Really, could not believe my Congresswoman Corrine Brown would do this. I wrote to her last week, "I know you'll do the right thing." But she and 88 other Democrats voted to pass a Farm Bill in the House today that cuts food stamps by $8 billion over ten years.
And I do not care about the rationalizations. They should have stood up on principle and demanded cuts instead, if cuts need be made, to the military budget, the bloated, engorged, humongous multi-billion dollar worthless, unnecessary ships or planes or projectiles or WHAT-ever, things that go boom and KILL LOTS of PEOPLE. Or Whatever! Some of those corporate/plutocrat giveaways.
You see, that $8 billion of food stamp cuts? It's about ONE HALF of total cuts to a TRILLION dollar bill.
The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill authorizing nearly $1 trillion in spending on farm subsidies and nutrition programs, setting the stage for final passage of a new five-year farm bill that has been stalled for over two years.
Negotiators from the House and Senate spent several weeks working out their differences on issues in the legislation, including cuts to food stamps, income caps on farm subsidies and a price support program for dairy farmers. The bill is expected to save about $16.6 billion over the next 10 years.
Democrats. I've been one all my life. I'm seventy. It's a long time. I have been a proud liberal who stood for principles, like helping the poor, all my life. I thought that my party stood together for that, among others, like human justice, equality of all kinds, voting rights, civil rights, privacy rights, basic human dignity and rights. Today? Opposite of proud.
But all too often, without an extraordinary leader in Congress like Ted Kennedy or countless others, we see this weakness in Democrats.
Why not stand up to Republicans in negotiations! Say:
"We need to cut where it won't hurt vulnerable people. We need to cut the bloated military where it won't be missed so much, this $8 billion. One less ship or plane we don't need anyhow, or that we know already does not work!"
Why not say to Republicans:
"America has more than 40 million PEOPLE, men women and CHILDREN, living in poverty. This is due to the economy and the fact that we don't have enough jobs for full employment! Due also to inequalities, due to historical factors never addressed, inequities, problems in our capitalist system. And due to LOW WAGES, low minimum wage, because many or most of those living in poverty DO WORK, THEY HAVE JOBS, THEY SIMPLY do NOT Earn Enough!"
Why don't our Democratic Representatives say:
"So, Republicans, as we negotiate, realize, please, that poor children who do not have enough food are going to grow up weaker, less able. That it is not good for the richest country in the world to operate this way. To let our children subsist on cheap carbs, to go to bed hungry, to go without adequate nourishment for growing bodies."
Why not say to Republicans:
"Let's cut subsidies to oil companies and other corporations. Why not reign in those off shore bank accounts that the wealthy use to avoid our taxes? Why can they get away without paying a dime when our middle class people pay plenty?"
I wrote a day ago that I was ashamed of the Democrats who negotiated this deal, who helped write a Farm Bill that cut food stamps. I wrote from my place of poverty, of age, of inability to work, of subsisting on less than $800/month, of getting used to being poor these last ten years for the first time in my life, and what it's like to already have had my food stamps here in Florida cut by almost 40% (with no changes in my circumstances).
This time I am writing out of my outrage and fury and sadness at MY PARTY doing this, to me, but more to MILLIONS OF POOR PEOPLE who have no where else to turn when they are hungry. Not everyone has access to a "food pantry." For instance, I know of none where I live.
Children will grow up weak and unmotivated, and malnourished here in the wealthiest country in all creation, EVER.
And we know:
The wealthiest 85 PEOPLE in the world have more than the poorest half of humanity which is 3.5 BILLION PEOPLE.
Yep, think of that a minute. And we're just asking for some food to help us get by.
So. It kind of leaves you shaking your head, right?
Nancy Pelosi, Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, Corrine Brown (my Rep), Jim Clyburn (!?) and 85 others.
Can you feel my disdain? I don't want to hear you splain to me that this will only hurt those at the "top" of the poverty "group" -- not those like me toward the "bottom." Nope, don't want to hear it! Poverty is poverty, and those with two kids living on minimum wage jobs, they may be near the "top" but they are hurting! They need this help. So shame on you today. I'm sick of my party doing this kind of thing. I'm beginning, for the first time, to wonder if we might need a third party.