On February 4, ABC World News anchor Diane Sawyer had a message for food stamp recipients about cuts to the program: Today’s your lucky day.
More specifically, she said this:
Some relief for millions of American families facing a drastic cut in food stamps. After a two-year fight today, the Senate passed a farm bill which cuts $8 billion from the food stamp program. But that’s far less than the $40 billion Republicans wanted to cut.
I hate to break this to Sawyer, but most people who rely on the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits in order to eat are probably not relieved. That Republican scenario was never going to become a law, so this cut is what they have to look forward to. When you consider that this $8 billion cut came on top of another round of earlier cuts of around $5 billion, it’s pretty easy to imagine that food stamp recipients aren’t breathing a sigh of relief.
Of course, instead of assuming how food stamp recipients are dealing with this news, you could try interviewing them directly. That’s the approach that CBS Evening News took (2/8/14 ), with correspondent Jeff Pegues profiling a family already stretching its food budget.
Recent estimates are that 1 in 7 American families receive SNAP benefits. Coverage of this issue should, at the very minimum, include them. This CBS report is all too rare.
Hey, be happy they only raped you
And didn’t kill you.
Jesus … fucking … Christ.
(FYI, I qualify for SNAP.)
There’s a slight mismatch of figures here: The $8 billion in new cuts is over 10 years, whole the $5 billion in cuts back in November (thanks to the stimulus package’s increase expiring) is *per year*. So depending on how you look at it, either the latest round of cuts is not quite as bad in comparison, or the fact that Congress cut even more after a massive cut back in November is pouring salt in the wound.
This is what you get from a lifetime of entitlement. Remember this is the woman who wanted to make Elian Gonzales stay in America with the crazy uncle and cousin because his father was a communist and more importantly wasn’t the mother. Have hated her ever since. She also wrote for Nixon right up until he resigned.
Diane Sawyer is well qualified to do what she does. She works for the media, so, of course she’s a sock puppet for the super rich. What’s the big deal?
Considering the bigger picture: The disabled have seen numerous cuts in benefits in recent years. The entire General Assistance welfare program was ended. AFDC was reformed out of existence. Human needs funding, from food to heating to housing, has been steadily cut to the bone, and no matter how much is cut, more is demanded. The results: Just over the past 15-20 years, the overall life expectancy of US poor has reversed course, and fallen by 5-7 years.
Here’s the even bigger picture: while our Congress Critters haggled over just how much more to cut food aid to the most vulnerable people in the country, and finally settled on “only” $8 billion over the next decade, the Federal Reserve has been “tapering” its spending on Treasuries to feed the banks, and now has it down to a mere $65 billion PER MONTH. The kleptocracy starves the poor just because it can, and Democrats pat themselves on the back for starving them slightly more slowly than the Republicans would prefer. The smugness and self-satisfaction of the ruling class is truly insufferable. Do these people never think of what happened to Marie Antoinette?
Carla – Do these people never think of what happened to Marie Antoinette?
The banks response: ‘Let them collect dimes”.
Somehow the poor seem to often be described as if they were another speices. I wonder why that is? Today, no one knows what the future will bring, with all of the off- shored jobs, corporations thinking that the way to save costs is to lay off employees, because they need to pay their CEOs more, and the investors more.
It is sad too that so many like walmart pay so little, so that taxpayers are sunsidizing those employees. It would seem that the phrase “working poor” would be a major PR fail to the world about how capitalism works.
Maybe everyone should reread Linclon’s Gettysburg Address, but keep in mind that in America, we are now engaged in a great UNcivil class war. If this goes on long enough, there is no recovery, no future, and no America either. “I’ve got mine” is a very sad philosophy and a killer force for a democratic republic.
Amazing. Like there should be any bargaining about people being able to eat. Really.
It could get worse.A lot worse.Imagine if Obama could run again.He is in effect the food stamp president.Look at the numbers.And dont try to make the Rs the bad guy for saying this is unaffordable.At the current trajectory it is.And it is disempowering people.A modern slave masta house mentality is becoming acceptable.Anymore than Obama is cutting the military.He is doing it because we cant afford it people.His sentiments aside.The real message is one side has been trying to put the breaks on spending,borrowing,and printing money because soon we will not be able to afford anything.As the bill comes due and programs are slashed it is criminally disingenuous to blame it on those who warned you again and again.You are spending us into oblivion.Food stamps cut?How about this senario……NO MORE FOODSTAMPS.NO MORE GV CHECKS.NO MORE FREE HEALTHCARE.NO MORE NUTHIN.We is broke
@Michael e — I think there may be a fundamental misunderstanding of where money comes from. 97 percent of the money supply is created as interest-bearing debt by the private banking system. The Federal Reserve is a creation of the large private banks, not a regulator of them, as it has proven time and time again. We have a fiat money system, and therefore there is not a limited amount of money. Have you ever noticed that there is never a shortage of money when the President or the Congress decide they want to wage war? Never, ever. Until we, as a people, begin to understand the monetary system and see how it is used as a club against us, we will not make progress.
Diane Sawyer is vacuous hack. This is all part of the GOP ‘Right to be a Slave’ plan. If they are successful in undermining ‘unemployment insurance and SNAP’, it ‘feeds our general insecurity as a people’. Though you may have a decent job situation at the moment, knowing you could end up like one of these folks will make you think twice before asking for a raise you may soundly deserve. The GOP in my view are despicable bastards, that deserve whatever tumult comes their way, from the terrible hardship they designed for our people.
Carla the problem has never been a fiduciary problem…it is a spending problem.The government does run out of money when they wage war.When they buy a pack of gum.They simply print more phony money that devalues our currency and put more debt on the back of us all.And dont dare tell me money is created by banks and interest bearing debt as if that money was not created by us before it was passed to them through gov taxation and loaning the main banks 85 billion a month.At zero percent interest to be invested at a three percent return.OUR FRIGGING MONEY!!!!!!!!Confiscated for reinvestment to others.But you act as if this is a digitized money.Without bearing on reality.It is real.They have made it unreal to hide their malfeasance.And whatever the Fed was(and you are wrong by the way on that)today it is a holding and distribution sight for the dispensation of the peoples wealth.Without oversight or audit.It is used to manipulate our currency rates within unreal margins.It is a giant ponzi scheme.It is to put it simply breaking every ethical,moral and legal law in the book.And we cannot SEE our own money.I heard people like you tell me all was well before the last crash.Did you see that coming?I DID.i took my money and jumped…no dove into Gold.Dont try to tell me all is well as they did