Last week, the House GOP narrowly passed a bill that would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — or food stamps — by $40 billion over the next ten years. Proving the one thing uniting the GOP is their desire to make it harder for the poor to eat than it is to buy a gun.
Though there is almost no chance the bill will pass the Senate, but that won’t stop the GOP from trying. After all, if House Republicans cared about actually trying to legislate rather than appeal to their increasingly radical base, they would never have voted more than 40 times to repeal the sitting president’s signature health care law.
The first rule of today’s fractured Republican party is no one cares what legislation you vote for as long as you are crazy enough to win your primary.
But back to the food stamps bill. Republicans love to call Barack Obama names like “the food stamp president” for dramatically increasing the number of people on food stamps. They claim spending is out of control, that recipients take advantage of the program to buy things like lobster dinners. If only these people would go out and get jobs rather than being part of the “taker” society that depends on the government for handouts they wouldn’t need SNAP.
These are all gross misrepresentations of the truth. First, many of the legislative changes that resulted in the increase in food stamp spending over the past several years occurred under the Bush administration, only to have the effects first show up under the Obama administration. Second, as of 2012, the average monthly benefits per person on food stamps were $133.41, or less than $1.50 per meal — clearly these individuals are eating like kings. Lastly, Obama has presided over a severe economic downturn that has left us with a current unemployment rate of 7.6 percent in the U.S.
House Republicans would say they are trying to cut wasteful spending, but again this is a misrepresentation of the truth. They have no such reservations about passing farm subsidies even though farmers make more than the average American. But wait, there’s more, according to a report from “The Hill Magazine” up to $22 million in subsidies and allowances may have been provided to dead farmers for up to two years after their deaths. You can’t make this stuff up.
According to 2010 American Community Survey, 15.71 percent of Idaho’s population lives in poverty, so it’s a reasonable assumption that these cuts are not in the best interest of many Idahoans. Funny, because both Idaho Representatives, Mike Simpson and Raul Labrador, voted yes on the bill. One might wonder if these representatives represent everyone in their district or just those who footed the bills for their campaign. Both representatives received considerable amounts of money from Big Ag — according to data from OpenSecrets.org Simpson received $35,150 from agricultural and crop production sources, while Labrador received $2,000. I might be going out on a limb here, but I’m going to say those contributions didn’t come from people receiving SNAP.
Andrew Deskins
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