states. Safety, well our cities are much safer today than ever and if we could keep people from shooting others in urban areas or in the shopping malls of america, that would be great.
8
@Innovator
Why does everyone seem to think that people who make the choice to have children when they cant even take care of themselves deserve a free ride? In fact this law excludes such people from the work requirement. Why should being unintelligent enough to have a child you cant support mean that other able bodied people should support both the child and the parent. If anything it should provide food for the child alone.
2
@David : Did it ever occur to you that sometimes people have that child or those children BEFORE they became poor? Long-term unemployment, serious illness, or desertion by a spouse can happen to people who have been doing fine.
7
You can support Trump, or you can claim you follow the word of Jesus. But you cannot do both. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, ask yourself this question: Would Jesus be for cutting poor people off a food assistance program while giving tax cuts to Billionaires?
72
@MEW How true, and thank you for saying this! God Bless!
1
@MEW
To claim that anyone who does not support a particular government program is not following Jesus is foolish. There are many reasons that a person might support reforming a government run food assistance program. For instance, one may believe that it incentivizes bad decisions, is poorly run, corrupt or inefficient.
Jesus was concerned with the salvation of each person's soul. When he spoke of feeding the poor, helping the needy and caring for the sick, he was addressing individuals, not advocating for a massive government bureaucracy to replace individual acts of charity.
1
@Frances And yet he multiplied the loaves and fishes and fed the multitudes regardless of status.
1
Maybe the long view is that starvation might be the way to get rid of those pesky poor people? I wouldn't put it past the current administration.
12
there's not that much hypocrisy, Republicans have made it clear all along that on economics they care only about the rich.
For the others, they give then immigrants and some minorities to hate, right to gun violence, forcing women to have children they don't want, and lots of prayers. That is enough to eke out a sometimes winning coalition.
8
And now we have evidence that the trillions spent in Afghanistan were under false pretenses. Let's face it, the military budget is a huge scam, and why Americans aren't out in the streets protesting today at the news we were lied to, costing American lives and treasure, is beyond me. If we cut the military budget by just around 12%, we could pay all annual college tuition. Our priorities are really skewed, and the nation will continue its decline until we make major changes.
27
Wake up, fellow Americans! If you make less than 100k yearly, the Republicans are sharpening their knives and coming after YOU. And the less you make the more they will take from you, until you are too beaten-down to protest, too tired to march, and too hungry to care. Until then, your cries of anguish will be muffled by the triple-glazed windows of the penthouses on Billionaires Row.
24
Already happened.
1
The American federal income tax code provides deductions,credits, subsidies and lower tax rates.
But only for certain industries, persons, transactions, sources of income, business entity structures, contracts and securities favored by special interests lobbyists buying legislative, executive and judicial complicity and conspiracy.
What should embarrass and shame Americans is what is legal.
The Founding Fathers who owned property including their enslaved Africans and lands and natural resources stolen from brown aboriginal indigenous humans believed only in their white European American Judeo-Christian male equal persons with certain unalienable rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness
7
Cruel is the word.
13
Well, duh...Farmers tend to have lighter complexions that food stamp recipients. It's kind of like the opioid crisis. It's a crisis when life expectancies are falling and it involves lighter complexion individuals. But with all other complexions...let's just say no to drugs.
17
"The point of $28 billions for farmers is to ensure..."
The point is that farming these days is overwhelming CORPORATE and few seem to realize this, so "farmers" (corporations really) use their power to suck money from the government. It's corporate welfare, plain and simple.
What happens when people take Koch Broz money and then don't do what they're supposed to do? Is a hit put out on them?
6
And the Democrats want you to dupe you into believing they will take from the rich to give to the poor.
Which one is worse, the guy you know or the girl who tells you fairy tales and you fall for them?
Let them eat cake.
5
This is what you voted for, and you are getting it.
4
Republican policy is quite simple and drives everything they do.
If you are poor, you deserve to be poor, it's all your fault and we will work hard to assure that you suffer for as long as we can make you. If a person of color, so much the better.
If rich, you absolutely deserve it even if inherited, you earned it regardless and we will work hard to assure that you live guilt free and ignorant for as long as we can make you. Especially if you are, uh, one of us. Wink, wing, nudge, nudge.
That's basically it.
12
farmers have always been the
welfare kings & queens. and
the republicans are their keepers.
3
I'm not quite sure why this is even an editorial as this has been a common occurance and common knowledge, not only through the Trump years (though he and the GOP flaunt it) but we've seen this through both Bush administrations as well as Reagans'.
I also have to believe that those who read the Times regularily are well aware of this. I would love to read some op-eds of these economic wealth/power grabs which have occurred many times throughout our history.
Where are you Teddy Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln when we need you.
8
Conservative republicans have been trying to justify greed for decades now they are in power and will give handouts to the rich from Jared to corporations that earn billions but pay no taxes. Income inequality has brought down governments before and this Trump regime will be no exception .
8
Only in the mind of NYT columnists and readers is allowing all people to keep more of THEIR money "taking from the poor and giving to the wealthy."
That money does not belong to the poor, or to the government -- it belongs to the people who made it, and is granted on sufferance.
3
Nobody is going to argue about food stamps for the elderly or disabled. Why is it an issue that the government asks able-bodied individuals below a certain age to work if they want to eat? If we remove those who don't want to work, we can actually afford to give MORE to our elderly and disabled citizens.
42
@Mimi The article points out that jobs are not evenly distributed, which makes it difficult for people in certain areas to find work. And not everyone has the means to relocate.
194
@Mimi well....I agree that all able bodied adults should probably work if they can...my question regarding this oft expressed opinion: what about women with small children? most people are aware that child care costs will quickly absorb all of any income generated by jobs with salaries of $40K and less......probably $50K actually...
Those of us who reside in cities like NY or Chicago live in a rarified world where city funded daycare/pre-school is prominent. Unfortunately this is not the case in large swaths of the United States...
So women with children of pre-school age really would be better off staying at home until the children can go to school...its more affordable
That being said,the plan to "reduce dependence on food stamps" will likely shrink if someone in government takes into account the not so simple decision to require "all able bodied adults" to work...
60
@Mimi : Clearly you failed to comprehend what you read if you read the article at all, because the author spells it out clearly!
The new mandate is predicated on the patently false notion that the majority of so-called “able-bodied” adults have equal access to jobs. The rules that define any person who isn’t permanently disabled as being able-bodied are problematic on their own.
Some illnesses and injuries require longer recovery time, but under most state rules, a temporarily disabled person is considered to be able-bodied.
Then you have discriminatory practices by employers. People of color, single mothers of all races and ethnicities, people over 40, and LGBTQ persons experience discrimination in hiring that precludes jobs from being readily available to them, and that doesn’t take into account the uneven geographical distribution that exists.
This new mandate is designed to induce crime among the disenfranchise and place them on the prison pipeline, or at least trap people of color in lower wage jobs to prevent them from getting ahead.
It also defies research showing that the majority of people who use welfare are in fact white, and that the majority of welfare recipients of ALL racial and ethnic backgrounds use the benefits lawfully, and are off of them within a year or so.
That doesn’t change the goal. Trump believes that most recipients are people of color, and he knows that, regardless of this truth, stripping them will have devastating consequences.
144
The point of $28 billions for farmers is to ensure they keep voting for Trump even though his policies are at the root of their present plight. Most of those depending on food stamps that will lose that benefit are small in number and most unlikely to vote for Trump, so why should he care? A tiny reduction on the bonanza bestowed on the wealthiest Americans would easily cover those food stamps, but the Republican view is that it is better to give give a million dollars to a billionaire than a thousand to a starving man.
497
@Serban
Actually, rural Trump voters will be VERY impacted by food stamp cuts. Many are very poor. But I'm sure they'll just blame "big government and the Democrats."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-10/trump-voters-would-be-hit-hardest-by-gop-s-food-stamp-work-rules
9
@Serban - Poor starving people spend most of their time
looking for food. Voting is the last thing on their
mind. It's hard being homeless and registered to vote/
actually think about voting. Try starving the mentally
ill person with diabetes and mostly blind who will
never find a job, by cutting off his foodstamps.
Homeless people who can't shower often or launder
their clothes won't really be hired most places.
7
@Serban - The 28 billion is typical of Trump's MO - a bribe, pure and simple.
6
There is a catch 22 here. One needs a phone, reliable transportation, and a place to shower. One needs to have some resources in order to apply and keep a job that pays enough to have resources.
423
This is a huge obstacle for people.
32
@Diane B The poor should be directly provided with basics, not a check. A tiny little room, bathroom down the hall. Landline with answering machine. Cafeteria meals three times a day.
4
@Robert David South $190 a month for food benefits cost less than what you are proposing. You don't receive a check but a benefit card with restrictions on food purchases.
