Most Religions And Many Governments Feed The Poor-- But Not All... And Millions Of Elderly Americans Are Literally Starving

In my long life, I've seen starving people in India and in Afghanistan... but not too many other places come to mind. Except America. In the richest country in the history of earth there are people-- primarily very old people-- who go without food. It's not just Trump's fault. It's part of standard conservative dogma. It's not that Jesus taught but it's the the way it's supposed to be according to conservatives, including conservative religionists. Have you been watching The Family on Netflix. Totally excellent, especially if you read Jeff Shalet's books, The Family (2008) and C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat To American Democracy (2010), in the last decade.

The Netflix series drives home the fetishization of the Family's "church" religionist doctrine (they applied for and got tax exemptions as a church) started as an anti-union and anti-LGBTQ movement and wound up as an ultra-fetishization of politicians as God's chosen ones. Sounds weird but... watch the series or read the books. In raking the leaves and scrubbing the toilets of powerful politicians, the Family's recruits learned about the power dynamics of their sick "religion"-- but, while professing devotion to Jesus (not the Bible, just Jesus-- they cast his teachings about the poor completely aside.





Our whole political class has been sucked into this ugly vortex, celebrated annually since the early '50s by The Family-sponsored National Prayer Breakfast, a bipartisan cesspool of fascism, corruption, homophobia and oligarchy. The religion can be summed up in less than 10 words: "Ignore the poor and super-serve the rich and powerful." And every U.S. president since Eisenhower has attended the hideous so-called National Prayer Breakfast, some specifically paying public homage to the Nazi-worshipping huckster-in-charge, Doug Coe.

While our corrupted political class is breakfasting with fascists, over 5 million American senior citizens were starving or, more politely, "food insecure," according to a new report from Kaiser Health News, How America Fails To Feed Its Aging. Laura Ungar and Trudy Lieberman wrote that "millions of seniors across the country quietly go hungry as the safety net designed to catch them frays. Nearly 8% of Americans 60 and older were 'food insecure' in 2017, according to a recent study released by the anti-hunger group Feeding America. That’s 5.5 million seniors who don’t have consistent access to enough food for a healthy life, a number that has more than doubled since 2001 and is only expected to grow as America grays. While the plight of hungry children elicits support and can be tackled in schools, the plight of hungry older Americans is shrouded by isolation and a generation’s pride. The problem is most acute in parts of the South and Southwest. Louisiana has the highest rate among states, with 12% of seniors facing food insecurity. Memphis fares worst among major metropolitan areas, with 17% of seniors like Milligan unsure of their next meal."

And government relief falls short. One of the main federal programs helping seniors is starved for money. The Older Americans Act-- passed more than half a century ago as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society reforms-- was amended in 1972 to provide for home-delivered and group meals, along with other services, for anyone 60 and older. But its funding has lagged far behind senior population growth, as well as economic inflation.

The biggest chunk of the act’s budget, nutrition services, dropped by 8% over the past 18 years when adjusted for inflation, an AARP report found in February. Home-delivered and group meals have decreased by nearly 21 million since 2005. Only a fraction of those facing food insecurity get any meal services under the act; a U.S. Government Accountability Office report examining 2013 data found 83% got none.

With the act set to expire Sept. 30, Congress is now considering its reauthorization and how much to spend going forward.

Meanwhile, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, only 45% of eligible adults 60 and older have signed up for another source of federal aid: SNAP, the food stamp program for America’s poorest. Those who don’t are typically either unaware they could qualify, believe their benefits would be tiny or can no longer get to a grocery store to use them.

Even fewer seniors may have SNAP in the future. More than 13% of SNAP households with elderly members would lose benefits under a recent Trump administration proposal.

For now, millions of seniors-- especially low-income ones-- go without. Across the nation, waits are common to receive home-delivered meals from a crucial provider, Meals on Wheels, a network of 5,000 community-based programs. In Memphis, for example, the wait to get on the Meals on Wheels schedule is more than a year long.

“It’s really sad because a meal is not an expensive thing,” said Sally Jones Heinz, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association, which provides home-delivered meals in Memphis. ”This shouldn’t be the way things are in 2019.”

Since malnutrition exacerbates diseases and prevents healing, seniors without steady, nutritious food can wind up in hospitals, which drives up Medicare and Medicaid costs, hitting taxpayers with an even bigger bill. Sometimes seniors relapse quickly after discharge-- or worse.

Widower Robert Mukes, 71, starved to death on a cold December day in 2016, alone in his Cincinnati apartment.

The Hamilton County Coroner listed the primary cause of death as “starvation of unknown etiology” and noted “possible hypothermia,” pointing out that his apartment had no electricity or running water. Death records show the 5-foot-7-inch man weighed just 100.5 pounds.

Most of the states with the highest percentage of starving seniors are red states (2 exceptions-- New Mexico, where elderly Native Americans are poorly served and Rhode Island, which has a fake Dem neoliberal governor), states where voters still believe in Trump, states with voters who profess Christianity but loath Jesus' message to mankind, The first % represents the number of seniors starving and the second percentage was Trump's score in 2016:

• Louisiana- 12.3% -- 58.09%
• Mississippi- 11.8% -- 57.94%
• New Mexico- 11.5% -- 40.04%
• Texas- 10.5% -- 52.23%
• North Carolina- 10.5% -- 49.83%
• Alabama- 10.4% -- 62.08%
• Rhode Island- 9.6% -- 38.90%
• Kansas- 9.4% -- 56.65%
• South Carolina- 9.3% -- 54.94%
• West Virginia- 9.2% -- 68.50%
• Oklahoma- 9.1% -- 65.32%
• Arkansas- 9.0% -- 60.57%
• Arizona- 9.0% -- 48.67%

Ungar and Lieberman continued, explaining the findings of James Ziliak, a poverty researcher at the University of Kentucky who worked on the Feeding America study. Ziliak explained that "food insecurity shot up with the Great Recession, starting in the late 2000s, and peaked in 2014. He said it shows no signs of dropping to pre-recession levels."

