5 ms·

US lawmakers vote to cut food stamp benefits from 2014

15 points by frank_boyd 13y ago

frank_boyd 13y ago
Signs of times getting really insane. Last year, the richest 10% got 50% of all income/wealth. This year, +/- the same people vote to hurt the poor even more. At the same time, you have Google wanting to extend life. Whose lives do you think will get extended? The lives of those who can pay. It's even more insane considering the fact that we're already using up all resources of our planet and happily continue to overpopulate it. If these tendencies continue, there will be a very big clusterf#ck pretty soon.
- yhckrfan 13y ago
  Note: The US is a good country overall so the following may sound like anti US rhetoric but it isn't meant that way. Even in my country I am seeing similar things. >Last year, the richest 10% got 50% of all income/wealth. I think it is an easy fall back to make comparisons between the rich and poor, but that isn't the problem here. It is the government. How much does the US government funnel into programs to feed the war machine, or spy on their own people. This isn't a rich vs poor situation, it is a government vs the people situation, there is money there but it is being diverted into other programs. More tax = more bureaucracy + more waste + same problems, when a government is not effective or efficient.
  - user9756 13y ago
    >I think it is an easy fall back to make comparisons between the rich and poor, but that isn't the problem here. It is the government. Government isn't an isolated entity in society it represents segments of a society. And usually that is the rich and or powerful.
    - yhckrfan 13y ago
      > Government isn't an isolated entity in society it represents segments of a society. And usually that is the rich and or powerful. I do believe the rich and powerful do have a leash around many governments, and so do the average person as that is how the government is often voted in by appeasing by populist policy. However I doubt the rich and powerful have a requirement to cut food stamps. Again this isn't a rich man driving policy it is a government deciding where funding is going.
      - saraid216 13y ago
        > However I doubt the rich and powerful have a requirement to cut food stamps. Again this isn't a rich man driving policy it is a government deciding where funding is going. Big Agriculture actually seems to be pushing against food stamps. There's been a fair amount of talk how the funding is going from food stamps to corporations in the food business. I'm not really on top of this particular strain of politics, but I turned up stuff quickly when I googled "Big Ag" and "food stamps" in various permutations, so you can find your own credible sources without my bias.
  - saraid216 13y ago
    Do you have a solution that is more practical than waving a magic wand?
    - yhckrfan 13y ago
      Accountability would be a start.
      - saraid216 13y ago
        Invoking the Secret Words of Power is not actually doing any more than waving a magic wand.
        yhckrfan 13y ago
        >Invoking the Secret Words of Power is not actually doing any more than waving a magic wand. Neither is doing nothing.
        saraid216 13y ago
        You seem to have missed my point. Which is that you're doing nothing. And saying nothing.
        yhckrfan 13y ago
        >You seem to have missed my point. >Which is that you're doing nothing. >And saying nothing. Actually I do do things, I do write and air my grievances with my local representative(s). I do expect them to be accountable.
        saraid216 13y ago
        I thought you weren't an American.
  - r00fus 13y ago
    > I think it is an easy fall back to make comparisons between the rich and poor, but that isn't the problem here. It is the government....How much does the US government funnel into programs to feed the war machine, or spy on their own people. You need to dig a little deeper. Who funds these government officials? Who hires them into lucrative private companies? Who effectively owns government? If you say "the people" you are technically correct - most of the US Debt is owed to social security trust fund - which has been consistently drained over the past few decades to pay for wars and spying as you say. Social Security is owed to private individuals. However, the funding of political campaigns through lobbying is an above board bribery that effectively debt the government official to their sposors... which are increasingly large corporations with wealthy owners. The anti-tax drown-the-government firebreathers in Congress are often the most corrupt of the lot.
    - yhckrfan 13y ago
      >However, the funding of political campaigns through lobbying is an above board bribery that effectively debt the government official to their sposors... which are increasingly large corporations with wealthy owners. Agreed there are problems with the political environment in regards to funding and lobbying. However if we continue to fail over to the concept that this is all about rich people being the boogeyman in these situations then we will always continue to deflect responsibility from the government. Blame or focus on the rich, diverts responsibility from the government to fulfil it's duties. In fact it continues to allow a government to do such, because people are looking the other way. What I am suggesting is the money is probably there to allow such programs to continue, if you divert funding from other non-critical areas.
  - BgSpnnrs 13y ago
    This sounds, with all due respect, like libertarian mantra. How on earth do you propose to enable the poor to bring themselves above the poverty line without a centralised system to manage it? You're completely correct that US government is wasteful, spends mindlessly on military, war aid and the appeasement of dubious lobbyists - that is not a problem with governance in general though! Furthermore, unless a redistribution of wealth and a welfare state is mandated through taxation and social programs there seems little hope of helping those at the very bottom who have been failed (or failed themselves) thanks to the incredibly tough odds they face compared to healthy, well-off, decently educated folk from stable backgrounds. Sure, the rich aren't some distinct subspecies with little regard to humanity and philanthropy is not a forgotten art, but when stuff like this gets voted through you can see how broken the entire system is. A media which programs the poor to turn on itself, a rule of law which actively discriminates against the poor, a wage barrier that condemns those in low-level work to a life of constant stress and fear. They are things that the people need to fix through their government. 'Shutting down everything' only really serves to help those who already are without the need of it. ->Potentially meandering off-topic and probably not that much of a direct reply to yhckrfan - apologies. I've not had coffee yet!