26
As long as Republicans, and their partners in the conservative media, can convince their base that these cuts are hurting "Those Other People" more than they are hurting them, Republican voters, even those who benefit from safety net programs, will happily support the cuts. Even if it means missing a meal or a much needed medical procedure.
The politics of resentment has kept the Republicans in power for years. They are not about to change. Especially when the donor class is willing to lavishly fund it in return for their own economic benefit.
378
@LT
I have to disagree, slightly.
"Republican voters, even those who benefit from safety net programs, will happily support the cuts."
Studies show that Republican voters [not all] who fall on hard times miraculously morph into Libs or Dems. Funny how that works. If the GOP continually squeezes the middle and lower classes they just might run out of supporters.
7
@LT >The politics of resentment has kept the Republicans in power for years.
The politics of resentment has kept the Democrats in power for years.
@LT "Politics of resentment"! Well said.
7
It's all in our use of language. It's a 'subsidy' for corporations and 'welfare' for individuals. Social contracts are 'entitlements' -- no matter how many years in we pay into them. This plays to the insecurities of folks feeling someone else is getting away with something. But that doesn't hold true for corporations that are tied up in brand loyalty and other psychological factors that exempt them from that jealousy. We don't begrudge paying for the gas in our car, nor do we really think of gargantuan oil company profits (or the lack of taxes they pay). But a neighbor on food stamps or medicaid who is still driving a car or upgrading a cell phone -- is clearly getting something undeserved.
456
Having a cell phone is necessary for getting a job. Nearly all job applications are online now. What do they think people are going to do, walk around with a paper resume like it was 1970?
221
@sandymg Reducing tax rates for anyone is neither a subsidy nor welfare, nor is it a tax cut ("the rich" paid more of the total under the TMCJ than under the previous tax law).
Also, there is no mention of "social contracts" within the Constitution, nor any reference to "income or wealth redistribution" at all, nor any implication that they were social goals, either when the country was founded or 140 years later. It took some amazing extortion of SCOTUS, for which ironically the Democrats are PROUD, to get them to agree that the New Deal, and subsequently the Great Society, were not manifestly unconstitutional.
As far as profits go, on the one hand we have the emergent results of a complex system (the price-coordinated market economy) and on the other (food stamps) we have the ATTEMPT (which always ends in failure) to intentionally restack the deck to reduce or change the complexion of poverty.
No such efforts have ever worked in the history of this planet, and you only imagine they do because the goals are redefined after they have failed to convince you they have succeeded.
They haven't.
As one who was poor more than half of my life, the poor will always be better off without government "help." If you doubt this, observe that the rate of deaths due to malnutrition, starvation and exposure did not increase during the Depression, but it was at least five years before the New Deal programs took effect.
4
@Smilodon7 he didn't say HAVING a cell phone, he said UPGRADING one. I have an iPhone 6 right now because I can't afford to upgrade. I am currently looking for a job, and I while I'm not on food stamps now, I have been in the past.
A lot of apps that I might like to use cause my phone to crash when I try to use them, because the hardware can't support the newest OS updates and the apps update to the new OS.
However I have not missed any interviews, calls, or demos because of my old obsolete phone. If I was using money I saved by using food stamps to buy my groceries to upgrade to an iPhone 10, so that I can play the games I want to play on it, would that be appropriate do you think?
7
Thank you so much for this clearly written piece. It's high time the GOP was exposed for its corruption, its hypocrisy and the ugliness behind its attacks on the poor. Republican tax and social policy does nothing but help the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful.
The resulting inequality, growing and deepening, crushes the American dream. People ARE working hard, but wages haven't grown in decades. Relative to the 1970's we're poor. A person could work ONE lower-echelon job and still afford rent, food and health care.
Today, ambitious young people do everything right, but graduate with six figures in debt. They find a home can cost in the high six or even seven figures. Health care is amazingly expensive.
Imagine NOT being well-educated, or old, or trying to be an artist or an entrepreneur or working on an advanced degree. Rents are out of control. Few cities have decent public transportation so you're trying to run a car on top of it all.
Our economic situation is this/close to disaster. Most Americans are living precariously. That's the opposite of the American dream of security and a bright future.
The fact that one of our two major political parties wraps itself in bibles and flags and then turns around and attacks poor and working people is truly disgusting and immoral to the core.
619
@Sophia
Good points.. everything we use here is Made in China -- and much of what we eat is produced abroad. Tomatoes from Holland . I do not buy Smithfield pork products-- owned by the Chinese. This is because:CEOs must produce profits for shareholders-- the eleventh commandment! Build into the Protestant ethic in certain cases is the notion of predestination and if you are poor God intended that.
40
@Sophia So well said. What has happened to our humanity?
20
@Sophia
"Imagine... trying to be an ARTIST".
I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask that someone who wants to live off society instead of having a regular job like everyone else work or volunteer 20 hours a week! I don't want to go to work every just to survive but I do. Why should I subsidize someone who is a failed or failing artist? While i agree with most of your statement this is hardly a position that I think many would support.
2
The Republican Party is pretty much a sham. Over the past thirty years or so, it has morphed into a highly successful marketing firm and left behind any semblance of a political party that even nominally shows respect for the citizenry.
Using statistical analysis and constant research, the party has learned how to manipulate the electorate into voting against their best interests in nearly every election. Using the two levers of the 2nd Amendment and abortion, the GOP indeed does give to the rich and take from the poor.
698
@Clyde : I am not a midwestern auto worker. I am not a farmer, or truck driver. I work in finance in the NY Area and my stock portfolio is up $3M since Nov 2016. I would like to thank all the blue collar voters for this, and encourage them to keep voting Republican.
10
@Clyde You are so right. I have always said that Reagan was the beginning of the end, and now it looks like the end is approaching. Whether that will be a good end or bad depends on whether enough Republicans are willing to speak the truth.
As for the Trump voters I know, they will give up anything for guns and an abortion ban, no matter how it is obtained. They want that AR-15 to fight when the government comes for them and their money. They work hard and think other people don't. They go to church every week, sometimes twice or three times.
They only pay attention to the sound bites social media and Fox News, without doing any reading or research, though it is easily available to them on the Internet and the public library. How to open their eyes to the advantages of universal healthcare, education, or a better safety net, I don't know. These are some of the people who would benefit the most, but they somehow think it would curtail individual freedom to receive healthcare or be able to afford higher education.
There it is - unless a few of the Republicans in Congress decide to speak the truth, it's all pro-gun and anti-abortion.
42
@Clyde This all started with Reagan, who did have more ethics than all the Republicans today, combined. Yet, he closed down many institutions that served the poor and mentally ill. Now those people are on the streets, living under freeway overpasses or the park near your home. They have been abandoned to poverty and death, and need much more than the $5. in your billfold.
Yesterday, I saw one homeless man in the bank, trying to do banking. The teller was infinitely patient with this man who was confused and obviously mentally ill. The teller was trying to convince this man to not give his money to other people or he would run out.
We have nothing to "catch" folks before they go "down the rabbit hole". Now food stamps will be decreased and this will be a virtual death sentence to many. Without the volunteer efforts of those in food banks and sometimes produce donation, these folks would starve to death in a country that throws more food away than any country in the world. It is a moral and ethical disgrace.
36
Anyone who believes this President and his party care for the average working stiff needs only to look at policy decisions like this one to discount that notion. For many men, women and children who qualify for the SNAP program or other food subsidies, it means a few decent meals a day and staving off hunger. The fact that this administration spends far more energy engineering ways to reduce the tax burdens of billionaires than protecting those without informs us on whose side they are on.
3
Republicans know that people who struggle to find at least 20 hours per week of employment, that are in these struggles just to find food and shelter, are not likely to be registered voters.
8
And yet, those people who could be significantly hurt by this continue to vote Republican. Only because of their ginned up fear of brown and black people. The GOP has to answer for this.
3
This is America. We can afford anything we want, be it new aircraft carriers or tax breaks for billionaires or subsidies for farmers. The GOP is filled with evil old men who do not care who does or doesn't get to eat. This isn't an economic problem, it is a moral problem. "But some people will cheat the system!" Why care? Feed the poor like Jesus would. Let's start there.
25
Over 40 million Americans receive snap benefits. An inconvenient fact left out of these articles.
@Dave
A majority of SNAP recipients work.
https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/most-working-age-snap-participants-work-but-often-in-unstable-jobs
@Dave
And have you looked at who gets them? No, isn't isn't lazy inner city black and hispanic people (the standard trope of the GOP, who created the 'welfare queens driving cadillacs' under St. Reagan), one of the largest beneficiaries of food stamps, like with medicaid, are senior citizens. Do you want to cut them off?
After the Crash Of 29 we the people came to the obvious conclusion capitalism isn't perfect, but there's ways to make as much money as you want and at the same time be considerate of others.
Once again, this is being ignored. The safety put in place after people were starving on the streets, death came to many. Misery became everyone's affair.