While older adults of all income levels can face difficulty accessing and preparing healthy food, rates are highest among seniors in poverty. They are also high among minorities. More than 17% of black seniors and 16% of Hispanic seniors are food insecure, compared with fewer than 7% of white seniors.

A host of issues combine to set those seniors on a downward spiral, said registered dietitian Lauri Wright, who chairs the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of North Florida. Going to the grocery store gets a lot harder if they can’t drive. Expensive medications leave less money for food. Chronic physical and mental health problems sap stamina and make it tough to cook. Inch by inch, hungry seniors decline.

And, even if it rarely kills directly, hunger can complicate illness and kill slowly.

Malnutrition blunts immunity, which already tends to weaken as people age. Once they start losing weight, they’re more likely to grow frail and are more likely to die within a year, said Dr. John Morley, director of the division of geriatric medicine at Saint Louis University.

Seniors just out of the hospital are particularly vulnerable. Many wind up getting readmitted, pushing up taxpayers’ costs for Medicare and Medicaid. A recent analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center found that Medicare could save $1.57 for every dollar spent on home-delivered meals for chronically ill seniors after a hospitalization.

Most hospitals don’t refer senior outpatients to Meals on Wheels, and advocates say too few insurance companies get involved in making sure seniors have enough to eat to keep them healthy.

...As the Older Americans Act awaits reauthorization this fall, many senior advocates worry about its funding.

In June, the U.S. House passed a $93 million increase to the Older Americans Act‘s nutrition programs, raising total funding by about 10% to $1 billion in the next fiscal year. In inflation-adjusted dollars, that’s still less than in 2009. And it still has to pass in the Republican-controlled Senate, where the proposed increase faces long odds.

U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, an Oregon Democrat who chairs the Civil Rights and Human Services Subcommittee, expects the panel to tackle legislation for reauthorization of the act soon after members return from the August recess. She’s now working with colleagues “to craft a strong, bipartisan update,” she said, that increases investments in nutrition programs as well as other services.

“I’m confident the House will soon pass a robust bill,” she said, “and I am hopeful that the Senate will also move quickly so we can better meet the needs of our seniors.”

In the meantime, “the need for home-delivered meals keeps increasing every year,” said Lorena Fernandez, who runs a meal delivery program in Yakima, Wash. Activists are pressing state and local governments to ensure seniors don’t starve, with mixed results. In Louisiana, for example, anti-hunger advocates stood on the state Capitol steps in May and unsuccessfully called on the state to invest $1 million to buy food from Louisiana farmers to distribute to hungry residents. Elsewhere, senior activists across the nation have participated each March in “March for Meals” events such as walks, fundraisers and rallies designed to focus attention on the problem.

Audrey Denney is the progressive Democrat taking on Trump enabler Doug LaMalfa in the vast rural northeast corner of California. This morning she sent me a note after I had sent her an early version of this post and asked her for a comment. Please take a look and consider contributing to her campaign-- and to Mark Gamba, whose comments are below Audrey's-- if you like how they look at this problem:

I am a person of faith-- raised Episcopalian, I went to an Episcopal elementary school and Catholic middle school where we went to chapel every day. I've been active at my church in Chico for over 15 years; my mother, my two sisters, and my stepfather are all Episcopal priests. (Weird, I know). My faith informs everything I do, from my call to public service at this moment in time, to my deep, underlying belief that all human beings are inherently equal in rights and dignity-- we are all children of God, created in God's image, every one of us-- each one equally precious, beloved, and worthy. For a long time the dominant religious voice in the public sphere has been primarily concerned with issues of what I would call private morality. Some of the most intimate, private moments of a person's life-- who they fall in love with, what they can do with their body, when and how to have children-- these have been the subject of intense public debate, scrutiny, and legislation. But what's largely been forgotten is a much longer, broader, and deeper strain common to many religious traditions, and that is one of what I would call public morality. The Judeo-Christian scriptures talk time and time again about the fact that the measure of the holiness of a society is how we care for the most vulnerable among us-- the widow, the orphan, the foreigner (stranger). That's what Jesus did on this earth-- loved and lifted up the outcast. How are we doing, as a society, as a nation, on upholding the absolute worth and dignity of every human being? How are we doing on loving our neighbor--whether that neighbor is the same as us or different from us-- as ourselves?

We all have a duty to take care of our most vulnerable populations, including our seniors. In CA-01, a quarter of the population receives SS benefits (183,548 in 2017). Social Security benefits are less than $1,200 per month for millions of retired low wage workers with no other source of income. Anyone who is familiar with rent prices in CA will understand that it is virtually impossible for a senior living on $1,200 a month to pay rent, eat, and get the care they need. Caring for the most vulnerable means not only funding the programs that allow them to have their basic necessities met-- it also means funding and staffing the agencies that help connect them with those benefits. Social Security offices have lost about 4,000 staff in the last 5 years-- our office in Redding has 14 open desks. When the people of CA-01 send me to represent them in DC I will defend Social Security and Medicare against partisan attacks and work to ensure that it is a rock-solid benefit seniors can count on-- not subject to the budget whims of Congress or the fluctuations of the stock market. I’ll fight to increase funding to the Social Security Administration to ensure there are enough qualified staff members to meet the needs of our seniors. Staff members are crucial in making sure every senior, especially the most vulnerable-- get the benefits they’ve earned.

