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Voting Repuke at this point is sociopathic. There's no two ways about it.
The Republican leadership in the House of Representatives is putting their version of the Farm Bill up for a vote this week in the House Agriculture Committee. The bill provides record levels of spending—an eye-popping $9.5 billion over 10 years—for an entirely new agribusiness subsidy under the guise of crop insurance. The bill finally ends the antiquated and highly suspect crop subsidies to help pay for the massive new crop insurance program, yet the bill slashes $16 billion from one of the most effective antipoverty programs in our nation, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, to fund the new insurance spending.
A cut of this magnitude means that at least 2 million families will lose access to the program. All told, about 1 billion fewer meals will be available to low-income families each year—meals that are a bargain for taxpayers at about a $1.60 a meal—as well as a basic responsibility for our society.
With nearly 45 million Americans relying on this program—85 percent of whom are living on incomes below the federal poverty line of $23,350 for a family of four—this cut is a cruel move that deprives our most needy fellow citizens of the most basic “hand up” to better themselves and their families. What’s more, cuts of this magnitude could have real consequences for our nascent economic recovery, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which calculates that each dollar of supplemental nutrition assistance benefits create $1.79 in increased economic activity.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/07/farm_bill.html
The Republican leadership in the House of Representatives is putting their version of the Farm Bill up for a vote this week in the House Agriculture Committee. The bill provides record levels of spending—an eye-popping $9.5 billion over 10 years—for an entirely new agribusiness subsidy under the guise of crop insurance. The bill finally ends the antiquated and highly suspect crop subsidies to help pay for the massive new crop insurance program, yet the bill slashes $16 billion from one of the most effective antipoverty programs in our nation, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, to fund the new insurance spending.
A cut of this magnitude means that at least 2 million families will lose access to the program. All told, about 1 billion fewer meals will be available to low-income families each year—meals that are a bargain for taxpayers at about a $1.60 a meal—as well as a basic responsibility for our society.
With nearly 45 million Americans relying on this program—85 percent of whom are living on incomes below the federal poverty line of $23,350 for a family of four—this cut is a cruel move that deprives our most needy fellow citizens of the most basic “hand up” to better themselves and their families. What’s more, cuts of this magnitude could have real consequences for our nascent economic recovery, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which calculates that each dollar of supplemental nutrition assistance benefits create $1.79 in increased economic activity.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/07/farm_bill.html