This administration reacts to the think tanks who have inspired denial. Denial that people who we declared help all over the world die. Journalists, farmers in India, The Middle East, Afghanistan. Yemen. Central America. South America. We built The Panama Canal. Look what happened.
Here at home, refusing Food Stamps is beyond cruel, it is ignorant. Ignorance is something this administration also denies. So that means they are purposely going to let the poor suffer and die.
8
The official unofficial Republican motto has always been: no one deserves anything they can't pay for themselves. Small government, small taxes.
Yet, when you ask them about things like the military and public highways, they just take those for granted.
Here is the problem about "We need to encourage people by giving them a helping hand but not allowing it to become an indefinitely giving hand.”
The playing field is not level.
The playing field has never been level and never will be level because of ultra rich people like Sonny Perdue. That's how they want it.
You'd think they'd want the neediest people to have food, health care, and an education to become self-sufficient—not needing the helping hand anymore—but they have thwarted every chance they've had to help those people along.
Why? Because most of these people are immigrants and minorities.
Essentially, brown people.
And there's only so much pie to go around. Can't have rich, white people getting less than what they're already getting.
2
@Joe
Or the red states, whose people take pride in being "low tax states", strut and preen like peacocks about how they earn everything they get, they get nothing from the government, are self reliant, etc........and meanwhile, they get back 3 or 4 bucks for every dollar they send into the federal government. States down south get significant percentage of their education budgets from either DOE money or block grants, their roads and highways get multiples less than they pay in, but they 'don't get nothing'. Farmers, who claim to be these self sufficient heroes of the country, get all kinds of subsidies and programs, everything from subsidized seeds developed by the Dept of Agriculture, to the low cost crop insurance that shields them from crop failure, to the subsidies for growing (or not growing) crops, not to mention the amount of federal aid farm states gobble up.
We have a term for people who get things they don't pay for, it is called a freeloader, and by that count most of Trump nation are freeloaders. Put it this way,my state gets back like 66c for every dollar we send into uncle Sam and we pay for the programs in our state as well as for all the red states. If we got back 1 buck for every dollar we sent in, our local taxes would be much lower, and if we were like the hookworm belt, that averages 3 bucks/every dollar sent in, we would be sitting pretty.
3
The brazenness of all it just floors me. The administration hands out billions to businesses of all kinds and tells poor people to just take a hike.
9
The hypocrisy of the GOP is palpable on many issues, food stamps, social safety net, education, abortion, the list is long.
8
Wow.
You mean GOP cruelty hadn’t already been exposed?
Like for the last 30 years since the advent of Lee Atwater in the Reagan years?
3
@Franco51
It was exposed long ago. The sad and frightening part is how many people are fine with it.
Where's Robin Hood when we need him?
2
God forbid able bodied people work 20 hours a week. You can't be serious.
3
@Dave
That's not the point of the article and you know it.
This pales compared to the heinous inhumane crime of separating immigrant children from their parents and leaving them in cages.
Have we forgotten there are still thousands of immigrant children suffering immense trauma daily in these detention centers.
Can you imagine their immense fear, their overwhelming homesickness and deep seated psychic pain your own children would be suffering if they were ripped from your arms and warehoused like animals?
This is cruelty beyond anyone's imagination.
Trump and Stephen Moore are truly evil to the core.
And where are the Trump family mothers?
Family Values Ivanka and Be Best Melania?
How would they feel to have their children ripped from their arms, caged, and tormented for months?
When Melania proudly struts out before the media, wearing a cheap jacket that shouts, "I really don't care, do you?", to "visit"an immigrant children's detention center, we need to believe her.
Trumps do not care.
4
Maybe the filthy rich should be made to toil (as in really work) in order to get access to their silver-spoon earnings.
2
The poor are ready to give.
Just like a conman thrives on deceit , if buyers do not educate and learn , the snake_oil vendor wins!
Remember the awesome case "McDonald told ,, we are not forcing people to eat our Junk burgers"
In democracy, people votes but democracy fails if people do not learn from mistakes!
What I can't get out of my mind is Trump's statement to his wealthy friends..."I just made you lots of money".......announcing his "tax reforms"! Anything this man does is predicated on that....making money. Shameful! Maybe we could use some of those tents we supply for the poor refugees in the tent cities for our homeless in Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia?
2
Let’s see the evangelicals mobilize on this one and live out their creed.
@db2
Hah! The evangelicals swallow the prosperity gospel hook, line and sinker, and will tell you that the poor are poor because they are morally unfit. Want to have fun? Cite Jesus admonition to the well off, especially the line about a rich man getting to heaven is like a camel going through the eye of a needle, and watch them dip and dodge and tell you "oh, Jesus was kidding, he had a really great sense of humor' or even better "Jesus of course was telling us that the rich have a special place and duty, and by the rich having more money they set a standard that poor people can look up to".
It isn't just the evangelicals, the Catholic Bishops have stayed amazingly mum, they threaten lawmakers who are pro abortion or pro LGBT rights, but I haven't heard them threaten the Catholic politicians who support this travesty.
Many WI farmers heard Perdue’s comment “the big get bigger and the small go out.” The topography of my rural WI location precludes large dairy. And the many family farmers here recognize that the bad farmers were culled during Butz’s assaults in the early 1970s. The current ag bailout is not helping here though CAFOs up north are benefiting. It is well past time to support small, local ag enterprises instead of the corporations that mine fields planted in corporate seed to create the corporate food products that are fattening us up. Better to link SNAP benefits with Community Supported Ag enterprises and for a work requirement include farm labor, from dibbling to hoeing to harvesting and sorting. We need local creativity in Washington.
1
Counter arguments to SNAP often seem a Victorian-age search for the "deserving poor." Do people really believe anyone wakes up and decides to stay home since they are looking forward to being hungry all day? In a country where the USDA estimates we waste 30 to 40 % of the food supply we need to re-think why we need anyone to go hungry in 21st century America. Then we can look at lousy transportation infrastructure, lack of adequate housing, maldistribution of health care services or the constant churning of schedules for minimum wage jobs which prevent people from budgeting as other barriers to full participation in the work force.
2
I am the sole, half-time staff for a tiny Habitat for Humanity affiliate in central New York State. Our top volunteer is a man with a past who served his time, but who would have trouble being hired because of that past. Instead, he has volunteered thousands of hours with us over the past two years. He has tremendous talents and experience in construction. He stands in one of the houses he's given so much of himself to and says, "This is my church." Last week he asked me for a letter certifying that he gives 20 hours a week to our organization, b/c he fears losing his food stamp benefits. I will gladly provide the letter. But I fear for him losing access to simple, basic food.
10
America is not Sherwood Forest!
Seems like government dependency of the lazy rich is never a problem for the Republicans! Trump's golf outings could probably pay for this, but, nooooo, the "Christian" party doesn't believe in Christian charity!
6
Republican HYPOCRISY?
It's not hypocrisy when this is what Republicans have wanted to do all along. The thing is now they're emboldened, enabled by a bottomless pit of Koch Broz money, and not even trying to hide it any more from the gullible. They won't stop until every valuable thing is in the hands of the wealthy. Once the wealthy own and control EVERYTHING, that's it: Game Over. We will have then entered the age of post-modern Feudalism.
So wake up people. We were mired in Feudalism a long time ago, and the only thing that broke its back was the Great Plague of the 1300s. We've moved on to something better than that. but these people want to return to it.
Power cedes nothing without demand. Demand that this ends, now.
10
I don't see any hypocrisy in the republican position. Their constituents are the 1% and extreme religious right. The democrats are trying to represent everyone else.
Everyone wants wealth and power, but most of us are NOT willing to rob the treasury, usurp all laws, or destroy democracy. Republicans ARE willing, democrats are NOT willing.
Vote accordingly.
7
One of two ideas that the Republicans have had in the last 40 years is the one that trumpets fiscal responsibility. It was among the ideas that made me an economic Republican in my foolish youth. Now, of course, we realize that the idea was always to plunder the economy to the benefit of tax cuts for a few people. When Republicans say what America wants, they mean their donors and the influence peddlers around those donors. It took me a while to realize that this sort of cynicism was possible. At any rate, I can now spend the second half of my life in the loyal opposition.
7
Trump isn't the real problem. The real problem is the conservatives and their handmaidens the Republicans.
Those conservatives have radicalized the Republicans to the point of their now viewing seditious partisan actions BY THEM to be perfectly acceptable. They are the reason that Trump can do all of the damage that he is doing.
The Democrats need to speak bluntly to the public about those truths if those conservatives are to be prevented from destroying this republic.
10
So if ripping families apart was not sufficient to show tRump's cruelty, perhaps this is. Somehow, I doubt whether any Republican will be moved by tRump's willingness to starve nearly a million poor people. This is indeed an administration of cruelty and inhumanity.
2
In addition to the criminal acts, Trump and his party will be remembered for their lack of compassion and cruelty to so many at risk individuals and families.
