Heighten the Contradictions Around Food Stamps
We’re angry. We bet you are too. Two weeks ago, roughly 47 million people, nearly half of them children, lost part of their food stamp (SNAP) benefits. Apparently the average allocation of $1.40 per person per meal is too generous for the “lazy moochers” that the Right-wing characterizes as anyone who needs a helping hand, even five years into the greatest recession to hit this country since the Great Depression.
As if this first round of cuts wasn’t enough, funding for food stamps is yet again on the chopping block this week as Congress attempts to pass a final Farm Bill. The choice seems to be cutting $4 billion or cutting $40 billion. We’re talking about taking food stamps away from 3.8 million people with 1.5 billion lost meals for struggling families, in the first year alone.
Do you boil over about the contradiction of “family values” politicians taking food from the mouths of babes and calling this a “democratic” economic system that promotes “freedom”? Freedom to starve, apparently!
Nearly 49 million Americans live in households that are food insecure. These are our most vulnerable people: 83 percent of food benefits go to households with children, the elderly or people with disabilities.
In the absence of an economic system based on cooperation and economic democracy, at the very least we must protect critical safety net programs like food stamps in the face of those with economic power who are literally willing to let “nonproductive” members of society starve, if it means they can keep their tax breaks and get their corporate welfare. That’s why DSA signed on to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) letter against cuts.