September 19, 2013 by David K. Sutton
House Republicans Vote To Cut Food Stamps For Two Million Children
This is definitely an occasion for a slightly misleading article headline. And I say “slightly” because it’s actually true. Okay, Republicans didn’t explicitly vote to cut food stamps for children, but children do make up half of food stamp recipients. Therefore, when House Republicans voted today to cut food stamps by $4 billion a year over the next ten years, estimated to affect up to four million people, that means up to two million children will go hungry because of contemptuous conservatives.
House Republicans Pass Deep Cuts in Food Stamps – NYTimes.com: House Republicans narrowly pushed through a bill on Thursday that slashes billions of dollars from the food stamp program, over the objections of Democrats and a veto threat from President Obama. —
“Yes, the federal government has budget problems, but children didn’t cause them, and cutting anti-hunger investments is the wrong way to solve them,” said Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus Campaign for Children, a child advocacy group.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, nearly four million people would be removed from the food stamp program under the House bill starting next year. The budget office said after that, about three million a year would be cut off from the program.
I say people are entitled to food regardless of whether they have the means to pay for it, and I know many conservatives do not agree with this. Conservatives are either incredibly inhumane, or they subscribe to magical thinking, believing these food stamp recipients will be better off in the long run. All they need to do is starve a bit, and that will give them the motivation needed to find the good paying job that doesn’t exist. But first they will need to repeal those child labor laws.
And here’s the amazing part of this story, if congress just did nothing, food stamp usage will decline over the next decade anyway.
The budget office said that, left unchanged, the number of food stamp recipients would decline by about 14 million people — or 30 percent — over the next 10 years as the economy improves.
But if we waited for that to happen, Republicans would have to find someone else to punish now.