What a shameful legacy he will leave and such an incredible embarrassment for our country.
2
History will judge him accordingly. I predict he will be lauded.
1
Low income jobs and jobs involving the "gig" economy tend to be extremely insecure. People find themselves in between jobs more often now than ever (and until the government/business world can guarantee a job for everyone many people will have lapses in income). What does one do when the pay checks run dry? Obviously, look for another job but until then, with no income, go hungry or become homeless. I work in a food pantry and all of our clients are working poor, frail elders, or disabled. They truly need help and small non profits cannot fill the need. We need the SNAP program expanded not restricted. It is horrifying to know that adults and children go hungry in this country. Shame on Trump and Purdue.......shame on all of the Republicans to support restricting SNAP while subsidizing large corporations like agri-business. It is a disgusting strategy.
2
I once went to a economics lecture given by a well known professor. It was populated by men in silk suits.After a while I got the gist of the lecture which was classic economics theory. I asked "What about the poor, what about the environment?" They had nothing to say about the environment but about the poor one man answered "There is waste in every system"
This seems to be how many of the wealthy look at the poor and struggling, as waste in the system. It certainly explains the current administrations contempt of the sick,the suffering and the poor. Christians especially should take note. Are those children still in cages?
6
This article accurately documents the historical facts of GOP policy. The basic strategy is to maintain a relatively small class of corporate owners that are highly subsidized out of public funds. This class is then provides the money to keep the GOP in power, they are Mitch McConnell's 'donors'. No hypocritical rational by the Republicans is off limits if it helps maintain this utterly self serving structure. Throughout history this has been the behavior of oligarchs and oligarch wannabes in many now fallen empires, fallen due to the distortions produced by this myopic strategy.
3
The poor are deliberately impoverished by cruel conservative social policies because conservatives believe that the poor deserve to starve. I don't know how long it will take Americans to realize that this is and has always been the case. I fear never.
3
It’s not Trump. It’s the Republican members of the House & Senate - aka the GOP. This has been the plan before Trump and will continue long after he is gone.
1
@Dan Au
Trump is just the cherry on top. For inexplicable reasons, he's extremely attractive and persuasive to the very people the GOP aims to exploit. LBJ's theory about the lowest white man came to life.
If you're an able bodied young adult, get off the couch and contribute to society instead of taking from it.
This is quite clearly a case of some folks needing a bit of encouragement to enter the workforce.
Perhaps we should look back in Mr. Olmstead's history to see what he had to say about Bill Clinton's Welfare To Work bill he signed into law?
I'm guessing he was all for it..before he was against it.
3
@Erica Smythe
A lot of the people on SNAP, despite what the GOP says, are not young, able bodied adults, they aren't young black and hispanic inner city young people who are too lazy to work. A significant percentage of food stamps beneficiaries are the poor elderly, many of them too old and feeble to work. Others who receive this are people who lack jobs skills or have a past that precudes them from getting jobs.
As far as Clinton's welfare to work bill, I suggest you look at what happened with that, what they found out is what many of the welfare advocates said, that the idea that people were living off welfare benefits and living the highlife was a myth, and it was proven correct. What Democrats found out was that the real intent of the program was simply to get rid of welfare, that many of the people called 'lazy' in fact because of lack of skills, lack of access or disabilities and things like criminal records kept them from getting jobs. The GOP promoted the myth of the welfare queen and the "new Democrats" bought it, and 25 years later the consequences are well known.
At least with the Democratic bill, they provided for job training and required recipients either to work or be in job training, and tried to make sure there was training for them. The GOP bill makes no such provision, it basically says "work, and if you can't work, starve".
1
@Erica Smythe But what if you are neither able-bodied nor young? What if you are elderly, frail, sick, in constant pain, or with significant mental issues? What if you are a single parent of young children or caring for aging parents who have no other recourse? Then what?
Just get off the couch? Right. That will fix everything.
1
@Karen Then this new rule doesn't apply to you.
Perhaps reading comprehension needs to be a baseline requirement before graduating from 9th grade, let alone being able to post in the NYT.
This should come as no surprise from the party that brought you the “welfare queen” scapegoat of the Reagan Administration.
It should be noted that few GOP congressmen know anything at all about what it is like to live in the depths of poverty, nor do any of them appreciate the difficulties inherent in getting out.
Nor do any of them care. To many of the GOP, the under-privileged are irredeemable losers. Our country has long believed in the ideal of the “self-made” man; a concept that is a fraud, more often than not. We have only to look at Trump, who coasted through his life with the benefit of inherited money.
As is so glaringly evident in the impeachment proceedings, most of the GOP would rather cling to false ideals and images of themselves than undertake the daunting task of confronting the nation’s most urgent problems.
3
@Susan
Hey, c'mon, "our president" worked hard to achieve what he has, the poor guy struggled, why, don't you know it is so hard to try and make it on a 680 million dollar inheritance? How hard it is to make it in business when you only have all these contacts dear old dad left to you with the money? I mean, you only live the high life if you inherit at least a billion.......
The GOP loves to tell tales of struggle, Paul Ryan talked about working in a McD's when he was a teenager, or Mitt Romney talked about "struggling" when he started out, when he had a wealthy and powerful father and knew if he ever ran into truly hard times would not worry about food, a roof over his head or medical care. The ones who did grow up in modest circumstances, on the other hand, pretend like they grew up in dire poverty and no one handed them anything. I saw a candidate whose family were farmers talking about how they made it through hard work and determination, how they didn't depend on anyone (and needless to say, Farmers are heavily subsidized and depend a great deal on the federal government), others who worked their way out of poverty often did so thanks to government financial aid that let them go to college..but don't tell them that.
The corporate wing of this country in both parties has been doing this for over a century, in differing ways.
And faster since Reagan. Why is this news?
3
There's no hypocrisy here...this is what the GOP has always wanted. The writer shouldn't be trying to fool the naive reader that Conservatives and/or the GOP cared about such services.
Repubs have been working for this and other such moves, for decades now. The Trump Circus is just doing it in leaps and bounds.
3
At the same time Trump and his corporate cronies are eliminating safeguards to prevent banks and other financial institutions from commuting fraud on consumers. And that totals trillions of dollars going who knows where.
2
Hypocrisy is the hallmark of the GOP. If a Democrat had committed any of the myriad sins that Trump and his Republican enablers and apologists have committed, they would be screaming from the rooftops. A partial list:
1. Refusal to act on a duly nominated Supreme Court nominee.
2. Using taxpayer dollars to patronize the president's own private businesses.
3. Lying on an hourly basis, including to Congress.
4. Attempting, by bribery and coercion, to engage a foreign power in a presidential election.
5. Accepting and soliciting election aid from enemies of the state, especially Russia.
6. Befriending and defending a murderous dictator, MBS, who has orchestrated the execution of a journalist based in the U.S.
7. Playing catch and kill with the National Enquirer to squelch stories about the president's serial infidelities. (Remember how exercised the Republicans were about Clinton/Lewinsky?)
And on and on. And what do we hear from the family-values GOP and its corrupt leadership (McConnell, Graham, et.al.) of soulless sycophants and hypocrites? A big fat zero. It's incredible to me that only three years ago clowns like Graham and Rubio and Cruz were denouncing Trump as a fraud and completely unfit for office. They are beneath contempt.
10
Let's see we give huge tax breaks to the oil and gas industry to the tune of billions of dollars a year. We spend roughly $45 a year in Afghanistan. So $165 a month in SNAP benefits to those who are hungry is somehow going to help the bottom line of the U.S. government? Gimme' a break. And to the commenters who bash the recipients, shame on you.
24
@C.P. Edit, $45 billion a year in Afghanistan.
1
Almost 50% of food in the United States is thrown away into landfills, And now Trump and the republicans want to further punish poor people for the crime of being poor.
No different than Victorian England.
I ask myself everyday: what motivates these people to be so cruel? Do they wake up thinking new ways to make others suffer, esp when they have everything themselves?
And on top of it, they call themselves Christian.s
12
Can we also tally up how much the taxpayers have had to pay for Trump to go golfing and how much of that money could be used for food stamps? what do they want, people to steal food, get arrested and go to jail. Am also tired of reading comments that begin with "The founders never intended for...". The country was founded in the late 1700, I think the founder never intended for guns to fire dozens of round per minute, for air travel, for the life expectancy we have today or for terrorism, so please stop saying that.
6
@Jonathan Yes, then the large GOP donors who own private prisons will rake in even more taxpayer money. Like the detention camps where asylum seekers are being held and fed. Follow the money.
1
“ Conservatives “ are all the same, despite the slick packaging, the highly paid Consultants and Professional Managers. It’s reverse Robin Hood : Take from the Poor and the ever shrinking Middle Class, and Give to the Rich. They are simply political prostitutes, and the Rich and Corporations are their clients. Refuse to participate, people. If you Vote for any GOP candidate, you are participating in their fraud. If you Vote third Party, or don’t Vote at all, you are helping them. Friends don’t let friends vote Republican, and decent people get off the couch and Vote for Democrats. Talking to YOU, young people.
