Republicans Try to Cut Food Stamps as 15% of U.S. Households Face Hunger

[Brown_Pride]

@DEAD7

... i thought we agreed the "budget" debate about this was a moot point, or a silly one considering how small of an issue it is.

MONEY, on this particular issue is silly.

 

[RAX 010]

2013

 

[DEAD7]

Well that is way more complicated than you are making it out to be. Basic shyt like housing and food have gone up in cost while middle class income has stagnated. A lot of that is the fault of goofy Democratic "feel good" policy but a lot of it is fueled by Republican enabled corporatism. And learning a trade/skill would be fine if it weren't such a huge financial gamble- there are kids who graduated with Ivy League MBAs in the recession who had a hard time finding work. To me the obvious solution is to recalibrate the public education system to the new world and either put a cap on how much students can borrow for loans (and thus put an indirect cap on tuitions) or to expand, standardize and strip down the public higher education system. There is no reason a college degree should cost $120K for anybody from any school, it's absurd. But the banks that rule the Republican cocksuckers you are c00ning for wouldn't have it any other way.

Yes, and no. Get government out of the way, and stop preventive legislation.
Corporatism has to stop, and I wish OWS would have made fighting it their cause, instead of some "we hate big business" mumbo jumbo

Thats what happens when you spew talking points at a nikka who is actually thinking and paying attention

Didn't you JUST apologize for assigning points to me that I never made? When have I ever said "if you dont agree with Dems you are a Cac loving uncle tom".... are you retarded? I didn't even vote for Obama in 2012 you clown

I was speaking in general, not specifically to you. I'll specify next time.

And again, I know Fox News told you otherwise but being on welfare is not some free for all party... most people on welfare don't want to be on welfare, ESPECIALLY the new wave of folks who jumped on it after losing their jobs in the recession. Does welfare need work, sure and I never said otherwise... but the growth in welfare is a symptom of our failing economic system, not an uptick in freeloading

If you are gonna troll step your shyt up like that Kingpin dude #quicktobackdown #talkingpointsdidntpreparemeforhtis

Again its not what welfare aims to do thats the problem its how it does it. Taxing peter to pay paul is slavery, plain and simple. I support charitable giving not force. If that makes me a c00n...

 

[DEAD7]

@DEAD7

... i thought we agreed the "budget" debate about this was a moot point, or a silly one considering how small of an issue it is.

MONEY, on this particular issue is silly.

We are in agreement fiscally, but entitlement programs have a much larger impact on the black community socially.

If I could put all those lost niqqas in Chi town to work under me and teach them business and work effort I would, but government prevents that with labor laws, and minimum wage.
Then they raise taxes to care for and provide for the those left hung out to dry by these policies... then they create more programs to support and "fix" these programs and so on and so on.

Let me put it like this:
If Americans could check a box or something and decide where their tax dollars were spent. We would still have roads, schools, and a strong military... and to be fair enough for programs like unemployment. Welfare though?

 

[Brown_Pride]

We are in agreement fiscally, but entitlement programs have a much larger impact on the black community socially.

If I could put all those lost niqqas in Chi town to work under me and teach them business and work effort I would, but government prevents that with labor laws, and minimum wage.
Then they raise taxes to care for and provide for the those left hung out to dry by these policies... then they create more programs to support and "fix" these programs and so on and so on.

Let me put it like this:
If Americans could check a box or something and decide where their tax dollars were spent. We would still have roads, schools, and a strong military... and to be fair enough for programs like unemployment. Welfare though?

nah, they wouldn't check shyt at all.
"why should i pay for a road i don't use"
"why should i pay for some other kids education...i don't even have kids"

There are problems with many of the programs out there, they CAN become a crutch, that doesn't mean they're broken. These programs are trying to treat symptoms, we need a cure for root causes...but also treatment for the symptoms.

Similar to when you get a throat infection. They don't just give you antibiotics and send you on your way, they also give you cough syrup and codeine. The antibiotic to treat the symptom and the cough syrup to stop you from coughing and making the situation worse with codeine because that shyt hurts.

Welfare and programs like it are the cough syrup. They don't solve the issue, they help relieve the discomfort caused by the illness. No one every really wants to discuss the illness and waht would be required to cure it.