    - dnautics 13y ago
      >How on earth do you propose to enable the poor to bring themselves above the poverty line without a centralised system to manage it? Using a decentralized system? Food banks, shelters. Get the grubby Fed paws off of it. Maybe the states should run them, even better if the cities did, or even better if good-minded citizens came together and pitched in without the state. Come on, you don't seriously think that the US Federal Government's social safety net is working, do you? We keep plowing more and more money into it and yet the divide between the rich and the poor is getting wider. "unless a redistribution of wealth and a welfare state is mandated through taxation and social programs..." Bastiat comes to mind: "[The socialists declare] that the State owes subsistence, well-being, and education to all its citizens; that it should be generous, charitable, involved in everything, devoted to everybody; ...that it should intervene directly to relieve all suffering, satisfy and anticipate all wants, furnish capital to all enterprises, enlightenment to all minds, balm for all wounds, asylums for all the unfortunate, and even aid to the point of shedding French blood, for all oppressed people on the face of the earth. Who would not like to see all these benefits flow forth upon the world from the law, as from an inexhaustible source? ... But is it possible? ... Whence does [the State] draw those resources that it is urged to dispense by way of benefits to individuals? Is it not from the individuals themselves? How, then, can these resources be increased by passing through the hands of a parasitic and voracious intermediary? ...Finally...we shall see the entire people transformed into petitioners. Landed property, agriculture, industry, commerce, shipping, industrial companies, all will bestir themselves to claim favors from the State. The public treasury will be literally pillaged. Everyone will have good reasons to prove that legal fraternity should be interpreted in this sense: "Let me have the benefits, and let others pay the costs." Everyone's effort will be directed toward snatching a scrap of fraternal privilege from the legislature. The suffering classes, although having the greatest claim, will not always have the greatest success." he was too generous. The suffering classes will ALMOST NEVER have success. tl;dr: You think you're helping the poor, but if you're using the state to fix a problem, you're usually just lining the pockets of some wealthy or politically connected jerk who subcontracts the work, claiming to do the good works.
  - madaxe 13y ago
    > Note: The US is a good country overall I'm not so sure that that's correct. You're talking about the world's largest sponsor of terrorism and war. The American people may be good, if uninformed and controlled by propaganda, but the American government has been an overall global negative for at least the last 65 years.
beedogs 13y ago
Incredible that the US can feed other countries, and bomb other countries into the Stone Age, but can't care for its own poor. Pathetic.
nazgulnarsil 13y ago
Simplistic moral narratives without the need for economic analysis of the costs, benefits and incentives of those who interact with the program! Surely this will result in good outcomes for the needy!
auctiontheory 13y ago
Even as a poor country like India increases food aid to its poor, we cut food. Incredible. How can the GOP claim to be so closely allied with Jesus, and yet work so consistently against the poor? In case you missed is, the proposed annual savings of $3.9B is the cost of three (3) B-2 bombers.
- Osiris 13y ago
  In the immigration debate, an amendment to the bill was proposed to double the number of border patrol agents at a cost of $40 billion. Maybe they are just cutting food stamps in order to pay for border patrol agents.
apsec112 13y ago
"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." "Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them." http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
sbierwagen 13y ago
The House, not the Senate. This won't get past the Senate, and even if it did, it wouldn't survive a veto, so there's no chance of it actually becoming law.
Shish2k 13y ago
I wonder if the US is anything like the UK - we have something along the lines of Benefit fraud: £10 million. Unclaimed benefits: £100 million. Business scale tax fraud: £10 billion. And then we demonise the poor because one person out of a few million ripped off the system and bought a big TV...
maratd 13y ago
Really? Not a single comment supporting this? Talk about a mono-culture. Reasons this is a good idea: 1. Dispensing charity on the local level, rather than the federal, reduces fraud and gets the funds directly in the hands that need it most. And there is a lot of fraud in the food stamp program. 2. One of the biggest problems the US is facing currently is the inability to pay for entitlement programs. The federal government is borrowing furiously to cover these programs. Unless they get a handle on things, after enough borrowing, the dollar will simply collapse. The poor will be hardest hit by this. 3. Food stamps are essentially cash. Even when spent properly, they're usually spent on processed poor quality food because that's the cheapest stuff around. Take the funds and spend them at soup kitchens that can leverage their purchasing power and buy high quality fresh food at a discount. 4. Any entitlement programs reduces the incentive to work and become self-sufficient. As much as this makes you cringe, it is true nevertheless. 5. Having been on food stamps myself, I can tell you right off the bat, it's absolutely degrading. At the time, they didn't use any kind of cards, you had actual food stamps. There you are, paying with stamps, while everybody else pays with cash. It's like wearing a sign saying "look at me, I'm poor!" and it's humiliating. A more discrete way of distributing help would be far more humane. How about a discussion, rather than this echo chamber?
- ugk 13y ago
  Thank you. (I agree)
- gte910h 13y ago
  >Unless they get a handle on things, after enough borrowing, the dollar will simply collapse. The poor will be hardest hit by this. Yeah, we have historically low tax rates for the modern era. Raising taxes instead of lowering spending does the same thing to the balance sheet >4. Any entitlement programs reduces the incentive to work and become self-sufficient. As much as this makes you cringe, it is true nevertheless. This isn't necessarily true. Having the ability to eat reliably is quite useful when shifts may be irregular. This allows you to take higher paying, but more irregular work, providing a more dynamic labor force. This reason alone makes me suspect basic income instead of SS and SSDI and welfare and wic and foodstamps may be a good model for the 21st century.