Seriously.
11
Not just Trump. All republicans. It is a double whammy opiate that has fueled this Trump frenzy. Kicking and starving the poor is deeply satisfying to all of them; if they can wave the confederate flag, segregate, and dominate - well so much the better.
But helping the rich - particularly when it is taken from the poor - is what makes their opiate addictive. Any day now, you see, once enough people are suffering and dead, republicans and the MAGA set will be rich too, and benefit personally at the expense of the poor people. They are all just one handout, one lotto, one payday away from untold riches.
4
This proves without a doubt that Republicans care only for what their paymasters tell them to care about. To the applause of their clueless base, and as conscientious mercenaries in the pay of their donors, they get the job done.
3
If congressional Republicans get any worse than they already are, they'd better seriously think about going into hiding.
3
I just want to thank the government for feeding me and my single parent back in the day. My job was to steal the toilet paper the stamps wouldn't buy back in Detroit. My mother was so good at exploiting the system she passed at 49. I took two weeks off from high school to help wrench a monkey off her shoulders. But hey I did my four years unlike any corporation I know. Got a bunch of diplomas and paid a lot of taxes. Raised a doc and a lawyer who make more than me. Children need to eat and sometimes adults and parents need a little help. So, again, I just wanted to thank the government.
12
Ah, if only those whom this cruel deprivation will affect would vote in a bloc. If they had a lobby. Had the evangelicals and assorted Christians behind them.
4
The interests of the upper classes include having laborers forced to work for subsistence. Anything over subsistence is seen by these people as taking away from their excess wealth. We have a history of slavery in this country that is not finished. Remember that the first slaves were indentured servants who were white.
What's especially confounding is the way the modern Republican party plays racism and xenophobia to get workers to vote against their own interests. Sad!
4
Let's keep in mind that this is an attack upon blameless children. It's children who will suffer most from this reduction in food availability. It connects with the fact that trump has removed 100,000 children from their families at the border. That's right, you read it correctly - ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND children.
3
You can be sure that Mr. Perdue and other current members of the Trump administration aren't missing too many meals. They clearly have no idea what it is like to be hungry or sick and unable to find work.
10
Giving billions to wealthy farmers while taking food from the mouths of hungry children. Merry Christmas from the Republican Party of Trump.
5
SNAP cost for a family of four is $6400 per year. One Trump trip to Mar-a-Lago for a weekend of golf costs taxpayers $3.4 million. Each Mar-a-Lago weekend would cover the annual cost of SNAP for 531 families. If Trump manages to play 36 holes on a weekend, that's 15 families doing without SNAP for each hole of golf Trump plays at taxpayer expense - 30 children going undernourished for a year so our President can play one hole of golf.
Trump has made 38 trips to Florida since taking office, almost all of them to Mar-a-Lago.
As a nation, we own this because we enable it. "Where your treasure is, there also is your heart."
5
Republican playbook:
-Congressman takes money from the poor
-Congressman gives money to the wealthy
-Wealthy give money (Citizen's United) to the Congressman
-Congressman stays in office
-Wealthy gets wealthier
-Poor get poorer
This is the Republican goal
10
Why should able bodied people with no dependents be given handouts, which by the way do not come from the government but from my tax dollars of which I paid plenty. I can guarantee that every welfare and food stamp recipient has a smart phone, no problem afford that
4
How is someone going to get a job without a phone? Employers expect to be able to get ahold of you and expect you to apply online.
3
@EAH
I feel the same way about churches. When are THOSE deadbeats going to start paying their fair share?
That's long been the Conservatives wealth redistribution game.
3
Helping hand but no dependency... alright but let us examine the helping hand. In order to get a proper education, 95% of Americans need to borrow money. In order to live on minimum wage, we need to work at least two jobs. And lets not forget healthcare, where most of us avoid seeing a doctor until we are dying because we are fearful of the cost. Where is the helping hand? It seems that our government is more interested in keeping their boots on our throats, making sure that we cannot rise, so that they can apply socialism to those who do not need it.
5
Because of the improved economy with record unemployment, there is really no excuse for not having a job in Trump's America, therefore, food assistance programs can be scaled back so that resources can go those who truly need them. Thank you.
2
SNAP benefits hardly amount to a gravy train: the average recipient gets about $125 a month.
And the value it provides goes beyond household food aid: the money goes right back into the local economy.
7
No pun intended regarding the agricultural bailouts, but you are comparing apples to oranges.
Agriculture in the United States is crucial for every single resident.... we need food. Too many farms have closed.
Mandating that able bodied people work (and quite honestly as a physician, it is extremely rare to see someone who is completely disabled- it is amazing what people can do when they have no better option) is good policy on every level.
It is time to ask that the poor contribute effort, as they are certainly not contributing taxes.
3
Just being able to work doesn’t mean you can convince an employer to hire you. Try being over 50 and unemployed.
2
@Smilodon7
What about the 20-30-40 year olds?
I hear all about jobs that "Americans won't do." Somehow immigrants will and we excuse the Americans? Rather demeaning to the immigrants.
1
It would likely be a statistical nightmare to implement, but how about volunteering at least ten hours, if work is not available?
Just as there are people willing to exploit a system for personal gain (our president and his many bankruptcies and non payment to vendors), so there are SNAP recipients who will game the program. I believe these people are a rare exception. Most people appreciate being part of a community and want to contribute. Few people enjoy being on the receiving end, especially for food.
I receive SS benefits, and I worked hard for them. There should be nothing shameful about working for food, when it is possible to do so. Isn't that what most of us do, every day? Work for food? That said, the benefits sound pretty meager, and if push comes to shove, nobody should go hungry because they are not working. Not in this nation of enormous wealth.
5
Meanwhile, others are pushing for a universal basic income which will ensure EVERYONE has enough money to eat every month, and start us on the road to eliminating labor altogether (which technologists predict will happen in a few decades anyway as A.I. eliminates ALL jobs).
This kind of "if you don't work you don't eat" mentality was effective when 97% of the world were farmers. In today's world it makes absolutely no sense.
11
Capitalism at its best, and alas large numbers of American voters will continue to support it!
4
Yes, the problems of “postindustrial collapse, community breakdown, economic inequality, racism, systemic poverty, homelessness or drug addiction” etc, make it difficult for people to find work. But on a micro level, even if there are some low level jobs available in a community, many unemployed people do not having a computer to look for jobs, type a resume, upload their resumes, create an email account so they can receive information from a potential employer. The do not have transportation to get to job interviews. Mobile vans going out into communities, in the same way mobile health vans do, with community coaches and social workers assisting people with employment is what’s needed.
4
Trump knows what he's doing. The worse he treats his base, the more the love him. Of course, these actions are not limited to his base, but make no mistake, his base will be strongly affected yet it will only increase their support of him.
8
Of course Trump is giving most subsidies to the corporate farms; it is likely they could have afforded to support him for president. The small farms in America are dying a slow and painful death.
As everything else corporate, soon all fruit and vegetables will be under the control of corporations. It is often the large growers, where less care is put into produce, that bans due to bacteria such as listeria occur. Here in Ca, I would much rather support the small farms and ranches that show up at farmer's markets. It is these small farms and ranches that take pride in their produce, and that we must support so that they survive.
13
Part of the irony in all this is that Trump continues to bash states with high homeless populations. Instead of pointing figures which is easy to do, why not come up with working solutions which the food stamp cut is not. That is the hard work of government that needs to be done. You can't do that Tweeting 100 times a day or while playing golf.
22
It's ironic that this push to cut SNAP benefits comes out at the same time that we're learning of the Trillions of dollars and thousands of lives that have been wasted in the ill-conceived and botched execution of our military/nation-building campaign in Afghanistan (not to mention, Iraq). How about we require every corporate defense executive to put in at least 1,000 hours each year in the combat zones of Afghanistan, AND limit their compensation to the average infantrymen on tour there ! ! !
55
Republican policy has always registered disdain for the poor, both black and white. However, the wealthy have always had a knack for pitting groups they hold in contempt against each other and revel in the animosity and violence they create.
Somewhat like human cack fights.
Truly a worthy political party.
16
@Maureen Steffek
Please clarify what the black side of the animosity and violence is.
Hah, not only Trump. All of his supporters, too. Many farmers who lost their farms, many factory workers who lost their jobs are happy to sacrifice their own livelihoods to make Trump richer, and will vote for him again.
The thing liberals do not get is that Americans incentivize the rich by giving them huge chunks of taxpayer money for doing nothing, and incentivize the poor by taking everything, healthcare, education and food, away from them. And the more the poor makes the more there is to take away and give to the rich. That is why America is so great. It must be, because the poorest states totally support Trump.