 

[DEAD7]

nah, they wouldn't check shyt at all.
"why should i pay for a road i don't use"
"why should i pay for some other kids education...i don't even have kids"

 

[kermit da hustla]

Good Op-Ed piece in Salon by Britney Cooper.

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/24/gop_launches_race_war_to_boost_the_1_percent/

The recent vote of House Republicans to cut $40 billion from the food stamp program reflects a deep-seated and insidious racial resentment toward Americans of color. This racial resentment rears its ugly head within the provisions for the bill that demand that non-employed participants in the program get a job, job training or do community service activities. Though the bill in its current form will most likely die in the Senate, the fact that Republicans would even pass it should concern us.

Conservatives continue to lead under the aegis of a deliberate and willful ignorance about the long-term existence of a group known as the working poor, people who work long hours in low-wage paying menial labor jobs, and therefore cannot make ends meet. Moreover, there is a refusal to accept that the economic downturn in 2008 created conditions of long-term unemployment, such that people simply cannot go out and “get a job” just because they will it to be so.

I often wonder if government officials actually talk to real human beings about these policies, because if they did, they would find many people with a deep desire to work, but a struggle to find well-paying jobs. Some of those people would gladly take jobs that pay far less, but are frequently told that their education and years of work experience make them over-qualified.

This is not a race-based problem. The American middle class itself is shrinking dramatically each year in relation to a poor economy, an insistence on austerity measures from the right, and a capitulation to these measures on the left. However, the complete irrationality and utter severity of the legislation, and the total lack of empathy and identification that inform contemporary Republican social advocacy is tied to a narrative about lazy black people and thieving “illegal” brown people.

In 1976, Ronald Reagan invented the term “welfare queen,” to characterize the actions of exactly one person in Chicago who had bilked the welfare system out of a staggering amount of money. Buttressed by an underlying white racial resentment of the liberal pieces of legislation that emerged during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations – laws that had attempted to change conditions, but could not change hearts and minds around racial inequality issues — white conservatives latched on to a narrative about lazy African-Americans stealing from taxpayers and living lavish lives financed by the welfare state.

That narrative has persisted well into the 21st century when Newt Gingrich derisively referred to Barack Obama as the “Food Stamp President” in the 2012 elections. Uninterrogated and misplaced racial resentment has been the most effective strategy for making white people support draconian social policies in the name of “taking the country back.” This is true, even though in sheer numbers, white people are the largest group of recipients of the SNAP program.

Fiscal conservative politicians (including some Democrats like Bill Clinton) have presided over a massive and systematic redistribution of wealth into the 1 percent since the 1980s. For African-Americans this means that we lost over half of our collective (and meager) net wealth, in just the last five years, due to predatory lending and the the machinations of big business. But it is easier to hate and regulate welfare recipients.

Since everyone knows that welfare queens finance their lives of luxury through the receipt of food stamps, which amounts on average to about $135 in groceries each month, cutting the food stamp program, a move that will take nearly 4 million people off the rolls in the next 10 years, is not merely a pragmatic measure or a “necessary evil,” but rather a deeply symbolic act that points to recalcitrant and entrenched racist attitudes on the right. It turns out, then, that African-Americans are not the only group of voters whose political behavior is motivated – at least, in part — by racial identity.

The Republican Party often capitalizes on these attitudes about poor African-Americans in moments of economic downturn, as a way to rally white working- and middle-class American voters. This is very similar to the strategy used by the Southern Planter class in the 1850s to curtail alliances between working-class white people and enslaved African-Americans.

Rather than create a more equitable system by freeing the enslaved and paying everyone fair wages, the plantocracy deployed a narrative about white racial superiority that caused poverty-stricken white people to disavow their own class interests in service of racial unity. In fact, as David Roediger outlines in his now classic work “The Wages of Whiteness,” this is one of the key processes that led to white people in the U.S. becoming a unified racial group, beyond the ethnic identities (Polish, German, Irish, etc.) that had previously characterized them. Without benefit of this historical context, the consistency with which contemporary white conservatives vote against their own economic interests, in order to remain beholden to fiscal and social conservatism would appear downright peculiar.