Mark Gamba, mayor of Milwaukie, Oregon is running for a congressional seat held by a reactionary Blue Dog, Kurt Schrader. Today Mark toldmethat "In a country where we are giving billionaires tax breaks-- when they barely pay anything already-- it is appalling that we continue to reduce our expenditures to feed our most vulnerable citizens. Causing your own people to starve to death is not the sign of a first world country. It should be particularly concerning as the population ages, given that for the last 40 years the middle class has gotten poorer and has been less able to save for retirement. Add the effect of climate chaos into the food insecurity mix and we have a recipe for mass starvation of the elderly if things continue as they are."

The Poor People Who Voted For Trump And For Republicans May Soon Learn What That Means To Their Families

Going into 2017, the Christian Science Monitor reminded its readers that boosting low wages has become less controversial as conservatives looked elsewhere to inflict their deadly ideology on working families. 19 states are about to see a rise in the minimum wage, causing the pay of more than 4 million workers go upon one fell swoop. Conservatives still make the same discredited, utrterly false argument about the minimum wage they’ve been making since the Black Plague decimated the English working class in 1348, prompting King Edward III to set a maximum wage, making it illegal to pay laborers too much. Real minimum wage proposals gained steam in the early 1800s and the first minimum wage laws were passed in 1894 (New Zealand), 1896 (Australia) and 1909 (England). The first national minimum wage law came to the U.S. in 1938, accompanied by predictions of the end of the world by conservative politicians and the businessmen who finance their shameful careers. They were wrong, of course, but that hasn’t discouraged conservatives to roll out the same arguments and baseless scare tactics every time there was an attempt to increase the minimum wage.

Debates surrounding the pros and cons of minimum wage raises have reverberated through society in “Fight for $15” protests and state capitals around the nation. While those on the left have said wage hikes will pull some of the nation’s most vulnerable low-income workers out of poverty, conservatives have argued that increased costs for businesses will hamper the economy and have harmful fallout for the very workers they purpport to help.

But in 2017, several reliably red states will join liberal havens like Massachusetts and California in increasing wages for their workers after voters approved ballot initiatives. In others, indexing will provide the increases.

Altogether some 4.4 million workers are expected to see their hourly wages go up.

In places like Arizona, where voters chose to send President-elect Donald Trump to the Oval Office, they also voted for wage increases, crossing over partisan lines to take on an issue from a more traditionally liberal perspective.

…In cities around the country that set the trend of increasing wages, fears of price shock or businesses losses have proved largely unfounded, with localities seeing little impact on their economies. Still, more conservative state governments, like that in Arizona, are pushing back, with state’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry filing a lawsuit to challenge the increase, which is slated to raise the minimum wage from $8.05 to $10. On Thursday, the Arizona Supreme Court refused to temporarily block the measure.

Low-wage workers largely have activists to thank for the change, but note there’s still a long way to go. As states and cities move to raise their wages, the contrast between places still abiding by the federal minimum of $7.25 last raised in 2009 becomes more pronounced.

Seattle recently raised the minimum wage-- conservatives were ready to perform the last rights. Instead, standards of living have risen and unemployment rates-- rather than the sky-- have fallen. Take look:

A few days ago, Kali Holloway, demonstrated one of the places conservatives are seeking to harm the working class instead— the food stamps program. Fox News, the far right’s fake news source, is, as usual, the mouthpiece for plutocracy, greed and hatred. “Pathologizing poverty,” she wrote, “has been a long-term, ongoing—and sadly, highly successful—project of the right in this country.” She cites Wisconsin Koch puppet Scott Walker and his recent appeal to Trump to allow his beaten-down state to drug-test food-stamp recipients, as well as another Wisconsinite, Paul Ryan, and his plans to make it harder, nationally, to qualify for aid. As has always been the case with conservatives, “the goal is to punish and stigmatize the poor while eliminating programs that help lift them out of poverty.”

As the el Presidente-elect Señor Trumpanzee made clear in another one of his idiotic tweets yesterday, Fox is the Republican Party’s vision of state TV, something Holloway remarked on as well, reminding her readers it “essentially functions as the media arm of the Republican Party, and on Wednesday it did its part to undermine a program that helps 44 million poor Americans. To that transparent end, an episode of Fox & Friends featured a segment titled, “Food Stamp Fraud at All-Time High: Is It Time to End the Program?” The piece goes on to claim that USDA figures reveal “$70 million of taxpayer money was wasted in 2016 due to food stamp fraud.” Kevin Drum’s response: Fox News Screws Up It’s Latest Lie. Fox’s point was basically a question “Food Stamp Fraud at All-Time High: Is It Time to End the Program?”

Now, the obvious response to this is twofold. First, they're just lying, aren't they? And second, this is like a headline that says, "Traffic Deaths at All-Time High: Should We Ban Cars?"

But at this point the story takes a strange turn. First, I have no idea where Fox's $70 million figure comes from—and I looked pretty hard for it. The Fox graphic attributes it to "2016 USDA," but as near as I can tell the USDA has no numbers for SNAP fraud more recent than 2011.

But that's not all: $70 million is a startlingly low figure. In the most recent fiscal year, SNAP cost $71 billion, which means that fraud accounted for a minuscule 0.098 percent of the program budget. Even if this is an all-time high, the Fox high command can't believe this is anything but a spectacular bureaucratic success.