14
But isn't that exactly the objective of this administration? Get rid of the poor and give it all to the rich? Does anyone really expect them to change?
11
Farmers are PRODUCERS, Whereas able bodied, non-disabled, non- pregnant, young people on SNAP are more of TAKERS. The hypocracy called out is a false equivalence.
4
The GOP are paying for the farmers' votes in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio -- all swing states. This isn't rocket science. Trump is pouring as much money as possible into these states and he is going to remind them about it during the campaign.
78
*1. The Founders never once thought that the federal gov't should have any system for handing out money to anyone. Look how long it took to even get benefits other than war veteran pensions - 1934.
*2. When some pressure is applied to welfare beneficiaries, many do got out and find work.
There is a definite need for assistance like this, BUT if most voters were to learn what share of all food assistance goes to non-citizens who walked over the borders, the whole thing might be voted out of existence.
5
@L osservatore Non-citizens are still human beings, and the need and deserve to eat.
2
@L osservatore
#2. Nothing to support this conjecture.
Also, you fail to address big agro getting gov subsidies. Yes, must be a GOP supporter. Draw conclusions based on zero evidence, ignore substantiated conclusions.
4
@L osservatore
But you have no idea what share goes to "non-citizens", if any.
3
The farm subsidies also artificially lower the price of meat, make it difficult for developing nations to compete against unfair trade policies, and are wasteful. For a party that is all about preserving free market ideals, this is a pretty big distortion of the free market. Hypocrisy is business as usual in Washington DC
10
@Srivikram
Why should we care about giving people in developing countries a better chance of selling their goods in the US at the expense of higher prices for us?
3
Restoring the human dignity of an able-bodied American by compelling them to find work—especially in this 3.5% unemployment economy, is kind, not cruel. And not providing government benefits to those in the US illegally is not cruel, it’s holding the Rule of Law in the high regard it deserves. Trump bashing is popular. And the President makes himself an easy target sometimes. But in this case, it is Trump bashing that, ironically given the headline, is just about being cruel.
12
But by depriving people of help, this prevents them from getting jobs. If you can’t show up clean to a job interview because you have nowhere to shower and wash clothes, what do you think your likelihood of getting that job is?
30
@ehillesum , Do you honestly think that there is some vast pool if food stamp recipients out there who are choosing not to work because it's easier to get by with assistance? This is a continuation of the Reagan era myth of "welfare queens" that has been used time and again by Republicans as an excuse to cut benefits to the needy. I have news for you - most people do actually want to work at a job that offers a living wage.
25
Many states that required people to work 20 hours a week lost massive numbers of food stamp recipients despite most already working those hours. Why? The requirement was to enter the information via internet. Many did not have access to the internet, especially in rural areas. The programs to enter the information were difficult to use, leading to most work hours not correctly logged.
It appears the program is designed to drop food stamp recipients rather than to encourage work.
Most recipients already work, but do not make sufficient money to have food and shelter.
13
Canada takes care of its people. Canada also has a strict and fair immigration policy that also takes care of the immigrants that do make the cut. You do not see the issues that have brought the US to its knees. There is a lesson here to notice, if you can take the time to digest it.
24
I was thrilled to hear of a Canadian program where immigrants requesting asylum were transported to areas needing more workers than were already available. They were given work, wages, food and shelter until their cases came up for review. Those who worked hard were more likely to receive asylum.
Trump’s system is to have taxpayers pay extreme amounts to imprison immigrants requesting asylum.
3
@joyce How has the US been "brought to its knees"?
3
Who decides not to get a job because they are getting less than $50 per week in snap benefits?
84
@Kay Sieverding - $50 doesn't cover even a fraction of the cost of child care required when a parent takes a job.
4
@Kay Sieverding It's not the SNAP benefits. The decision is made when someone is a single parent with two small children, making minimum wage (in some states, $7.25 per hour, so if you are working 40 hours/week, $1160 per month), while childcare on average runs between $500 - $1000 per child per month. So if you choose to work, and must put your children in childcare, you will actually be losing money in many cases.
3
@Kay Sieverding
Maybe people who have cancer and are dying, maybe its people who are special education, maybe its people who are suffering from PSTD. Maybe the hate of the GOP has blinded people who thought they lived in America where people who were in charge cared about their fellow human beings. alas we live in la la land of the haters. who live in fear of poor people . Trump better watch how he is treating his base, they like food and health care.
3
The wealthy agricultural businesses donate to campaigns so their aid flows freely. Not only do poor not have money to donate to campaigns, it's harder then ever for them to vote thanks to Republican campaigns to reduce their polling places and strengthen ID laws.
If you want our government to work for all, campaign finance reform is where you start.
29
I've been on SNAP since the '08 recession and being dependent on a modest SS stipend will likely need it the rest of my life. My SS barely covers a frugal lifestyle yet my SNAP has been reduced year-after-year to half of what it was. What does it mean to be "poor" in America?
I keep going to Mexico to find a better life but resent I have to go to a foreign country for affordable food and medical care.
60
This plan is designed to perpetuate the image of lazy undeserving recipients who take handouts from the rest of us. Only today we have corporations like Walmart depending on those handouts to keep their workers’ wages low. The cruelty of this was depicted in a political cartoon I saw the other day. It was of a very large Mr Trump leaning down to say to some very tiny kids “you need to lose some weight.”
Would that we could impose a twenty hour work week requirement on him.
104
Food stamps are a direct subsidy to companies unwilling to pay their employees a living wage. McDoDo, et al, instruct their employees on how to apply for food stamps so they can pay their executives obscene salaties and bonuses.
Do away with food stamps completely, make these guys pay a living wage.
51
@Thomas
What about us who can't get work or are "retired"? Your solution is to find a job for me flipping burgers at $20/hour somewhere, is that it?
4
@Thomas
The part about livable wage is right. We subsidize Walmart, many of whose full time workers don’t make enough to live on. By all means, raise the minimum wage so they get paid enough to live.
But lots of people who don’t have and can’t get a job at Walmart or anywhere else NEED food stamps. Getting rid of them is shortsighted and cruel.
20
@Thomas I see no reason that social programs shouldn’t exist for those unable to find work. But they should be targeted.
But let’s stop subsidising the 1% allowing them to make even larger campaign bribes.
5
I am eager to read articles like this detailing Republican hypocrisy, and to listen to the evidence of corruption revealed in the hearings. But when I see poll numbers showing that all of these revelations have boosted Trump's approval numbers and his chances for reelection, I get a sinking feeling that we may be headed for a second term of the most corrupt administration in our time.
53
Yes, it appears we are a country that has numerous “not especially nice“ people, How anybody can support the Treasonous Grifter astounds me.
I realize my standard of “nice” is subjective, but, as is said, “fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong”. I do still believe “my kind” outnumber “their kind”, but we have to rally all of us to vote.
7
@William
"I get a sinking feeling that we may be headed for a second term of the most corrupt administration in our time."
...or anytime.
5
@William
After 2016 I don't believe one poll because we dont know how the questions were asked. I believe talking to people and moving forward. I believe that Barr an elite is a rich person who cares nothing about America. I believe that trump is a draft dodger and a ignorant man who is a traitor. The polls don't even factor into my thinking anymore.
Trump is an animal who eats the American people we are not a cult and he will be removed and people will have their food stamps and little kids will be out of cages.
2
American politicians and public need to move beyond moral judgements about poverty and food insecurity.
In 2019, there is no excuse for any one residing in America to go hungry. As a nation, we should be proud that we can produce enough food to feed the nation. Equally, we should be mortified at how much food we waste.
SNAP has always been a great public program - unlike the President's penchant for tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.
46
@M Bernier So well put, thank you!
3
So what do we do as Americans? The honest truth is that the laws are set up so that it’s hard for the poor to register to vote. We then only do voting on a Tuesday from 8am -8pm, where the poor are working their 2 or 3 jobs. And even then a lot of the poor that vote do so against their self interests because they believe republican fear mongering about illegals and other nonsense. Also, the electoral college is now rigged in favor of the republicans and they have Gerrymandered all of the maps so they stay in power. Honestly, until enough of America has had it with this stuff and decides to actually overthrow this corrupt system nothing will change. I don’t think we are there yet. Maybe in 20 years when there’s no middle class left and climate catastrophes have started we’ll be ready, but I have lost all faith in this country.
41
@Jeremy
You make great points about our (dysfunctional) "system."
In European countries, election day is usually a national holiday. Businesses close in order to allow all citizens to have ample time to vote. It is a day where the entire nation takes pause to reflect on & perform its civic duty.
In the USofA, where the workers are exhausted from merely shuffling between 3 low-pay jobs, where can they get their "pause" to perform their civic duty?
6
"Wants to"?? He's already done it. Anyone remember the big tax cut that was going to help the middle class?
20
Just wait. Republicans salivate at the thought of taking your guarantee of health insurance away.
