Food stamps moved front-and-center in the budget wars Monday morning, as House Republicans began rolling out a first wave of $33.2 billion in 10-year savings that will have an immediate impact in the farm bill debate and come November, the 2012 elections. An average family of four faces an 11 percent cut in monthly benefits after Sept. 1, and even more important is the tighter enforcement of rules demanding that households exhaust most of their savings before qualifying for help. This hits hardest among the long-term unemployed, many of whom never before used the aid -now titled SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program)—but have found it valuable in trying to stay afloat in the current recession.
There are times when I struggle to make sense of a world in which politicians can fund two wars, a bloated military-industrial complex, and tax cuts for the wealthiest among us. This while those same politicians are crying “Poverty!!!” and “Austerity!!!” when it comes to helping to support the poor and middle class.
Let me see if I have this straight. Tax cuts for the wealthy and wasteful, inefficient defense spending: GOOD. Taxes for programs that fulfill our commitment to the social contract: BAD. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up….
I understand that Conservatives and the Far Right have a worldview fundamentally different from my own…but I really have to wonder when the poor and the middle class became the enemy and the purpose of government became waging war on women and propping up the interests of the 1%? When did we tear up the social contract? When did we tell single mothers, senior citizens, and the unemployed to go fornicate themselves? When did getting the short end of life’s stick come to be seen as proof that an individual is unworthy of a hand up? Why is it that blowing things up is acceptable, but providing aid to single mothers is beyond the pale?
While I hesitate to attribute the blackness of the Right’s collective soul to evil, I frankly don’t know what else it could be. I wish there was a logical, easily understandable reason why the GOP has become the party of Simon Legree. It appears that Ayn Rand is alive and well and living in the black hearts of too many Republicans.
No, social programs aren’t cheap, but if we can afford to project the power of American Exceptionalism overseas, how is it that we can’t afford to project some of it here at home? When did taking care of our own become a sign of moral weakness? When did compassion come to be defined as a harbinger of creeping, incipient Socialism??
And when did we become such a mean-spirited, cold-hearted country??