And it would be, if it were true. But it's not. If you look at inaccurate SNAP payments to states, the error rate since 2005 has decreased from 6 percent of the budget to less than 4 percent. However, this isn't fraud anyway: It's just an error rate, and most of the errors are eventually corrected. SNAP "trafficking"—exchanging SNAP benefits for cash—is fraud, but it's been declining steadily too, from 3.8 percent in 1993 to 1.3 percent in 2011 (the most recent year for which we have records):

So in any normal sense, the Fox story was a lie. SNAP fraud isn't at an all-time high. It's been declining for years. But here's the thing: The fraud rate in 2011 may have been low, but this was in the aftermath of the Great Recession, when total SNAP payments were very high. So although the percentage is low, the dollar value of fraud clocked in at $988 million. Fox could have used this far higher number, which is, in fact, an all-time high. It's only an all-time high because SNAP was helping far more people, but still. In the Fox newsroom, that would hardly matter.

Bottom line: Yes, Fox is lying in any ordinary sense of the word. But they're also vastly understating the amount of SNAP fraud. Even when they're trying to deceive their audience, it turns out, they're also incompetent.

And this is where Paul Ryan comes in. He and the Republicans, as PBS reported recently, have a plan and they are busy laying the groundwork for a fresh effort to “overhaul” the food stamp program during Trump’s presidency, with new work and stricter eligibility requirements for millions of people.

Right-wing freak Mike Conaway (R-TX) is the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee and he’s leading Ryan’s jihad against food stamps, although he noted that the GOP doesn’t want to eliminate the program (which would not be in the interests of the agricultural conglomerates that fund Conway’s shady career). Conaway has taken $2,167,352 in legalistic bribes from AgriBusiness. Democrats don’t even run against him in his central Texas district that includes Midland, Odessa and San Angelo. This cycle his only opponent was a Libertarian. Conaway was reelected with 89.5% of the vote. You think that might influence his priorities? Here’s the list of the 10 most corrupt members of the Agriculture Committee with the amounts of legalistic bribery they have taken in the 2016 cycle.

• Mike Conaway (R-TX) $701,773
• Jeff Denham (R-CA) $539,848
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN) $484,950
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)- $467,524
• David Rouzer (R-NC)- $417,831
• Rodney Davis (R-IL) $381,754
• Dan Newhouse- (R-WA) $346,442
• Frank Lucas (R-OK)- $276,475
• Doug LaMalfa (R-CA)- $256,089
• Rick Crawford (R-AR)- $255,300

Ryan would love to abolish the program entirely, but understands that isn’t going to happen in the real world, at least not in one fell swoop.

Food stamp policy is included in a wide-ranging farm bill every five years; the next one is due in 2018. It also could be part of a larger effort headed by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) to tackle a welfare or entitlement overhaul, if that should happen in the next Congress.

Still, food stamp changes always have been a hard sell in Congress.

Democrats almost unilaterally oppose any changes. Some Republicans from poorer districts are also wary. The 1996 welfare law added some new work requirements, but Congress declined to convert federal food stamp dollars into block grants for the states, a move that would cut spending for the program.

In 2013, House Republican leaders tried to cut the program by 5 percent annually by passing broad work requirements as part of the last farm bill. The House bill also included drug testing for recipients.

The then-Democratic Senate balked, though, and the final bill included a much smaller cut and no allowances for drug testing. Conaway said he’s open to any of those policies, but suggested that block granting the program — a past priority for Ryan — or drug testing recipients are not his priorities.

“We don’t want to be helping folks on drugs, but then again, folks on drugs have children,” Conaway said.

One thing can be sure, though— for as long as the Republicans control the House: more pain and suffering is headed towards the poor. In the end, isn’t that the heart, the soul and the essence of modern conservatism?

Which Spoiled Brat Rich Congressman Would Vote To Take Food Out Of Poor Children's Mouths?

Sometimes it seems like Republicans just live to take food out of the mouths of children... literally. That's one of the characteristics that differentiates Democrats from Republicans. Yesterday, the White House Council of Economic Advisors released a report on the efficacy of the food stamp program-- the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)-- terming it a "highly effective at reducing food insecurity-- the government’s measure for whether households lack the resources for consistent and dependable access to food." I recall vividly the intense battle 2 years ago when the Republicans-- just before Thanksgiving-- were determined to make deep cuts to the program. The Republicans, very narrowly, passed on of their Orwellian named bills-- Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act-- to drastically reduce funding. Every single Democrat stuck together and voted against the draconian bill and 15 Republicans-- primarily electorally vulnerable Republicans in blue-leaning districts-- crossed the aisle and voted with them, still 7 votes short. In then end though, the Senate didn't pass the House Republican version and it came back to the floor a few months later-- last year-- as part of the Agriculture Bill.

Had the Democrats stuck together on this, the bill would have failed. But instead virtually all the conservative Democrats crossed the aisle and voted with the GOP to cut food stamps as far on this monstrous Agriculture Bill "compromise." Progressives voted no. Why am I bringing this up today? Two reasons, the Florida Senate race is heating up and there was a clear difference between the two Democrats in the race, progressive Alan Grayson and reactionary, "ex"-Republican Patrick Murphy, on that bill. Grayson, like the majority of Democrats voted NO. Murphy was happily voting with his GOP buddies for it. Ironically, Murphy's campaign is trying to pass him off as a friend of working families. Now back to that report from the Council of Economic Advisors. In an accompanying fact sheet, they explained that

The report highlights a growing body of research that finds that children who receive food assistance see improvements in health and academic performance and that these benefits are mirrored by long-run improvements in health, educational attainment, and economic self-sufficiency. The report also features new research that shows benefit levels are often inadequate to sustain families through the end of the month--resulting in high-cost consequences, such as a 27 percent increase in the rate of hospital admissions due to low blood sugar for low-income adults between the first and last week of the month, as well as diminished performance on standardized tests among school age children.

