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Democrat Hot Springs Village, AR
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Faux News would have you believe that little kids on food stamps are costing the taxpayer a fortune. The fact is that an average taxpayer making$50,000 per year will pay $6. General welfare will cost him/her another $36. ctj.org/ctjinthenews/2013/11/the_progre... The link tells us what that same taxpayer is contributing to corporate welfare. It's a whole lot more than $42. It's too bad that people can't be corporations, isn't it.
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I also do not mind paying taxes to house the poor and unfortunate masses of people here and abroad, let's not call it the Christian thing to do, let's just say it is the humane thing to do. It seems every Christmas, these nuts come out of the woodwork spouting off the real reason/s people celebrate Christmas, but these people that are poor and needy are poor and needy 24/7/365, not just on religious holidays. The other bad part about states like mine (Wisconsin) is that our US Government elected officials like Paul Ryan, who used his father's social security death benefits to further his education, is trying to rescind and repeal the very program/s that gave him a step up, a helping hand. And people like my governor (Scott Walker) has signed bills into law making poor people who receive government entitlements like EBT endure and pass means tests before they are awarded any needed entitlements. That is, blood and urine testing for drugs, which we all know, some can be addictive and people sometimes ending up hooked on them will be discriminated against, lawmakers forgot that addictions is a disease. Some lawmakers falsely accuse these entitlements of being the cause of the government's deficits and budget problems, it seems that they're the ones who caused all of these spending problems by starting unnecessary wars and conflicts the world over. Bush 43 cuts taxes for the rich and affluent while starting 2 wars, which our country is now mired in with no end in sight. People like Limbaugh and Drudge get on the radio waves and pound these messages to any fools that'll listen to them, attacking the poor and needy on a nearly daily basis. I call all of it hate speech.
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Democrat
Colorado Springs, CO
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The latest outrage by the Trump administration is the plan to eliminate free school lunches for roughly 1,000,000 children. I received a letter from the American Federation of Teachers this morning. Rather than paraphrase, I decided to simply post the letter in its entirely: ************************************************************************************* Last month, I told you about how President Trump was making it harder for families to access food and nutrition assistance, and I asked you take action. Now we find out that Trump’s Department of Agriculture withheld important information about the impact that his proposal to restrict eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would have on more than 3 million Americans—and on children in particular. We now know this proposal will end access to free school meals for nearly 1 million children. No child should be punished for circumstances beyond their control or expected to learn while hungry. Click here, and tell the Trump administration: Protect SNAP and access to school meals! Trump’s proposal will mean that, in addition to losing food and nutrition assistance at home, 1 million students will lose access to free meals at school. Food-insecure children have higher rates of poor health and hospitalization, an increased risk of asthma, and delays in cognitive development. Tell the Trump administration to stop hurting children by preventing access to free school meals. Nearly 12 percent of households in the United States are food-insecure; these families don’t make enough money to put enough food on their tables. Half of all Americans experiencing food insecurity have incomes above the official poverty line, but with the costs of housing and child care rising, many of them cannot afford to feed themselves and their families. The Trump administration’s proposal will mean more working families and children will go hungry. We can stop this. Click here, and tell the administration to protect SNAP and access to school meals by Friday, November 1, 2019. In unity,
Randi Weingarten
AFT President    
Randi Weingarten, President
Lorretta Johnson, Secretary-Treasurer | Evelyn DeJesus, Executive Vice President © American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO. All rights reserved.
Photographs and illustrations, as well as text, cannot be used without permission from the AFT. Contact Us | 555 New Jersey Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20001
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When you pay federal taxes, you are not paying for the federal govt to get the funds it needs in order to spend. In reality, and as is clear from a closer look at the order of operations, the tax is about altering your behavior, as you can’t spend or save those funds, and you had to do something to get the dollars to pay the tax.
I know it sounds cryptic and there’s a lot to unpack with what I’m saying. But the overall point is that something very different from the “taxpayer” supplying the funds for the government to spend is going on. So it’s not about you paying taxes to pay for other people’s food stamps. That’s not how it does or how it even could work. All dollars are either spent or lent into the economy first by the federal government or its agents. Then, after incomes are received, taxes or debts owed to the federal govt can be paid, and/or debts owed by the federal govt can be purchased (and local/state govt can then tax/borrow and then spend).
