Please, sir, I want some more

And the answer for America's hungry is "no."

On the first of November, benefit cuts to food stamps took effect leaving a family of four  with an average cut of about $36 dollars a month.  Benefits will now be less than $1.40 per person per meal.

In a word--actually it's not a word but an amalgamation of a word--un-fucking-believable.

Have you ever really given thought to how much $1.40 per person, per meal, is?  For my family (three of us, three meals a day) that comes to $88.20 a week.  Our current grocery bills consistently run better than $150 a week--and believe me, we do not eat like millionaires.  We cut coupons, use lots of store brands, take part in store loyalty programs, and eat lots of leftovers.  We also don't eat fancy meals--meat, side dish, vegetable, or along the lines of spaghetti or tacos.  Could we cut from our grocery bill?  Sure--my gut could definitely use with a few less sweets and we spoil the Beautiful Boy with a few treats, but cutting better than 40% from our food budget?  There's no way we could eat three decent square meals a day on $88.20 a week.

Sadly, though trying as valiantly as they can, food banks (despite republican groupthink) cannot keep up with the demand (also here).  This means that these cuts have resulted in more Americans going hungry, hardly  an optimal outcome (not to mention it's bad economics for all of us).

While Democrats do shoulder some of the blame (deals with the devil rarely pay off) and Michigan's own Debbie Stabenow has been a colossal disappointment (despite two different appeals from me--imagine that, a poor motherfucker with no influence) for spouting the usual fraud bullshit (less than 1%) it's important to remember that this is a republican initiative.  Republicans are happy to watch their fellow Americans go hungry so long as the wealthy have to pay less in taxes (and Democrats like Kirsten Gillibrand and the Congressional Progressive Caucus are certainly fighting the good fight).

Let's just hope that--as the leader of America's largest food bank noted--when America's poor begin rioting because they can't afford to eat that their first target are the congressional offices of heartless republicans.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Peace,
emaycee