15 points by frank_boyd 13y ago

Signs of times getting really insane. Last year, the richest 10% got 50% of all income/wealth. This year, +/- the same people vote to hurt the poor even more. At the same time, you have Google wanting to extend life. Whose lives do you think will get extended? The lives of those who can pay. It's even more insane considering the fact that we're already using up all resources of our planet and happily continue to overpopulate it. If these tendencies continue, there will be a very big clusterf#ck pretty soon.

yhckrfan 13y ago
Note: The US is a good country overall so the following may sound like anti US rhetoric but it isn't meant that way. Even in my country I am seeing similar things. >Last year, the richest 10% got 50% of all income/wealth. I think it is an easy fall back to make comparisons between the rich and poor, but that isn't the problem here. It is the government. How much does the US government funnel into programs to feed the war machine, or spy on their own people. This isn't a rich vs poor situation, it is a government vs the people situation, there is money there but it is being diverted into other programs. More tax = more bureaucracy + more waste + same problems, when a government is not effective or efficient.
- user9756 13y ago
  >I think it is an easy fall back to make comparisons between the rich and poor, but that isn't the problem here. It is the government. Government isn't an isolated entity in society it represents segments of a society. And usually that is the rich and or powerful.
  - yhckrfan 13y ago
    > Government isn't an isolated entity in society it represents segments of a society. And usually that is the rich and or powerful. I do believe the rich and powerful do have a leash around many governments, and so do the average person as that is how the government is often voted in by appeasing by populist policy. However I doubt the rich and powerful have a requirement to cut food stamps. Again this isn't a rich man driving policy it is a government deciding where funding is going.
    - saraid216 13y ago
      > However I doubt the rich and powerful have a requirement to cut food stamps. Again this isn't a rich man driving policy it is a government deciding where funding is going. Big Agriculture actually seems to be pushing against food stamps. There's been a fair amount of talk how the funding is going from food stamps to corporations in the food business. I'm not really on top of this particular strain of politics, but I turned up stuff quickly when I googled "Big Ag" and "food stamps" in various permutations, so you can find your own credible sources without my bias.
- saraid216 13y ago
  Do you have a solution that is more practical than waving a magic wand?
  - yhckrfan 13y ago
    Accountability would be a start.
    - saraid216 13y ago
      Invoking the Secret Words of Power is not actually doing any more than waving a magic wand.
      - yhckrfan 13y ago
        >Invoking the Secret Words of Power is not actually doing any more than waving a magic wand. Neither is doing nothing.
        saraid216 13y ago
        You seem to have missed my point. Which is that you're doing nothing. And saying nothing.
        yhckrfan 13y ago
        >You seem to have missed my point. >Which is that you're doing nothing. >And saying nothing. Actually I do do things, I do write and air my grievances with my local representative(s). I do expect them to be accountable.
        saraid216 13y ago
        I thought you weren't an American.
- r00fus 13y ago
  > I think it is an easy fall back to make comparisons between the rich and poor, but that isn't the problem here. It is the government....How much does the US government funnel into programs to feed the war machine, or spy on their own people. You need to dig a little deeper. Who funds these government officials? Who hires them into lucrative private companies? Who effectively owns government? If you say "the people" you are technically correct - most of the US Debt is owed to social security trust fund - which has been consistently drained over the past few decades to pay for wars and spying as you say. Social Security is owed to private individuals. However, the funding of political campaigns through lobbying is an above board bribery that effectively debt the government official to their sposors... which are increasingly large corporations with wealthy owners. The anti-tax drown-the-government firebreathers in Congress are often the most corrupt of the lot.
  - yhckrfan 13y ago