Remember, the tax is about altering your behavior. The point is not the revenue. Revenue is not the goal of the tax. Corporations are invariably creatures of the state, and like the govt that created them, they should be LIMITED to public purpose.
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Sonny Purdue published a letter this morning in the local Tucson paper outlining what he feels is a "need for SNAP benefits to be structured to work with our changing economy, not be stuck in the past. This is why I made it a top priority to ensure people have the tools they need to move away from SNAP dependency and back toward self-sufficiency." https://tucson.com/opinion/national/sonny-perdue-the-dignity-of-work-and-the-american-dream/article_a9109ba1-cd48-5038-b00a-41aecddd91fa.html The Trump administration is trying, once again, to move people away from food stamps. The push isn’t new, but it’s getting new attention due to an Urban Institute study that concluded the rules, if they’d been in place last year, would have reduced the main federal food aid program’s rolls by 3.7 million people — as well as cut food stamp spending by about $4.2 billion. Remember that number for later. There’s a lot of wonkery in exactly how the administration’s rules would affect the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — “SNAP” in policy-circle shorthand and “food stamps” for just about everyone else. But the gist is that they would require more people to work a certain number of hours in order to get food stamps, place limits on how long some people can remain on the program, and change the rules for enrollment. There are also a lot of experts arguing over whether the people losing benefits really deserved to have them to begin with. There are two main arguments conservatives have marshalled in support of food stamp cuts, and they’re both dishonest. 1) Work requirements are often touted as an effort to nudge (starve) people into self-sufficiency. That ignores the fact that women working at minimum wage jobs don't make enough to pay for day care and commuting expenses, so the choice is either (1) work and ignore your kids or (2) stay home and make no money. 2) The other argument for making it harder for poor people to buy food is somehow even flimsier. And that’s the need for fiscal responsibility when it comes to the federal budget. The United States government this year will spend nearly $1 trillion more than it takes in, financing the rest by borrowing money. This isn’t a particularly credible argument, given that the deficit could be shrunk by raising taxes on the wealthy and upper middle class, or on the corporations whose poverty wages leave millions of working Americans dependent on government programs. But it’s revealed to be a comically disingenuous argument once you remember the Trump administration’s signature domestic “achievement”: tax breaks that will add at least $1.5 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-food-stamps-cuts-tax-breaks-920721/ SNAP benefits vary by state. of course, but the eligibility and income requirements for Arizona exemplify why the program is still a vital lifeline for families. For starters, the MINIMUM benefit is $16 for 1 or 2 people. In order to qualify, you need to be below the Federal Poverty Guideline. A married couple in Arizona would qualify for $355 per month. However, from that total, you need to subtract 30% of your net income. If a retired couple had a combined social Security income of $1410 (the federal poverty line) they would need to subtracts $423 from their food stamp allotment, which would leave them with NOTHING except for the $16 minimum benefit. The only way they would collect $355 for food stamps is if they had NO INCOME AT ALL. To be blunt, how do you become self sufficient if you have no income? Even if you are living exclusively on ramen noodles, you still are going to spend more than $16 a month, and the amount of food you would get at the local food bank (which you can only visit once a month) does not provide you with enough food to get you through the month. https://az.db101.org/az/programs/income_support/food_support/program2.htm
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Chet: You are exactly correct. What the Republican Party just doesn't seem to understand is that food stamps BENEFIT the economy. Five dollars spent on food stamps generates Nine dollars in economic activity. In 1969, the president of the United States said this: "That hunger and malnutrition should persist in a land such as ours is embarrassing and intolerable”. Did I mention that he is a REPUBLICAN? https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/food-stamps-statistics-SNAP-economic-benefits/ There WAS a time when Democrats and Republicans could work together, and one of the best examples of that is the The McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program that was established in 2000.The article below lists the many benefits of the program: https://borgenproject.org/how-sustainable-is-mcgovern-dole/ The article below (food for thought) provides additional reasons why food stamps are important, and why they should be INCREASED. Ironically, the majority of the states (12 of the top 15) that would be hurt the most by cuts in food stamps are all controlled by Republicans. Mississippi has the highest percentage of its population on food stamps (21.7%) but New Mexico is close behind, at 20%. https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2013/05/food-for-thought.html https://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/states-people-food-stamps.html/
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