This should be particularly important for Florida voters deciding between Grayson and Murphy. That's because each month, SNAP helps about 46 million low-income Americans put food on the table. In Florida alone, SNAP helps 1,942,000 households maintain an adequate and nutritious diet. The large majority of households receiving SNAP include children, senior citizens, individuals with disabilities, and working adults. Two-thirds of SNAP benefits go to households with children. These are the figures for Florida that help explain why Grayson and other progressives voted against cutting the program:

SNAP benefits are concentrated among the neediest families and effectively decrease their poverty.

•         In Florida in 2013, the income of the average SNAP households placed these families at only 53 percent of the poverty line, much lower than the level necessary to support a family and provide adequate nutrition.
•         In fact, 45 percent of Florida SNAP recipients were in deep poverty, or had income below half of the poverty line.
•         SNAP has proven highly effective in raising families out of poverty, and in 2013, SNAP raised 206,000 Florida families above the poverty line. SNAP also raised 169,000 out of deep poverty, cutting the rate of deep poverty by 9 percent.

  SNAP plays an important role in reducing both poverty and food insecurity in the United States-- especially among children.

•         SNAP benefits lifted at least 4.7 million people out of poverty in 2014--including 2.1 million children. SNAP also lifted more than 1.3 million children out of deep poverty, or above half of the poverty line (for example, $11,925 for a family of four).
•         The temporary expansion of SNAP benefits under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) lifted roughly 530,000 households out of food insecurity.

  SNAP benefits support vulnerable populations including children, individuals with disabilities, and the elderly, as well as an increasing number of working families.

•         In Florida, children account for 38 percent of SNAP participants, while elderly adults account for 13 percent, and 8 percent of non-elderly adults have a disability.
•         In total, SNAP serves 1,341,000 Florida children, 461,000 elderly adults, and 295,000 non-elderly adults with a disability.
•         Nationally, nearly one in two households receiving SNAP benefits have children, and three-quarters of recipient households have a child, an elderly member, or a member with a disability. Fully 67 percent of the total value of SNAP benefits go to households with children as these households on average get larger benefits than households without children.
•         Over the past 20 years, the overall share of SNAP recipient households with earned income rose by 50 percent and income earned through work represented the largest source of income for SNAP families in Florida. Among recipient households with children, the share with a working adult has doubled since 1990.

  SNAP’s impact on children lasts well beyond their childhood years, providing long-run benefits for health, education, and economic self-sufficiency.

•         Among adults who grew up in disadvantaged households when the Food Stamp Program was first being introduced, access to Food Stamps before birth and in early childhood led to significant reductions in the likelihood of obesity and significant increases in the likelihood of completing high school.
•         Early exposure to food stamps also led to reductions in metabolic syndrome (a cluster of conditions associated with heart disease and diabetes) and increased economic self-sufficiency among disadvantaged women.
•         These long-run impacts are especially important for the 394,000 pre-school aged children in Florida who rely on SNAP to help provide the nutrition they need.

  SNAP has particularly large benefits for women and their families.

•         Maternal receipt of Food Stamps during pregnancy reduces the incidence of low birth-weight by between 5 and 23 percent.
•         Exposure to food assistance in utero and through early childhood has large overall health and economic self-sufficiency impacts for disadvantaged women.

  The majority of working-age SNAP recipients already participate in the labor market, and the program includes important supports to help more recipients successfully find and keep work.

•         Fifty-seven percent of working-age adults receiving SNAP are either working or looking for work, while 22 percent do not work due to a disability. Many recipients are also the primary caregivers of young children or family members with disabilities.
•         SNAP also supports work through the Employment and Training program, which directly helps SNAP beneficiaries gain the skills they need to succeed in the labor market in order to find and retain work. During fiscal year 2014, this program served about 600,000 SNAP recipients.

  Even with SNAP’s positive impact, nearly one in seven American households experienced food insecurity in 2014.

•         These households-- which included 15 million children-- lacked the resources necessary for consistent and dependable access to food.
•         In 2014, 40 percent of all food-insecure households-- and nearly 6 percent of US households overall-- were considered to have very low food security. This means that, in nearly seven million households, at least one person in the household missed meals and experienced disruptions in food intake due to insufficient resources for food.
•         In Florida, 1,104,000 of families were food insecure-- with 14 percent of households food insecure and 6 percent experiencing very low food security.

  While SNAP benefits allow families to put more food on the table, current benefit levels are often insufficient to sustain them through the end of the month, with substantial consequences.

•         More than half of SNAP households currently report experiencing food insecurity, and the fraction reporting very low food security has risen since the end of the temporary benefits expansion under ARRA.
•         New research has linked diminished food budgets at the end of each month to high-cost consequences, including:

o   A drop-off in caloric intake, with estimates of this decline ranging from 10 to 25 percent over the course of the month;
o   A 27 percent increase in the rate of hospital admissions due to low blood sugar for low-income adults between the first and last week of the month;
o   An 11 percent increase in the rate of disciplinary actions among school children in SNAP households between the first and last week of the month;
o   Diminished student performance on standardized tests, with performance improving only gradually again after the next month’s benefits are received.

Ugly, Anti-Christian Republican Hatred Of Poor People-- From Wisconsin To Arizona

Ending the chapter of my life called "College," brought two major changes: I moved abroad and, soon after-- following an incredible months-long binge in Afghanistan-- I stopped using drugs… forever. I lived overseas close to 7 years, much of it in Amsterdam, where I had a wonderful life working in a government-funded meditation center, the Kosmos. When I moved back to America in the late '70s I had to start all over again. Along with my friend, Chris, I started an independent record label from scratch. We had no money, none at all but we built a company that CBS bought and that led me to Warner Bros and, eventually, to paying millions of dollars in income taxes. I didn't celebrate writing those mammoth checks but I never begrudged paying them-- not once-- because I always knew that without this great country I was paying taxes to, I would never have earned the income that resulted in those big tax bills.