Pre-existing conditions that are not covered make people with chronic illness expendable in their view.
They will come for your Social Security next. How anyone votes to put these people in power is beyond comprehension.
70
While I think we need to do more to help the poor, and probably less to corporate agribusinesses, comparing people whose benefits will be cut if they do not work to large scale farming enterprises is a bit of a stretch.
6
@Dustin - - - Can we thank the Great Society programs for this, since all food aid was distributed by the Agriculture Department for purely political reasons?
1
The article showed that those whose food stamp benefits will be cut are similar to the small farm owners who also do not receive benefits. The article should also have pointed out the gargantuan number of farm bankruptcies during the Trump administration’s war involving tariffs. Only the rich get help in their times of need now.
2
GOP tax cuts, without commensurate budget cuts, have imperiled this nation since Reagan.
That the rest of the world has so much faith in the US dollar as a store of value is a fortunate stroke of luck that hopefully holds.
That voters continue to support such recklessness is tragic.
18
In a country like Canada where money is not entirely in the hands of the very rich and programs that protect the health and improve the self sufficiency of the average person are in effect, the public is happier,heathier, and more content. They work better for the same reasons,they are not shooting up schools and places of worship,they are not massing for causes left and right, they are not screaming on social media,they are mostly just going about their lives quietly and calmly.
There is a message here that is a valuable one if anyone in the States is calm enough to hear it.
89
When you are in the business of getting money, that’s pretty much all you do, whether you are an individual, family or corporation. The business of getting money is not the same thing as doing stuff and getting stuff done can be an obstacle if you only want to get money. The bitterness and resentment that someone else has gotten money can overwhelm and cause restless nights for those who are in the business of getting money.
The vision of the Republican Party is to get as much money as possible for themselves and their supporters. That also means making sure no one else is getting any money. But make no mistake, money doesn’t make them happy. It’s very very weird. I am so glad I did figure out what exactly money can buy and what it can’t buy.
25
So here is the new rule:
"Section 6(o) of the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, as amended (the Act) generally limits the amount of time an able-bodied adult without dependents (ABAWD) can receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to 3 months in a 36-month period (the time limit), unless the individual meets certain work requirements. On the request of a State SNAP agency, the Act also gives the U.S. Department of Agriculture (the Department) the authority to temporarily waive the time limit in areas that have an unemployment rate of over 10 percent or a lack of sufficient jobs."
Individuals may still apply for waivers if they are not able to meet the work requirements and if they live in a economically depressed regain the rule may not even apply to them.
This seems somewhat reasonable.
10
@F. Anthony and it's actually reverting back to how the rule had always been implemented. The waivers have simply gone on for year. I'm no fan of this president but this is a long running republican plan. Not just his. And to be honest food stamps don't work. There are far better ways to feed people. Just look at literally any european nation with lower hunger rates than the US.
5
@F. Anthony Please put this in perspective.This change will affect 700,00 people. Compared to the 30,000,000 of us who live here, that's a drop in the bucket. Does that mean these folks don't count? of course not. It means that Sonny Perdue has no focus on what is at hand. A smarter person would not go after these 700K individuals to take away something they need. He would look at the recipients (far more of course) who ARE working. Why do they need food stamps? Not making a living wage, can't get more hours at their hourly wage jobs, rent too high. ETC. These are systemic issues that we as smart citizens need to see addressed and then resolved. A focus on punishing a few of us educates the many on the scope of the matter not at all. But the GOP would rather rile up trump cultists and people like you-- "see what we are doing to save you money?"; than to actually have the scab ripped off of what is now normal life for most americans-- allowing us all to see the Dickens country we now live in.
3
@F. Anthony You have obviously never been poor. It is NOT reasonable....10% is a high unemployment rate. Low income people struggle every week NOW to meet their bills including food. It is a terrible policy.
4
Why shouldn't some work or training (20 hours a week is hardly onerous) be required for recipients of welfare (with exceptions for those caring for children or the disabled, or those disabled themselves)?
Everyone capable has a moral obligation to contribute to society. It should be a requirement if one wants to receive a handout.
Let's begin by restricting food stamps to food on the WIC list: basic staples like rice and beans, milk, fruit and vegetables. At present, you can use food stamps to buy luxury foods and junk food. Why are we subsidizing that?
18
@Jonathan Katz
Corporate welfare is the issue, not food stamps. If Business paid workers a livable income, we wouldn’t have an in-work poverty culture. (40hr weeks and you still can’t pay bills).
We all suffer because of Corporate greed and unfair tax laws.
Why are we subsidizing that?
29
@Jonathan Katz Because people have different dietary needs and the government shouldn't be telling you what to buy. Sounds like a potential in for a food industry lobbyist to me if they did. Besides. Who gets to decide what people eat? Some bureaucrat? No thanks.
Secondly certain areas (like where I live) have no mass transportation and higher than normal unemployment. Those places should be able to make their case for waivers.
But to be honest food stamps in general is a terrible program that is ineffective compared to how many other nations feed their hungry.
2
@Jonathan Katz You seem to be assuming that jobs are plentiful and that all people are choosing not to work. You also seem to be assuming that people have kitchens to cook in. So should it be a requirement that everyone be provided a job and should everyone be required to have a kitchen to cook in? How does that work? Do you outlaw homelessness?
5
Whatever you think of subsidies to farmers (and I don’t think they are justified in their present form), the farmers work. If you object to the work requirement for food stamps recipients, you are willing to hand out money to people who don’t. Why shouldn’t they work? If you do nothing, what is your justification for living? Work is more than dollars and cents; it also provides the sense of identity and self-worth. I find the requirement to work, study or volunteer not only reasonable but necessary for the psychological well-being of the recipients. Man does not live by bread alone.
6
@Mor People who don't work, for whatever reason, should just die and save us taxpayers the "burden" of their lives. Sounds Christlike to me.
2
@Mor
Get the CEO"S to start hiring people cant go to a job if there is no job. think America and stop blaming the victims all that property in rural America and we just keep building in the cities.
time for Corporate America to stand up and be apart of America.
@Bizabra I am not a Christian and I resent having an alien religion foisted on me. Talking about Christian privilege! And yes, people who have no occupation, passion, project or interest in their lives are as good as dead. As far as I understand, the work requirement (at least in some states) includes volunteering, taking classes and so on. It does not have to be a gainful occupation, which indeed may be hard for some folks to obtain in some places.
I'd like to add an issue that is mentioned infrequently. I live in a community that includes many recipients of food aid. I often find myself behind carts full of appalling food and drink that I would never, ever have allowed my children to eat outside of an occasional treat. Chips, soda, prepared food. How about we stop subsidizing treats, acknowledge the obesity and health crisis among the young, and eliminate soda, chips and microwaveable meals before we worry about how many people are on the program?
25
@Mary For families in poverty/on food stamps, 1) these people are usually not educated on healthy food choices. 2) these people are frequently living in a motel-type arrangement or are homeless. How does one cook a healthy meal without access to a kitchen?
90
@Mary - Healthy foods are often more costly/perishable. That's why so many buy starchy foods (mac & cheese, pasta, chips, etc.). It's about making the money stretch. Often, you can buy tv dinners as a $10/10 item, which can be cheaper or more balanced than purchasing the same component items to make it.
22
@Mary Fresh "I often find myself behind carts full of appalling food and drink"
Yet we're led to believe that they drive Cadillacs, buy the best cuts of meat, champaign and lobster. I'm amazed that the poor are so powerful that they're able to bring a great nation like the United States to a grinding halt.
It's a wonder that Haiti isn't a super power.
36
Trump's scrooge-like actions at this time of year makes one feel that we are living in a Dickensian world. I can hear Trump now saying " are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?"
118
@MSS
But unlike Scrooge, trump will never have an epiphany and mend his ways. Such evil cruelty has taken control of a large minority of people, yet they claim we're a Christian nation. Jesus would be appalled.
7
I grew up poor and in a very impoverished area. While many of the families I knew lived on food stamps and other government programs; my parents refused to take any handout. Instead we worked harder, raised a bigger garden, and went without most of the time.
They and I both have seen prosperities under Republican administrations in the 80's and 90's. However now is different for both parties. Special interests and corporate greed have decimated the family farms, our community hospitals, and our political process. To say one party is at more fault than the other is baseless. Both parties are in it for nothing more than self enrichment and self righteousness.
17
@Nature
So do the right thing and phase out the food stamp program over a year's time.
Don't pull a Trumpian "Abandon the Kurds" sudden overnight campaign because Putin says so and just leave people to die.
@JM mechanisms are already in place for this and have been implemented. If know anything of those who receive food stamps the system is not meant to continually support. It is created to be a safety net not a a way of life and this administration is willing to tackle it.
1
@Nature Uh, 1992-2000 was under a democratic administration.
They are really asking for an all-out class war in this country (only this time both sides will be in the fight). It will not end well for anyone, including the elites.