    >However, the funding of political campaigns through lobbying is an above board bribery that effectively debt the government official to their sposors... which are increasingly large corporations with wealthy owners. Agreed there are problems with the political environment in regards to funding and lobbying. However if we continue to fail over to the concept that this is all about rich people being the boogeyman in these situations then we will always continue to deflect responsibility from the government. Blame or focus on the rich, diverts responsibility from the government to fulfil it's duties. In fact it continues to allow a government to do such, because people are looking the other way. What I am suggesting is the money is probably there to allow such programs to continue, if you divert funding from other non-critical areas.
- BgSpnnrs 13y ago
  This sounds, with all due respect, like libertarian mantra. How on earth do you propose to enable the poor to bring themselves above the poverty line without a centralised system to manage it? You're completely correct that US government is wasteful, spends mindlessly on military, war aid and the appeasement of dubious lobbyists - that is not a problem with governance in general though! Furthermore, unless a redistribution of wealth and a welfare state is mandated through taxation and social programs there seems little hope of helping those at the very bottom who have been failed (or failed themselves) thanks to the incredibly tough odds they face compared to healthy, well-off, decently educated folk from stable backgrounds. Sure, the rich aren't some distinct subspecies with little regard to humanity and philanthropy is not a forgotten art, but when stuff like this gets voted through you can see how broken the entire system is. A media which programs the poor to turn on itself, a rule of law which actively discriminates against the poor, a wage barrier that condemns those in low-level work to a life of constant stress and fear. They are things that the people need to fix through their government. 'Shutting down everything' only really serves to help those who already are without the need of it. ->Potentially meandering off-topic and probably not that much of a direct reply to yhckrfan - apologies. I've not had coffee yet!
  - dnautics 13y ago
    >How on earth do you propose to enable the poor to bring themselves above the poverty line without a centralised system to manage it? Using a decentralized system? Food banks, shelters. Get the grubby Fed paws off of it. Maybe the states should run them, even better if the cities did, or even better if good-minded citizens came together and pitched in without the state. Come on, you don't seriously think that the US Federal Government's social safety net is working, do you? We keep plowing more and more money into it and yet the divide between the rich and the poor is getting wider. "unless a redistribution of wealth and a welfare state is mandated through taxation and social programs..." Bastiat comes to mind: "[The socialists declare] that the State owes subsistence, well-being, and education to all its citizens; that it should be generous, charitable, involved in everything, devoted to everybody; ...that it should intervene directly to relieve all suffering, satisfy and anticipate all wants, furnish capital to all enterprises, enlightenment to all minds, balm for all wounds, asylums for all the unfortunate, and even aid to the point of shedding French blood, for all oppressed people on the face of the earth. Who would not like to see all these benefits flow forth upon the world from the law, as from an inexhaustible source? ... But is it possible? ... Whence does [the State] draw those resources that it is urged to dispense by way of benefits to individuals? Is it not from the individuals themselves? How, then, can these resources be increased by passing through the hands of a parasitic and voracious intermediary? ...Finally...we shall see the entire people transformed into petitioners. Landed property, agriculture, industry, commerce, shipping, industrial companies, all will bestir themselves to claim favors from the State. The public treasury will be literally pillaged. Everyone will have good reasons to prove that legal fraternity should be interpreted in this sense: "Let me have the benefits, and let others pay the costs." Everyone's effort will be directed toward snatching a scrap of fraternal privilege from the legislature. The suffering classes, although having the greatest claim, will not always have the greatest success." he was too generous. The suffering classes will ALMOST NEVER have success. tl;dr: You think you're helping the poor, but if you're using the state to fix a problem, you're usually just lining the pockets of some wealthy or politically connected jerk who subcontracts the work, claiming to do the good works.
- madaxe 13y ago
  > Note: The US is a good country overall I'm not so sure that that's correct. You're talking about the world's largest sponsor of terrorism and war. The American people may be good, if uninformed and controlled by propaganda, but the American government has been an overall global negative for at least the last 65 years.