But at one time, those taxes might have gone to Holland and not America. At a time long before I was paying any taxes, I was struggling trying to keep my company afloat. Every week at least one or two days I would have to chose between eating and putting gas in my car. Someone turned me on to the idea of food stamps, which helped get me over the hump in a big way. It was a fantastic investment for the government. Without those few thousand dollars in food stamps for a couple of years I would probably have had to move back to Holland's easier life. The jobs generated by my company and the taxes paid by it and by me, would have been Dutch jobs and Dutch taxes. I'm so glad it worked out the way it did.

Today Republicans are-- as always-- negative and condemnatory about fellow-Americans who need a hand. In his gubernatorial reelection platform, Koch-backed right-winger Rick Scott, promises to discourage and severely limit, arbitrarily, assistance to people in need. In his crabbed little world people who need a hand are "the other," not "us," not potential resources but a burden. He's telling Wisconsin voters that he will "require a drug test for those requesting unemployment and able-bodied, working age adults requesting Food Stamps from the state." If Wisconsin voters are smart, they'll unemployed Scott Walker.

But Republican contempt for the less fortunate isn't just a Wisconsin story. It's a pillar of the conservative world view and the disease is everyone. Do you remember the Mormon neo-nazi sympathizer state Senator in Arizona Russell Pearce? Long the ugly face of the Arizona Know Nothing movement, he was elected by right wing extremists president of the state Senate in January of 2011 and then recalled by the voters-- the first Arizona state legislator in history to ever be recalled 10 months later. He lost the recall election, 54-46%, and several of his top campaign staffers were charged with felonies for vote fraud during the election. A horrible, corrupt and ignorant man, he ran again in 2012 and was rebuffed by the voters with an even greater margin, 56-44%. At that point, the ultra-racist Arizona Republican Party hired him as First Vice Chairman.

Pearce was forced to resign on Sunday, not because of the racism and xenophobia, his trademark issues but because of his hatred of poor people and, especially, poor women. Republican Party candidates didn't want to be associated with him after he made some typically right-wing remarks on a Hate Talk Radio show on KKNT-AM. Like Scott Walker, he doesn't want to lend a helping hand-- he wants to sever outstretched hands asking for assistance. "You put me in charge of Medicaid," he boasted, "the first thing I'd do is get Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations… Then we'll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job."

Mark Brnovich, the Republican running for Attorney General was only one of many GOP candidates worried that Pearce's extremism would harm is own chances at the polls in November. "The notion that government would force sterilization upon anyone is counter to everything I believe about individual liberty and contrary to the founding principles of a free nation. Comments that demean the plight of the poor, including women in the dual role of mother and economic provider, are not conservative; they're cruel. And I reject them."

The Republican Party's top hope for winning a Democratic-held seat, Martha McSally, who has been making progressive against Blue Dog Ron Barber, also feared Pearce's comments could hurt her in the extreme southeastern part of the state, especially in Tucson and the Pima County suburbs where Barber beat her in 2012 52-48% and providing his margin of victory in one of the country's tightest races. She took to her Twitter account as fast as she could:

Maybe McSally should have thought more carefully about which party she joined and what they really do stand for at their core. Pearce, after all, has long been at the heart of the Arizona GOP and his comments are consistent with his career-- and with what the party espouses across the entire country.

Was Ebenezer Scrooge One Of Boehner's Childhood Role Models? Or Did He Pick That Up From Paul Ryan?

You've probably heard by now that Boehner and his caucus are screaming bloody murder over a loophole in the bill they passed to cut almost $9 billion in nutritional assistance to the poorest families in America, one of the Republican Party's biggest legislative priorities for the current session. Their base was ecstatic when it passed. But now 8 states and Washington DC have already figured out how to use the loophole to keep food stamp assistance flowing. Now the House Republicans circulated a memo claiming they will thwart the states' plans to save their people from starving

Under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, low-income families can qualify for additional food stamp benefits by showing a heating bill, but some states also allow those without a heating bill to qualify simply by showing they receive even the smallest amount of payment from the federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

Seventeen states had been sending the nominal LIHEAP payments, often amounting to just $1 per year, to trigger additional food stamps for those residents without a heating bill, but the farm bill set a new minimum of more than $20 to try to discourage the practice, commonly referred to as “heat and eat.”

The seven states that have announced they will not let the farm bill disrupt “heat and eat” this year have vowed to send $21 to households to make sure they don’t lose the additional food stamps.

Media attention to the growing number of states preventing food stamp cuts intensified after House Speaker John Boehner railed against the states’ actions.

“Since the passage of the farm bill, states have found ways to cheat, once again, on signing up people for food stamps,” the Ohio Republican told reporters March 12. “And so I would hope that the House would act to try to stop this cheating and this fraud from continuing.”

…“Various media outlets have reported on the announcements of these states,” says the memo, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO. “The press reports assume that the change in behavior of these states eliminates the savings estimated from the reforms included in Section 4006 [of the farm bill]. This is false and fails to recognize CBO [Congressional Budget Office] considerations included in the savings estimate.”

Among the states Boehner and the Greed and Selfishness Party are ready to go to war with are Vermont, Montana, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and New York. The Hill is reporting that the states' "governors appear to have the upper hand in a fight with House Republican leaders over a change to federal welfare policy." See that video up top? Those are the people who Boehner was talking about when he said “I would hope that the House would act to try to stop this cheating and this fraud from continuing. I mean, listen. The American people work hard for their money; they send it here because we impose taxes on them, and they expect us to spend the money wisely. And, we just passed the farm bill, and then we find states finding ways around the law, and, frankly, perpetuating the fraud that we were trying to stop.”

