TWICE GOV CUTS FOOD STAMPS, FIRST TIME March 24, 2011 SECOND TIME SEPTEMBER 2013.
MORE RECENT CUTS SEEN BY HUFFINGTON POST at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/food-stamp-cuts/
& from the NY TIMES. "FOOD STAMPS CUTS!" (below) Let Them Eat Cutbacks
Food stamps are part of the social safety net, but they work more as the ultimate ground-level crutch for Americans staggering against poverty. During the recession, food stamps were an important factor in helping an estimated 4.5 million Americans stave off the official poverty (no more than $21,756 annually for a family of four) that engulfed nearly 16 percent of the nation. The stamps are win-win: $9 in fast economic stimulus for every $5 spent on food for a hungry family.
Sad wonder, then, that cuts in food stamps are the latest proposal heading for the House Republicans’ budgetary chopping block. An attempt to set them back at the levels of 2007 — and charge a family of four $59 out of their $294 monthly allotment — is part of welfare “reform” legislation being proposed by leaders of the powerful Republican Study Committee. This group, embraced by two-thirds of the House majority, is the conservative engine driving much of the deficit-slashing mania to extremes.
Even last year, when the Democrats controlled the House, the political vulnerability of food stamps was clear as sleazy budget deals were attempted to tap the program to protect farm subsidies and other power blocks. Now the threat is worse as Republicans wildly estimate that they could save $1.4 trillion across a decade in cutting the full array of welfare programs — yet still help down-and-out families.
Vicious politics is already in the mix, including a surly provision to deny food stamps to any family that includes a worker on strike.
Surely hard times should find public servants protecting the neediest first, not targeting them for crumbs from a program more vital to society than another tired round of anti-welfare politicking.
THE 2013 cutbacks of 5% of the program http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/09/19/224201716/house-gop-lawmakers-vote-to-cut-food-stamps
AMONG THE LIST OF PLACARDS FOR THE OCCUPY we might DO "If my babies can't eat, study they can't work. They will be a permanent liability to USA"
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<=== HOW TO GET FREE MONEY FROM THE STATE
<=== THE FRUGAL LIFE STYLE
<===MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER, the ART of WELFARE COOKERY
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