Is food stamp battle really about unfavorable
demographics?
U.S. Republicans Wage War on Profligate Hungry
Children (News, Switzerland)
"While right-wing Tea Party Republicans defend every tax
loophole for the superrich as if it were a battle against the Nazis, all possible
effort is made to make the poor even poorer. ... These enemies of children, who have come into the world to simultaneously defend the rights of the unborn until they are zygotes with the same fanaticism that they battle them after they are born, show that at least when it comes to mental illness, even politicians are unable to make use what passes for health care in the United States."
In
Europe today, we are so caught up with our own comedians (also known as
politicians), that almost no one notices the drama now playing out in the United
States. There, Republicans are waging war. Not against Syria, but against
hungry American children.
What's
it about? It involves “SNAP”
[the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] and right-wing Tea Party
Republicans, who want to cut
the food stamp program that poor Americans use to buy basic, life-saving
foodstuffs. The Republican argument goes increasing numbers of people are participating
in the program even as the unemployment rate is dropping. It is therefore clear
that the program is being abused.
However,
considering the conditions under which these "food stamps" are issued
(which is in fact a smart card), it is clear that almost no abuse is even possible,
as the benefit is tied to income. Now however, the belts of such people are
to be tightened even further, particularly those of children, who make up
almost half the people who receive food stamps. And as always, there are the people
who spend endless hours looking for work and not finding it, and who have been
dropped from the unemployment statistics - which doesn't say much about how
the aforementioned unemployment is monitored.
The
cuts are supposed to coax people into stopping living off the state - so the
argument goes. However, many of those who receive food stamps have a job, but
they are so poorly paid that not a few would find it impossible to survive or put
enough food on the table for their children without state assistance. Considering
that the threshold for eligibility for the food program is just over $2000 of
income per month for a family of three, one quickly works out that few are
there for the fun if it.
But
that is precisely the impression raised on the right. While they defend every
tax loophole for the superrich as if it were a battle against the Nazis, all possible
effort is made to make the poor even poorer. Children who are hungry find it
harder to learn, have poorer job prospects, and ultimately, will remain poor.
Furthermore, such children are more susceptible to disease, and when their
parents are unemployed, chances are that that won't even have the money for the
child to see a doctor. To ensure things stay that way, these same Republicans
are now using all means available to torpedo Obama's health care reform.
These enemies of children, who have come into the world to simultaneously defend the rights of the unborn until they are zygotes with the same fanaticism that they battle them after they are born, show that at least when it comes to mental illness, even politicians are unable to make use what passes for health care in the United States.
Since
all this madness is being caused by the same fanatics who are playing around
with the imminent default of the United States, this sideshow has hardly being noticed
here. Yet it highlights the direction in which the supposedly "conservative"
camp is drifting (destructive would be more accurate). This shows that in the
eyes of these politicians and their constituents, this isn't about politics. It
is about war. It isn't about compromise but about victory and defeat; not about
the future direction of the state, but about returning it to a past that never
existed.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
The
Tea Party Republicans are willing to stop at nothing because they see their mainly
White, Protestant, heterosexual, and male dominated world endangered. It is
almost a form of tribalism that steers these circles.
Sociologists have found that Tea Party supporters feel threatened, and that one
of their greatest fears is that social groups they consider inferior could be encouraged
and even expand. Against this backdrop of demographic change in the United
States, which will make dominant Whites a minority in the near future, the
panic of those who base their identities on race and their traditional social
position is completely understandable.
So
it's no wonder that for these representatives, as long as it isn't their
children, but the children of people who they feel threatened by, the starvation
of others is not only acceptable, but desirable. Thus, the motivation of Washington
politicians and those who elect them, who starve children, the disabled, and
poor, is above all a paranoia over what has always been with us: change. As a
result, they are waging a struggle that is as cruel as it is hopeless.