The NY Times editorial noted that the work-around by the states to save their citizens "has infuriated a party that doesn’t believe that poor families should get public assistance in buying groceries." Republican leaders, according to the Times are in shock.

The cut involved the so-called heat-and-eat program, in which food stamp benefits are increased for those who qualify for a small amount of state heating assistance so that they do not have to choose between heat and food. Several states were providing only a token amount of fuel aid, as little as $1 a year, to prompt the extra benefits of $90 or so a month, and many lawmakers saw that as gaming the system.

So negotiators on the farm bill agreed that states would have to pay a minimum of $20 a year in fuel aid to prompt the benefits. Republicans thought this would save more than $8 billion over a decade, because they assumed the states wouldn’t want to pay $20. Democrats went along because it was better than the original Republican plan to cut $40 billion from food stamps.

…Cheating? The states are doing exactly what the farm bill-- which Mr. Boehner supported-- encouraged them to do: pay more to some of the poorest families in America so they neither freeze nor starve during a brutal winter. Mr. Boehner seems unaware of it, but millions of families have never recovered from the recession, and his chamber has not only refused to help them by stimulating the economy but is trying to push them through the safety net.

In a letter to Mr. Boehner, Gov. Dannel Malloy of Connecticut said it was “shameful” to describe the states’ efforts as cheating. “Your demonization of states that have elected to provide this benefit impugns the children, the elderly, the disabled, the low-wage workers and veterans who receive such aid by implying that they are a party to something criminal,” he wrote. “To the contrary, I think most would argue that denying residents of my state $112 a month in nutrition assistance is morally wrong.”

If Mr. Boehner really wants to crack down on cheating, he might look to the carried-interest tax loophole, which allows hedge fund managers to mischaracterize their income as capital gains and costs the Treasury $11 billion a year-- far more than extra dollars for food stamps. In his world, fraud occurs only when the government helps those who need it the most.

Conservative Dems Work With Republicans To Cut Food Stamps

Matt Cartwright: "I did not come to Congress to kick the most vulnerable Americans off of food assistance."

After all Obama's talk about equality of opportunity in the State of the Union last night, at 11 this morning House conservatives rammed through a horrendous $100 billion farm bill taking another $800 million a year from the food stamps program and preserving subsidies for wealthy farmers. It passed 251-166, most Democrats voting NO and most Republicans voting YES. Progressives were united in their opposition. Many of the 63 Republican sociopaths who voted no-- like Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Joe Pitts (R-PA), Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), Steve Stockman (R-TX), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Gary Miller (R-CA), Mike Coffman (R-CO), Paul Broun (R-GA), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Mike Pompeo (R-Koch), Kerry Bentivolio (R-MI), Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Phil Gingrey (R-GA), Michael DesJarlais (R-TN)-- complained that the cuts to food stamps weren't deep enough.

All the best Democrats in the House voted against it. Right after the vote Grayson told us, "The economy is recovering. The federal deficit is shrinking. There is no reason to take $9 billion worth of food out of the mouths of hungry people." Here are a dozen examples besides Grayson:

• Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
• Keith Ellison (D-MN)
• Mike Honda (D-CA)
• Donna Edwards (D-MD)
• Barbara Lee (D-CA)
• Matt Cartwright (D-PA)
• Mark Pocan (D-WI)
• Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
• Xavier Becerra (D-CA)
• Beto O'Rourke (D-TX)
• Jerry Nadler (D-NY)
• John Lewis (D-GA)

Our old friend Matt Cartwright, the NEPA progressive we helped defeat Blue Dog Tim Holden last cycle, didn't mince words about why he voted against it. "The Farm Bill will cut the SNAP program by nearly $9 billion, I did not come to Congress to kick the most vulnerable Americans off of food assistance." Most of the corrupt Blue Dogs and New Dems voted with the Republicans, naturally, and so did big agricultural bribe takers like Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Sugar), Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX), Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN), Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA), Kurt Shrader (Blue Dog-OR), John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA), Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX) and, of course, Steny Hoyer (D-MD). "While this Farm Bill is an improvement from the bill brought to the House floor last year," Mark Pocan told us a few minutes ago, "it still favors the interests of big agribusiness at the expense of Wisconsinites struggling to get by. I cannot in good conscious vote for the more than $8 billion in cuts to SNAP that will make it harder for 860,000 Wisconsinites to put food on the table."

Before the vote this morning, the Bridge Project released a comprehensive report going into great depth about how conservatives had screwed up the Farm Bill.

As Sens. Mike Lee and Ted Cruz were taking the Republican war on health care reform to new extremes, forcing the government to shut down in the process, another political standoff defined by conservative radicalism received much less attention.

Last October, the farm bill expired, leaving uncertain the future of agricultural programs and essential food assistance for the poor. The expiration came after more than a year of intraparty squabbling among Republicans over the size of proposed cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)-- commonly known as food stamps.

The House Agriculture Committee approved a five-year farm bill extension in July 2012, but congressional conservatives demanded major cuts to the food stamp program as ransom for their support. The debate carried over into the new Congress, where the Tea Party faction successfully blocked the bill from moving forward. Unable to satisfy the far right’s appetite for draconian cuts, Republican leaders eventually poisoned the process by severing the bill and passing “farm-only” legislation alongside a separate measure slashing funding for food stamps.

The Republican leadership’s decision to split the farm bill guaranteed its failure, but it was a coup for conservatives who have a long history of dishonestly vilifying food stamp recipients. Indeed, congressional Republicans habitually portray the food stamp program as “rife with fraud” and complain that its beneficiaries are “gaming the system” despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Meanwhile, many of the same conservative lawmakers who fought to strip food stamp dollars from the farm bill have benefited personally from agricultural subsidies.

