food stamps

GOP socialism bailouts for farmers, hunger for the working poor

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With Robert Mueller’s testimony sucking up all the media oxygen last week, you may have missed a couple of important stories. The latest tranche of bailout money from the Trump administration to bribe farmers to stick with Trump despite his disastrous trade policies that are financially ruining them is starting to roll out now. Another … Read more

Paul Ryan plots his final battle in the GOP’s war on the poor

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The GOP’s alleged boy genius and Ayn Rand fanboy, Paul Ryan, “the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin” who is leaving Congress at the end of his term — Dude, pack the moving van, I’ll come drive your shit back to Janesville for you this weekend! — is plotting his final battle in the GOP’s war on the poor. This evil GOP bastard can’t leave soon enough.

Politico reports, House GOP budget sets up massive safety net cuts, Obamacare repeal bid:

House Republican budget writers debuted an ambitious deficit-reduction plan Tuesday that would force GOP committees to cut at least $302 billion over a decade and potentially lay the groundwork for another repeal vote on Obamacare.

The GOP’s sweeping budget plan is the first step toward a filibuster-proof bill [under budget reconciliation rules] that could result in real reductions to popular programs like federal student aid or low-income family block grants.

It could also deliver on conservatives’ decades-old promise to rein in entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

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Oh, SNAP! The GOP’s war on the poor in the House farm bill

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Eighty percent of the farm bill’s spending is on nutrition programs, e.g., the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (formerly food stamps), but House Republicans want to start making work requirements for recipients harsher in order to benefit from these programs. No such requirements apply to the corporate welfare handed out to corporate executives to the tune of billions of dollars.

Tara Golshen at Vox.com has an explainer, House Republicans’ push to slash food stamps in the farm bill, explained:

The first draft of House Republicans’ farm bill, a $867 billion legislative package that subsidizes agriculture and food assistance programs, which Democrats say was written behind closed doors and without Democratic input. The bill has already passed out of the House Committee on Agriculture using only Republican votes. This is somewhat unusual — the farm bill has historically been bipartisan but has been plagued by a polarizing push over food assistance in recent years.

Rep. Collin Peterson, a conservative Minnesota Democrat and the Agricultural Committee’s ranking member, gave an impassioned statement just ahead of the partisan vote, saying, “We were pushed away by an ideological fight I repeatedly warned the chairman not to start.”

The House Rules Committee will devote Tuesday and Wednesday to the 2018 farm bill as members plow through a long list of amendments, raising the possibility of heated debate before it faces a floor vote later this week. Farm Bill Gets Two Days of House Rules Committee Consideration.

The Republican proposal to impose stricter work requirements and anti-fraud measures on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — commonly known as food stamps — is estimated to slash $20 billion from the program’s benefits over the next 10 years. One million people in households of more than 2 million individual could be pushed off the program or experience reduced benefits, according to an analysis by the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

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More poor bashing than usual in AZ legislative session

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

King Crab Legs 6-92

It definitely seems as if this is the Year of Going After the Poor with a Vengeance for Republicans in the Arizona Legislature. Which is saying something, since these are people who have shown an abundance of enthusiasm for punishing low income residents for their (real or imagined) transgressions for several years now. Bills going through committees this session target poor people’s public assistance and voting rights, perpetuating narratives about their being shiftless and untrustworthy. (And the usurious lenders that Arizona voters drop-kicked out of the state in 2008 are back.)

The complete takeover of our state by Americans For Prosperity (funded by the Koch brothers) types in the 2014 election has created the perfect conditions for a total war on low income people. There’s not likely to be much push-back on it from the public as we non-poor Americans are a bunch of judgmental pricks about poor people’s life choices, as Bryce Covert of Mother Jones notes:

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