Oh, Who Really Needs Food Stamps In This Economy? UPDATED

UPDATE: When I wrote this a few weeks ago, I thought, surely, there is no way the Democrats will go through with this. How wrong I was. Not only did Speaker Pelosi go through with it, but she demanded everyone return from their summer break, when they are supposed to be meeting with their constituents, to implement this.

The Democrats have literally taken food out of the mouths of babes, the elderly, and numerous needy people in between. Literally. They have cut $12 BILLION from the Food Stamps Program to support the Teachers Union. And Wall Street is responding with a free-fall. Why? Because this $26 Billion will pay for about 8 - 9 months for the teachers and Medicaid, but we will be taxed for TEN years to pay for it, according to Stuart Varney of Fox Business News:



That is a sobering report, is it not?

And get this justification for the cut to Food Stamps:

[snipDemocratic rank and file members, including Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, say the cuts won’t take effect until 2014 and will merely return food stamp benefits to pre-stimulus levels. [snip]

Here's a newsflash, Reid - people have been losing their jobs at a rate of almost half a million per WEEK, with fewer jobs being created. People NEED Food Stamps to LIVE.

WTH is WRONG with these people?? But hey, don't take my word for it. Their own government bureau says the same thing:

[snip]According to U.S. Department of Agriculture figures, the number of people on the food stamp rolls has been growing to record levels for 18 straight months. Nearly $5.5 billion in aid went out to beneficiaries in May alone. The number of May recipients marked a 19 percent increase from a year ago and the USDA projects that next year's enrollment will reach about 43.4 million.[snip]

Rep. Paul Ryan voiced what many Republicans were saying:

[snip]"It is basically taxpayers from fiscally (responsible) states bailing out fiscally irresponsible states. ... Medicaid funding, teacher funding, the more popular of the public unions, what this is, it's a bailout to prevent states from doing the necessary spending prioritization that they need do," he said. [snip]

Yep, pretty much. There is so much more to this issue and article (click here to read the rest), and the fallout will surely continue, as it should. Wow...

Original Post: Apparently, that is what the Obama Administration thinks, according to this very disturbing story, Obey: White House Suggested Cutting Food Stamps to Pay for Education Program. The headline really says it all.

But you may be surprised by who is saying this. It isn't anyone from the Republican Party:

This entire interview with Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wis.), the head of the House Appropriations Committee and a powerful veteran member of Congress, who is retiring this year, is worth a read. But one passage is particularly striking. Obey is discussing his proposal to divert funds from the Obama administration’s Race to the Top education program to save teachers’ jobs. Due to the states’ fiscal crises, as many as 200,000 local government employees, many of them teachers, might lose their jobs in the coming year.

The proposal made it in to the House war-funding bill, which needs a Senate vote. The White House has threatened to veto the war-funding bill if it contains Obey’s change. [snip]

We have not heard much about Obama's "Race For The Top" Education plan. That is interesting since it is proving to be as much of a failure as Bush's "No Child Left Behind." We heard about the latter quite often, but the former? Not so much. Gee, cannot imagine why.

But let's get back to Rep. Obey and what he has to say about Obama's budget:

Here is the quote, from an interview with The Fiscal Times:

The secretary of education [Arne Duncan] is whining about the fact he only got 85 percent of the money he wanted .… [W]hen we needed money, we committed the cardinal sin of treating him like any other mere mortal. We were giving them over $10 billion in money to help keep teachers on the job, plus another $5 billion for Pell, so he was getting $15 billion for the programs he says he cares about, and it was costing him $500 million [in reductions to the Race to the Top program]. Now that’s a pretty damn good deal. So as far as I’m concerned, the secretary of education should have been happy as hell. He should have taken that deal and smiled like a Cheshire cat. He’s got more walking around money than every other cabinet secretary put together.

It blows my mind that the White House would even notice the fight [over Race to the Top]. I would have expected the president to say to the secretary, “Look, you’re getting a good deal, for God’s sake, what this really does is guarantee that the rest of the money isn’t going to be touched.” We gave [Duncan] $4.3 billion in the stimulus package, no questions asked. He could spend it any way he wants. … I trusted the secretary, so I gave him a hell of a lot more money than I should have.

My point is that I have been working for school reform long before I ever heard of the secretary of education, and long before I ever heard of Obama. And I’m happy to welcome them on the reform road, but I’ll be damned if I think the only road to reform lies in the head of the secretary of education.

We were told we have to offset every damn dime of [new teacher spending]. Well, it ain’t easy to find offsets, and with all due respect to the administration their first suggestion for offsets was to cut food stamps. Now they were careful not to make an official budget request, because they didn’t want to take the political heat for it, but that was the first trial balloon they sent down here. … Their line of argument was, well, the cost of food relative to what we thought it would be has come down, so people on food stamps are getting a pretty good deal in comparison to what we thought they were going to get. Well isn’t that nice. Some poor bastard is going to get a break for a change.

[snip] Click here to read the rest.

Wow. So Obama wants to LITERALLY take food off the tables of some of the poorest people in our society, as this quote highlights:

Well, it ain’t easy to find offsets, and with all due respect to the administration their first suggestion for offsets was to cut food stamps.

That is telling, telling indeed. Kinda makes you wonder just who was behind this push, doesn't it? Regardless, there have got to be better places from which to get money than taking food out of the mouths of babes.

Hey, I have an idea - how about cutting back on all of the czars Obama has put in place, including his latest Pastry Czar? Oh, that isn't his official title, but the Obama's chef has now been elevated, behind closed doors, to Senior Policy Adviser for Healthy Foods Initiatives, aka, Food Czar. I am just going to guess that came with an increase in salary. Is it any wonder D.C. residents make the most money in the U.S.?

Yet Obama wants to cut Food Stamps? Really??

The irony would be too rich if it wasn't so despicable.