Beyond the academic implications of these choices, I am concerned about real people who need access to these services. There are members of my own family who need public assistance, because they live in economically depressed areas where job opportunities are few. There are college students and graduate students whom I teach, who are supporting themselves through school, and use food stamps so they can eat each month. And there are countless children, who come from poor homes in rural and urban areas throughout this country, who need the security that comes from being able to eat three square meals a day, so that they can be healthy and perform well in school.

A final note of caution: In a world with no food security, there will be increased violence. This is related to a contemporary crisis that we are seeing among youth. When we scratch our heads wondering why we have seen a surge of bullying in schools and bullying deaths in response, perhaps we should admit that we are a nation of bullies. Our children are merely modeling the logic of a nation that ties its own sense of status, identity and power to its ability to unrelentingly pick on the “least of these.” In this American dystopia, the disproportionately black and brown least of these will be left with no other choice but to fight back or (destroy themselves and others as they) die trying.

any black man or woman with an ounce of self-respect and a historical perspective already knows what they're doing. we need more blacks to make their voices known. i would like to add to her final note of caution: white people lament the "black mob violence" that is seemingly targeting whites. if they cut off these services, that violence will escalate, more whites will die, and the blood of those dead whites will be on their hands -- not black people.

 

[DEAD7]

"The recent vote of House Republicans to cut $40 billion from the food stamp program reflects a deep-seated and insidious racial resentment toward Americans of color. "

I just want to ask if there is anyway the proposed cut to food stamps can be made because its fiscally responsible, or is it "insidious racial resentment" 100%?

 

[Starman]

"The recent vote of House Republicans to cut $40 billion from the food stamp program reflects a deep-seated and insidious racial resentment toward Americans of color. "

I just want to ask if there is anyway the proposed cut to food stamps can be made because its fiscally responsible, or is it "insidious racial resentment" 100%?

No, there is not. Racist.

 

[DEAD7]

Very well then.

 

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

Yes, and no. Get government out of the way, and stop preventive legislation.
Corporatism has to stop, and I wish OWS would have made fighting it their cause, instead of some "we hate big business" mumbo jumbo




I was speaking in general, not specifically to you. I'll specify next time.


Again its not what welfare aims to do thats the problem its how it does it. Taxing peter to pay paul is slavery, plain and simple. I support charitable giving not force. If that makes me a c00n...

Youre backpedaling and changing stories like a muh... not worth my time... keep trolling... and I'll keep ing from the sidelines...

 

[DEAD7]

Youre backpedaling and changing stories like a muh... not worth my time... keep trolling... and I'll keep ing from the sidelines...

 

[acri1]

White people being paranoid (your ideas not mine) don't make universal healthcare a bad idea. There were white people opposed to abolition too, that doesn't mean it wasn't a necessary action to move forward (though I'm sure @DEAD7 would beg to differ)

When the fukk did I say it was a bad idea?

I'm all for universal healthcare (in fact I've been one of the main proponents of it on here) and have never said otherwise. My point was that it's harder for universal healthcare to take off in a diverse country like the US.

 

[Blackking]

universal healthcare isn't difficult at all.... it's just that a public system would make billionaires into millionaire so it won't happen.

@Brown_Pride is right about the symptoms.. Most people only care about their own personal situation. Why do we pay for kids to go to school when we don't have them? Why do we pay for public tran when we have cars, Why do we pay for healthcare of babies and people in poverty when we are healthy with healthcare and can afford to purchase it? We all pay for the preservation of natural parks whether we give a fukk about nature or live in a big city. We pay a huge military budget even if we hate american intervention and the goals of our military.

Most of these so called business owners have benefited from public charity in one way or another - from gov funded college loans, business credits, etc. Large corps depend on some of their employees to catch the bus to work and be healthy through medicare/medicaid... We're willing to let kids eat random BS because we actually believe a couple pennies is more important than children that we don't know?? It's not. The first person hat complains that a kid didn't go hungry some night - should be the last one complaining when that kid grows up like fukk the world and robs them one day.

 

[DEAD7]

Government has a monopoly on many of those things so saying people "have benefited from public charity" is a bit misleading. There is no other choice...







I also dont see people "not caring" about issues that directly affect them as a reason for other to decide for them. Letting people choose where their tax dollars are spent(obviously if they leave it blank it will be decided for them) seems best.