Happy Holidays from Congress-Food Stamp Cuts Take Effect Today

Jim Cole/AP file photo

For the first time in the history of the food stamp program (SNAP), across-the-board cuts totaling $5 billion over the next year start today affecting approximately one in seven Americans. Evidently the members of Congress who voted for this have their heads buried in the sand and don't understand that most Americans have lost ground since 2008 and still need a boost to feed themselves and their families. Timing could not have been worse, since Thanksgiving will soon arrive, increasing an already heavy burden on food banks and other organizations that provide food to those in need.

SNAP allocations built into President Obama's 2009 stimulus package ended yesterday, and Congress made no provisions to continue it. That programs was designed to improve nutrition and eliminate junk food so that recipients could buy more nutritious food rather than buying the cheapest food available. SNAP recipients will now face the same tough choices they had prior to the stimulus package.

This blogger knows all to well the plight of people who can't stretch their budgets far enough to include meat, fruit and vegetables as staples of their diets from her experience in the non-profit sector. They overly rely on simple starches and canned goods that don't offer enough protein and vitamins to meet daily requirements.

The extreme conservative wing of the Republican Party is clamoring for more cuts to SNAP, a position this blogger considers an absolute outrage. Citizens of this country should always have enough food. Ham on Wry once again offers the words of our Founding Fathers when they created the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America, to remind the Tea Party and all who think they have the right idea of where the focus of our government should lie, and it isn't with support for businesses and corporations. We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence (sic), promote the General Welfare (bold purposely chosen), and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Nowhere does the Preamble indicate an emphasis on business, commerce, trade, etc., yet the current Congress places more focus on that than citizens' general welfare. Perhaps those elected officials who have forgotten the tenets on which this country was formed should review the entire Constitution in order to perform their jobs more effectively. Surely, they can find bloated programs to cut rather than tampering with food sources.

The penurious supporters of further cuts to SNAP should be forced to live on it for a month to see the real consequences of their actions. In fact, their salaries should be cut in conjunction with the cuts they force on others.

It's time for change, voters. Remember the government shutdown and any cuts to vital programs that ensue at the polls next year. These idiots need a dose of their own medicine and should suffer the consequences of their ignorance.