It’s unfortunate the Teaparty has ramrodded a cut to SNAP through, as if those of us who are struggling needed to be further shamed and punished for the excesses of Wall Street. But cut it they did and that sucks because I might have been near qualifying. In fact I have to cover some bills by the end of this month and it’s gonna be tight. If anyone can spare five or ten bucks to help out, the Paypal donation link is above, my account is at DarkSydoTheMoon at the domain AOL and then the ole dot-com (Trying not to get spammed mercilessly by hungry bots).
No doubt the usual suspects would be high-fiving one another, near ecstatic, knowing they may hurt an atheist blogger, but here’s the sad state of conservative concern for people even poorer, more religious, and less influential than I am:
WaPo — In the House, Democrats used the hours before the vote to criticize Republicans for stripping SNAP recipients of their aid. They repeatedly cited an op-ed by former Senate majority leaders Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Robert Dole (R-Kan.) published Monday in the Los Angeles Times who argued that “this is no time to play politics with hunger.”
Brandishing a cooked steak, bottle of vodka and can of caviar on the House floor, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) suggested that money spent by lawmakers on official overseas travel could easily help pay for food stamps for the hungry. One lawmaker received more than $3,500 to spend on food and lodging during a six-day trip to Russia — roughly equal to a year’s worth of SNAP funding for some recipients, she said.
The House bill would cut overall SNAP spending by slightly more than five percent over the next decade, largely through two provisions that would significantly affect states.
The first reinstates restrictions on many able-bodied, childless adults aged 18 to 50 who receive SNAP benefits. It accounts for roughly half the cuts. Under those limits, 1.7 million people would lose benefits next year, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported on Monday. Under federal law, those able-bodied adults may collect only limited benefits — up to three months over a three-year period — unless they work more than 20 hours per week or are in a job-training program.
Well, I’m 51 years-old, somehow that gives people my age a pass? Strange. The problem with work requirements of course is jobs are hard to come by, that’s the whole point of needing fucking food stamps, that’s why I’m in such sda shape, I have a job but it pay so shitty that when I miss work I’m fucked, there’s no amrgin for error.
Trust me, no one is sitting at home cackling over being broke or unemployed and living lavishly off the buck or two a day food stamps provides, it’s just assistance through a grim time. But the real insult to our dignity is most of us do work, we just don’t get paid a living wage and/or we have to negotiate a major obstacle. For me it was an expensive major heart attack and lots of missed work from a very low paying job. I may eventually have to seek disability status. Hopefully not soon.
Well Johnny Tremaine, the life of a progressive atheist activist is also not an easy one. I’ll keep the donate button up for a few days. If you’re struggling yourself, don’t use it, I’ll make it through this shit one way or another.
This is the travesty that goes far beyond food stamps. Back when we regularly kept beasts of burden and used them to perform work, people understood that, in return, you had to provide them with enough nutritious food to keep up their health, adequate shelter, and adequate rest. Then, if they got sick or injured, you still had to provide those essentials until they recovered. To employ somebody full-time and not pay them a living wage is to treat them worse than you would a mule or an ox.
Dave,
Beasts of burden are expensive. People are plentiful and cheap. They can afford to use us up and throw us away. Keep us hungry, shamed and desperate and there will always be someone begging to take our places once we are no longer of use to our masters.
Ah, The Gospel of Supply-Side Jesus.
@DaveL: But people owned their mules and oxen, or borrowed them from people who wouldn’t loan them again if they were mistreated. Mules and oxen didn’t come beating down a man’s door saying, “Will pull your plow for food.”
I guess it’s too much to ask for most people to do the right thing (like pay a living wage) because it’s the right thing to do.
Wow. Even the BBC is calling this the ‘Let them starve’ bill. Ouch.
Colorado’s House Republicans ask for flood relief after voting against Sandy aid
Good catch Reg, I’ve been waiting for stuff like this.
Circuses are great for keeping peoples mind off a hell of a lot of problems, but starvation isn’t one of them. Its like no one in power there has ever taken a history class. “Let them eat cake”* anyone? If you sit in your mansion stuffing your face and laughing at the mob of starving peasants outside for too long, the mob will get big enough to take out the guards and gates. And then something happens with a guillotine.
I tend to think of myself as not very well off, but I’m not on the verge of needing food stamps, so I can probably squeeze a few bucks out of the budget. However I won’t use paypal, if I drop you an email Stephen, can we come up with another way to transfer funds?
*Yes, I know, this is misattributed to Marie Antoinette, but it is probably an accurate reflection of the attitude of French royalty just prior to the Revolution.