It's estimated that thanks to the welfare deform act of 1996 that one million people will lose food stamps this year--roughly $150 to $200 a month for those recipients, most of whom are caught in the "you have to work to collect but we don't have any jobs for you" conundrum.
That's a million more people going hungry in the richest nation in the world.
God bless America, eh?
Peace.
emaycee
Showing posts with label Welfare Reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Welfare Reform. Show all posts
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Saturday, February 22, 2014
An obscenity
"Hunger is not a problem. It is an obscenity."--Anne Frank
The excerpt in this post by Digby shows the best and worst that is America. The hungry mother forgoing eating so that her children could have more, her son saying he was full so that his mother could have some of the food that was on his plate--these are the best. The worst...well when one in five Americans has been food insecure in the past year in the richest nation on the face of the earth, when we read of a family going hungry...it is an abomination.
While it's correct to point a finger at the callousness of republicans, many of whom couldn't care less that Americans are going hungry or think it's their own damn fault (never mind the utter void of moral leadership in corporate America or the Pyramind Scheme that is Wall Street), the Democrats share the blame. Scenes of hungry families like those noted above are what Bill Clinton's disastrous welfare reform has wrought; the ninety dollars a month that 850,000 American familes won't have for food thanks to Debbie Stabenow's Farm Bill; the President's bowing to the Gods of Austerity rather than looking out for the best interests of the working class men and women on whose backs this country is carried.
Anne Frank was a teenager. It's quite amazing how much better she understood the scourge that is hunger than do our so-called leaders in our nation's capital.
Peace,
emaycee
The excerpt in this post by Digby shows the best and worst that is America. The hungry mother forgoing eating so that her children could have more, her son saying he was full so that his mother could have some of the food that was on his plate--these are the best. The worst...well when one in five Americans has been food insecure in the past year in the richest nation on the face of the earth, when we read of a family going hungry...it is an abomination.
While it's correct to point a finger at the callousness of republicans, many of whom couldn't care less that Americans are going hungry or think it's their own damn fault (never mind the utter void of moral leadership in corporate America or the Pyramind Scheme that is Wall Street), the Democrats share the blame. Scenes of hungry families like those noted above are what Bill Clinton's disastrous welfare reform has wrought; the ninety dollars a month that 850,000 American familes won't have for food thanks to Debbie Stabenow's Farm Bill; the President's bowing to the Gods of Austerity rather than looking out for the best interests of the working class men and women on whose backs this country is carried.
Anne Frank was a teenager. It's quite amazing how much better she understood the scourge that is hunger than do our so-called leaders in our nation's capital.
Peace,
emaycee
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Going nowhere and nowhere fast
This is Bill Clinton's legacy--his "reform" of welfare shredded the safety net for times of economic downturn (e.g., now) to the point where only 1/3 of families living in poverty (4.5 million) are currently eligible. Under the old system, 75% (13.5 million) would have been eligible for income assistance. That's 9 million families that are suffering needlessly thanks to Clinton, with nothing--absolutely fucking nothing--to show for his misguided attempt to kiss republican ass. One-fourth of our children now live in poverty--which, for some odd reason, really makes me hope there is a God so that at the end of Bill Clinton's days He can boot Bill in the ass and ask him just what the fuck he was thinking.
I'd like to think some smart s.o.b. among Obama's advisers would put this on a placard and hold it in front of the President's face and ask him if this is the America he'd like to see fifteen years from now, if making life worse for least of our brothers was the legacy he wants to have, but I've pretty much given up hope that there is anyone of intelligence in President Obama's circle, let alone anyone with enough of a heart to give a shit about the nation's poor.
Peace,
emaycee
I'd like to think some smart s.o.b. among Obama's advisers would put this on a placard and hold it in front of the President's face and ask him if this is the America he'd like to see fifteen years from now, if making life worse for least of our brothers was the legacy he wants to have, but I've pretty much given up hope that there is anyone of intelligence in President Obama's circle, let alone anyone with enough of a heart to give a shit about the nation's poor.
Peace,
emaycee
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