beedogs 13y ago

Incredible that the US can feed other countries, and bomb other countries into the Stone Age, but can't care for its own poor. Pathetic.

nazgulnarsil 13y ago

Simplistic moral narratives without the need for economic analysis of the costs, benefits and incentives of those who interact with the program! Surely this will result in good outcomes for the needy!

auctiontheory 13y ago

Even as a poor country like India increases food aid to its poor, we cut food. Incredible. How can the GOP claim to be so closely allied with Jesus, and yet work so consistently against the poor? In case you missed is, the proposed annual savings of $3.9B is the cost of three (3) B-2 bombers.

Osiris 13y ago
In the immigration debate, an amendment to the bill was proposed to double the number of border patrol agents at a cost of $40 billion. Maybe they are just cutting food stamps in order to pay for border patrol agents.

apsec112 13y ago

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." "Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them." http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

sbierwagen 13y ago

The House, not the Senate. This won't get past the Senate, and even if it did, it wouldn't survive a veto, so there's no chance of it actually becoming law.

Shish2k 13y ago

I wonder if the US is anything like the UK - we have something along the lines of Benefit fraud: £10 million. Unclaimed benefits: £100 million. Business scale tax fraud: £10 billion. And then we demonise the poor because one person out of a few million ripped off the system and bought a big TV...

maratd 13y ago

Really? Not a single comment supporting this? Talk about a mono-culture. Reasons this is a good idea: 1. Dispensing charity on the local level, rather than the federal, reduces fraud and gets the funds directly in the hands that need it most. And there is a lot of fraud in the food stamp program. 2. One of the biggest problems the US is facing currently is the inability to pay for entitlement programs. The federal government is borrowing furiously to cover these programs. Unless they get a handle on things, after enough borrowing, the dollar will simply collapse. The poor will be hardest hit by this. 3. Food stamps are essentially cash. Even when spent properly, they're usually spent on processed poor quality food because that's the cheapest stuff around. Take the funds and spend them at soup kitchens that can leverage their purchasing power and buy high quality fresh food at a discount. 4. Any entitlement programs reduces the incentive to work and become self-sufficient. As much as this makes you cringe, it is true nevertheless. 5. Having been on food stamps myself, I can tell you right off the bat, it's absolutely degrading. At the time, they didn't use any kind of cards, you had actual food stamps. There you are, paying with stamps, while everybody else pays with cash. It's like wearing a sign saying "look at me, I'm poor!" and it's humiliating. A more discrete way of distributing help would be far more humane. How about a discussion, rather than this echo chamber?

ugk 13y ago
Thank you. (I agree)
gte910h 13y ago
>Unless they get a handle on things, after enough borrowing, the dollar will simply collapse. The poor will be hardest hit by this. Yeah, we have historically low tax rates for the modern era. Raising taxes instead of lowering spending does the same thing to the balance sheet >4. Any entitlement programs reduces the incentive to work and become self-sufficient. As much as this makes you cringe, it is true nevertheless. This isn't necessarily true. Having the ability to eat reliably is quite useful when shifts may be irregular. This allows you to take higher paying, but more irregular work, providing a more dynamic labor force. This reason alone makes me suspect basic income instead of SS and SSDI and welfare and wic and foodstamps may be a good model for the 21st century.