(USAID)
While the Republicans spent their day in the absurd unconstitutional charade they called a budget bill, here's some ugly realities of what's in, or not in, this bill.
USAID administrator Rajiv Shah explained to Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) that the agency was committed to its mission of battling global poverty, but that H.R. 1 would severely gut its ability to battle easily preventable deaths among children — and even lead to the deaths of as many as 70,000 kids globally....
H.R. 1 includes a $120 million funding cut to USAID’s annual budget, which amounts to a 9 percent cutback. Additionally, the bill would cut 30 percent from development assistance, 10 percent from global health and child survival programs, and a 29 percent cut from the Millennium Challenge Corporation. When viewed next to the deep cuts to Head Start and other domestic programs related to children, it appears that the right isn’t just waging war against kids at home, but kids all over the world — balancing budgets on their backs due to a recession they played no part in.
Mark Bittman, chef, food writer and righteous food activist, writes at the NYT about this attack on the poor and on hungry children.
The budget proposes cuts in the WIC program (which supports women, infants and children), in international food and health aid (18 million people would be immediately cut off from a much-needed food stream, and 4 million would lose access to malaria medicine) and in programs that aid farmers in underdeveloped countries. Food stamps are also being attacked, in the twisted “Welfare Reform 2011” bill. (There are other egregious maneuvers in H.R. 1, but I’m sticking to those related to food.)
These supposedly deficit-reducing cuts — they’d barely make a dent — will quite literally cause more people to starve to death, go to bed hungry or live more miserably than are doing so now. And: The bill would increase defense spending....
This [is] about ironies and outrages. In 2010, corporate profits grew at their fastest rate since 1950, and we set records in the number of Americans on food stamps. The richest 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all American households combined, the effective tax rate on the nation’s richest people has fallen by about half in the last 20 years, and General Electric paid zero dollars in U.S. taxes on profits of more than $14 billion. Meanwhile, roughly 45 million Americans spend a third of their posttax income on food — and still run out monthly — and one in four kids goes to bed hungry at least some of the time....
This is a moral issue; the budget is a moral document. We can take care of the deficit and rebuild our infrastructure and strengthen our safety net by reducing military spending and eliminating corporate subsidies and tax loopholes for the rich. Or we can sink further into debt and amoral individualism by demonizing and starving the poor. Which side are you on?
The image above is the stereotypical face of childhood hunger, but it's not necessarily representative, since hunger exists everywhere, including here at home.
- Nearly 14 million children are estimated to be served by Feeding America, over 3 million of which are ages 5 and under.
- According to the USDA, over 17 million children lived in food insecure (low food security and very low food security) households in 2009.
- 20% or more of the child population in 16 states and D.C. are living in food insecure households. The states of Arkansas (24.4 percent) and Texas (24.3 percent) have the highest rates of children in households without consistent access to food. (Cook, John, Child Food Insecurity in the United States: 2006-2008.
- 54 percent of client households with children under the age of 3 participated in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
Those children might not be starving to death, like the child above, but they are hungry, and will be hungrier and sicker if the GOP prevails with their draconian budget cuts. If Democrats don't fight them tooth and nail.