I am extremely angry that George Bush wants to cut food stamps for seniors who will receive Medicare funds for their prescriptions.
When Medicare begins covering drugs in January, older Americans will spend less of their own money on drugs and will therefore have more to spend on food, reducing their need for food stamps, officials said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/08/politics/08drugs.html
This is logical in the minds of Republicans. Can't you just hear them? "Well, the old people will have all that extra money now that the government is buying their drugs, they can afford to buy their food."
Then, what is the point of buying their drugs? Oh, because it helps seniors who are more well off finanacially. The seniors who do not get food stamps are getting screwed. Only the poor. The poor elderly can't get to the polls anyway and they tend vote Democratic so let's just kick'em to the curb.
Deep breaths. I need to take deep breaths before I start running around my office yelling at the people I know who voted for George Bush. They had their reasons, I'm sure. But they were wrong!
I am grateful that Senator Kennedy is speaking out against this absolutely destructive policy.
The Bush Administration is mindlessly and heartlessly requiring low-income seniors to choose between food and medicine. In the new HHS description of the Medicare prescription drug benefit, the Administration explains that it will reduce or even cut off food stamps for Medicare recipients who rely on Medicare to afford the prescriptions they need.
Oh, it is heartless but it is not mindless. Kennedy is wrong. George Bush may be mindless but he has people back their pulling the strings. They know damn well what they are doing. They do not care.
Maybe we should tell the Republicans that if they let the poor seniors have the food stamps and have Medicare pay for the presciptions that those seniors will have more disposable income to spend. Oh, but seniors are not the target market. They are too old. We cannot depend on their consumerism to pull us out of the economic slump we are in. The seniors may have grown up in the Great Depression and tend to save their money. We need more corporate tax refunds. Yeah, that's the ticket!!!
http://kennedy.senate.gov/index_low.html
The number of Americans who are hungry or on the verge of hunger has increased by 3 million since President Bush took office, and this action will raise that number even higher. In addition, the Administration's budget proposed to deny food stamps to 300,000 low-income people in an average month over the next 5 years.
It's the height of hypocrisy for the President to tout his Social Security plan as protecting low-income Americans from benefit cuts, when he's slashing other benefits left and right for these Americans who need our help the most.
http://kennedy.senate.gov/index_low.html
I find this to be truly sickening. Thanks for letting me vent.