64
Agreed that 'corporate welfare' is a problem too. So let's get rid of all of it, as well as welfare for able-bodied adults. Unemployment is extremely low. Notice how immigrants, many illegal, come in and take whatever jobs they can find, and support themselves? It's because welfare is not available them. It's not a question of "laziness." The issue is if you tell someone that they don't have to work to get money, they're not going to work.
13
@R.P.
I'm an able-bodied adult but once in my 50s quit getting hired. I'm living just above the poverty level. Your answer is no answer. There should be "free stuff" for everybody. An annual National Guaranteed Income of $24,000 would be a start.
30
Is that why we have homeless and food pantries. Schools have free and reduced meals, caring closets and send food donated home to help families! We do not pay livable wages or provide basic needs! I disagree with your premise with regards to immigrants
6
@R.P. what about the individuals who cannot work? Mental health/addiction, ect. Let's be honest: The US has a substantial population of uneducated and unemployable people.
5
Ironically the cuts in SNAP will also affect farmers. It is an agriculture department program because it is actually a form of subsidies for farmers - they sell "excess" food to the government to use in the SNAP program. Without SNAP farmers would make even less money. That is why farmers fought off the last Trump effort to eliminate SNAP benefits.
But Repubs really cannot help themselves - even if it hurts their own constituents - they absolutely detest poor people so will do everything they can to punish them for being poor. That is the way of sociopaths.
154
@Joe Rockbottom
You seem to misunderstand how SNAP works. The government doesn't give us food from farmers. It's not "government cheese". I shop at the local market just as you do.
3
@Joe Rockbottom
Please write to Trump and tell him that.
No more than 100 words and lot's of pictures to prove your point....
Maybe forget the words, just pictures.
Throw in McDonalds' certificate to get his attention.
4
@Joe Rockbottom
"...it is actually a form of subsidies for farmers - they sell "excess" food to the government to use in the SNAP program."
Thank you for making the point...which I was about to make.
I think it is reasonable that if someone is of able body and "sound" mind, which, is pretty broad,
that they not be supported by infinite state welfare and food stamp programs.
That said, I am equally against infinite subsidy for war and Military Contractors.
However, the welfare rolls keep growing and our wars keep going.
Maybe I will run on the "Welfare for All" Platform.
9
@Michael
I've been on SNAP since the '08 recession and will likely need the subsidy for the rest of my life. I think food, housing, educational and medical needs should be completely funded by our taxes. A National Guaranteed Income plus what I just described.
6
@Mexico Mike — I wouldn’t say a guaranteed income is the solution, however, a guaranteed investment is —“New Capitalism”.
That would mean the basic necessities being met with paid vocational training targeting personnel development goals, but if local circumstances would not allow for a full time job to be attained, it would be reasonable for the government to ask the recipient to work at local organic farms for the $24,000 you’re talking about.
1
But how about those taking jobs from US and ship it to overseas? Maybe we can exonerate by saying that they have good intentions? (VS Trump's possible bad intention?)
4
It's very simple. Farmers of all kinds are valuable to the Republicans because of the Senate and the Electoral College. As long as we have a branch and a half of our government dependent on land, instead of people, the people living on that land will get unlimited handouts.
92
The question is this: why is it that many people who do or ever have received food stamps vote for Trump or don’t vote at all. Trump has no morals or compassion, but we will respond to political power.
15
This argument always plays, especially when it is cast as The Poor versus Republican Fat Cats.
But how about if it were cast as The Taxpayers versus The Lazy or Corrupt?
We are at as close to full employment in this country as we've ever been. Construction companies, restaurant chains, retail and grocery stores are begging for workers. Millions of undocumented migrants manage to find jobs. And this writer is trying to say that it is impossible to find any employment, even part-time, to stay eligible for taxpayer-funded free food?
Anyone who really looked at the SNAP program would be aware of the abuses -- food stamps sold to corrupt brokers for pennies on the dollar, then laundered through a complicit neighborhood store. Illegal immigrants using an American-born child to sign up, while working off a bogus Social Security number, and sending American dollars to Mexico. People in all sorts of manners abusing the program because the well-intentioned bureaucrats running it would rather not challenge any claim -- better to let some unworthy people slip through the cracks than take the responsibility to actually make a tough decision.
It only erodes respect for the social safety net when every single effort to police it is met with the same predictable hand-wringing about how the poor are being condemned to starvation.
11
@Philboyd
You do realize you need to already have a job in order to get Food Stamps, right? The issue isn't a lack of jobs, it's a lack of jobs that pay well enough that the taxpayers don't have to make up the difference when employees are paid too little to comfortably afford both food and rent.
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@Philboyd "Construction companies, restaurant chains, retail and grocery stores are begging for workers"
True, but many, if not most, of those jobs are in areas where rents and housing prices are also going up or already sky high. Those jobs just don;t pay enough to entice someone to move to the area for a job. Even the people already living there cannot make it working even a couple of those jobs. In the SF Bay area 100K is average for being able to just rent a small apartment. No retail job is going to pay even half of that. most of the construction workers I see in San Francisco commute from the Central Valley a couple hours away.
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@Philboyd
If it were "The Taxpayers versus The Lazy or Corrupt?"
Trump wouldn't be in office...no one is lazier or more corrupt.
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It is standard Republican policy to destroy the social safety net and loot the remaining national treasury via contracts for their pals and tax cuts for the wealthy. Nothing new here. The solution is voting out every Republican and DINO from government and electing progressives. Very straightforward. Mrs. Clinton said 'we are not Denmark', but we can be if the political will is there.
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@Eugene Debs Yes, and you can be a woman with the right operation, but you will still be a man.
"Tax cuts for the wealthy" were in fact eliminating taxes for people making less than $36,000 and most families making less than $50,000.
Also, in what bizarre universe does allowing people to keep more of THEIR money "taking" from the people to whom the government fails to redistribute it??
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@Andy
Think of great wealth, no matter how it is accrued, as a multiplier. In the US, money buys access and influence. The wealthy, who are naturally linked to corporations, can literally buy legislation that increases their wealth and power. Think PACs, political donations (bribes, in truth) and access to high office.
Now if all of this is allowed, shouldn’t they at least pay back, in the form of high taxes, the nation that allows this racket to flourish?
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@Andy -- The tax "reforms" of that last all-Republican Congress sent the national debt into the stratosphere and aimed a death blow at the (mostly Democratic) states with the highest tax rates (and most enlightened social policies). And although these "reforms" included benefits for the lower incomes, it also made the rich far, far richer (not only through reductions in their income taxes but through corporate tax rates and other provisions benefiting stockholders). All this generosity was based on the assumption that people and corporations who got these benefits would spend their extra money and thereby help the economy to grow. Well, this did happen for the lower-income people and doubtless helps to explain the strength of the consumer economy, but the very rich -- especially all the corporations -- simply took that money and used it to buy back their own stock and magnify their own profits. This sent the stock market soaring but proportionately very little money was spent on capital improvements, and there has been hence not nearly as great a gain in the GDP as promised. But let's not blame this all on Trump. It's the Republican Party which has been solidly behind him. Vote Democratic in 2020!
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Don't blame Trump. Transferring wealth from the poor to the rich is a bedrock conservative principle that has guided their governmental policies over my entire life (60 years).
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@Casey
Obamacare transferred money from the poor to the rich, as doo most progressive policies. The plutocrats running big medicine made out like bandits while the rank and file got higher premiums and higher out of pocket costs.
States that expanded Medicaid saw faster growth of the opioid epidemic and faster closures of rural hospitals. [The opioid epidemic was also fueled by failure to control the southern border, facilitation of trade with China and the shutting down of the anticartel joint operations between Mexico and the US at the request of Iran.]
Eighty percent of the Farm Bill goes to food stamps and 20% to agricultural subsidies. The requirement that able bodied childless adults have to work, volunteer or study 20 hours per week will affect a very small group that has very low probability of going hungry. It includes adult children living in their prosperous parents' homes while working off the books and fraudulently reporting their income levels.
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@ebmem
Conservatism crosses political parties. I would never claim the Democratic party over the last 50 years has been progressive. It has in fact moved significantly to the right. Conservatism is a more potent force in Republicans, but it retains significant power in the Democratic party too.
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@ebmem : "The opioid epidemic was also fueled by failure to control the southern border, facilitation of trade with China and the shutting down of the anticartel joint operations between Mexico and the US at the request of Iran." Any links to support these especially "at the request of Iran"?
Democrats have at least been trying to save the middle class and help the poor ... just listen to their candidates for god's sake! Yes, they are not perfect (and Obamacare? don't even get me started. If Republicans had any desire to give everyone an affordable healthcare, they could've helped creating a better plan. Where is their plan btw?) but at least they have been trying unlike conservatives. And blaming Medicare for physicians prescribing more opioids is like blaming church donors for the lines at the soup kitchen getting longer.
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