“Stop the moochers!” shouted a flock of GOP budget whackers in the US House recently, as they literally ripped all food stamp funding out of the farm bill.
They say they’re shocked that use of this program has jumped so dramatically in recent years. Crying that “those” people are costing us money, the House whacked the entire budget for getting food to the poor.
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Well, yes, food stamp use is up, but – hello, clueless congress critters – so is the need. Longterm joblessness and falling wages are sucking more and more of your constituents out of the middle class down into the vortex of poverty. It’s disgraceful for you well-paid lawmakers to gut a poverty program that’s working exactly as it’s meant to do, at the very time it’s most needed.
But, next, the flock of budget whackers suddenly flew completely off course. Going from disgraceful to disgusting, they approved a farm bill that gives ridiculous taxpayer handouts to the biggest and richest agribusiness operations in our land. Those entities are wallowing in record-high crop prices and farm income this year, yet the GOP’s pious deficit scolds turned into free-spending corporate socialists, doling out the most generous farm subsidies in US history.
For example, they perverted the crop insurance program into an absurd, guaranteed-income plan for the wealthiest farms, each of which will collect more than a million dollars a year from us. Moreover, these “free-market” Republicans would also have the government (ie, you and me) guarantee an artificially-high price for various commodities produced by the giant farms. And, they would make all of these subsidies permanent.
This is Jim Hightower saying… No grocery money for the needy, but a free feed for millionaire farmers? That’s a moral abomination! For more information and action, contact the Environmental Working Group: www.ewg.org.
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