In reality, the food stamp program is both a crucial element of the safety net and a wise investment. Food stamps are responsible for keeping millions of Americans out of poverty, and they do much more to stimulate the economy than policies favored by conservatives, such as costly tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations.

But the facts are irrelevant to congressional Republicans intent on decimating the safety net, a goal shared by several of the most influential players in the conservative movement. Throughout the farm bill debate, the Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, and the Club for Growth all insisted on massive cuts to food stamps and pressured lawmakers to reject bipartisan compromise. Notably, the key backers of those groups include foundations associated with the ultra-wealthy Koch, DeVos, and Scaife families.

Congressional Republicans already allowed 2013 to pass without a farm bill because of the Tea Party’s commitment to slashing a key safety net program. Now, with Congress finally on the verge of a deal, Republicans should start focusing on how to give hardworking Americans more opportunities instead of trying to take them away.

Why Steny Hoyer Should Never Be Speaker Of The House

Hoyer: Two portions for K Street, drippings for working families

Members if Congress tell me if Hoyer ever gets the gavel every single bill will go through K Street for revision and nothing worthwhile will veer get done. Hoyer is the worst kind of centrist and has always fought for his wing of the Democratic Party-- the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. This week he was doing just what you would expect some old, out of touch white guy to do-- campaigning against progressive efforts to end marijuana prohibition. Even while his own state's dynamic, progressive gubernatorial hopeful, Heather Mizeur, is taking a lead on the issue, Hoyer is leading in the other direction-- backwards.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Thursday he does not support efforts to legalize marijuana in Maryland, saying it is a “threshold drug” and leads to the use of more harmful substances.

“I’m not a proponent of legalization of marijuana,” Hoyer said during an interview on C-SPAN’s Newsmakers.

…Bills to legalize marijuana are expected to be introduced in both chambers of the Maryland General Assembly.

National polls have shown increasing public support for legalization. Colorado began selling marijuana legally on Jan. 1.

I contacted on congressmember yesterday and asked what he thought. After I persuaded him I would never give him away he said, "Hoyer's an asshole and I pray to God he retires before Nancy does… Leave it to him to oppose these kinds of cultural issues and try to us like a party of fucking troglodytes." Worse yet, just as progressives were rallying against their incredibly unpopular Obama-Boehner schemes to balance the budget on the backs of the working poor, Hoyer is working with the Republicans to embrace their reactionary agenda.

Democratic senators are pleading with President Obama to abandon his proposal to trim Social Security benefits before it becomes a liability for them in the midterm elections.

The president proposed a new formula for calculating benefits in his budget last year, in hopes that the olive branch to Republicans would persuade them to back tax increases in a broader fiscal deal.

But Democratic lawmakers say Obama should shelve the idea now that they are facing a difficult midterm election where they need to turn out the liberal base to preserve their Senate majority.

“I’m not sure why we should be making concessions when the Republicans show absolutely no willingness to do the same,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).

Democrats acknowledge it may be awkward for Obama to rescind his proposal, but say it would unwise of him to repeat the offer in the budget that is due out next month.

“I think it’s difficult for the president to pull it back after he already floated it but I would love to see it shelved until Republicans show they’re actually going to do something on their side of the ledger,” Murphy said.

Obama proposed nearly $1 trillion in spending cuts in his budget, including a switch to using the Chained Consumer Price Index (CPI), which liberal policy experts estimate could cost seniors thousands of dollars in benefits over their lifetimes.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, projected that most future beneficiaries would see a 2 percent reduction in benefits during the course of retirement.

Supporters of chained CPI argue it is a more accurate measure of inflation, and say the reduction in federal spending would ease the deficit over time.

Obama said he made the proposal to get Republicans to the negotiating table, but the move rankled Democrats on both sides of the Capitol.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), a liberal independent who caucuses with Democrats, said lawmakers have told White House chief of staff Denis McDonough to drop chained CPI from this year’s budget proposal.

“We have talked to his chief of staff and made that very clear,” said Sanders, who is co-founder of the Defending Social Security Caucus.

Watch Sanders discussing this with Ed Schultz on MSNBC Friday:



So where's Hoyer as all this is unfolding? Playing footsie with his K Street and Wall Street pals and his cronies across the aisle. He's ready, he said, to accept another $9 billion in food stamps cuts. Magnanimous, huh? He bragged this week that he's rounding up enough votes to pass Republican plans to further starve poor people to death. You can watch him on that same C-Span program today braying that "If that is the figure, and if other matters that are still at issue can be resolved, I think the bill will probably pass, and it will pass with Democratic-- some Democratic-- support. Not, certainly, universal Democratic support. … But I think it will pass."

Bipartisan negotiators from both chambers are said to be nearing a deal on a farm bill that would include roughly $9 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps.

The deal would break a yearslong impasse over a five-year renewal of the farm bill that had centered largely around the parties' widely different approaches to SNAP funding. While House Republicans have pushed for a $39 billion cut to the program over a decade, Senate Democrats had proposed $4 billion.

Hoyer said he doesn't support the $9 billion cut, per se, but is "inclined to support it" to enact the larger package.

"I don't like the fact that we went further on the [SNAP] cuts," he said. "But that's over 10 years, so it's not as bad as it could have been, and much better, frankly, than we could have expected."

Hoyer's backing of the $9 billion figure is significant, as House GOP leaders are expected to lose the support of a number of conservative Republicans who feel that anything much less than the $39 billion cut is a nonstarter. The GOP opposition means that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will almost certainly need Democrats to get the bill over the finish line.

It won't be easy winning Democrat support. While the $9 billion cut is much closer to the Democrats' figure, it still represents a significant reduction in SNAP funding and is sure to be opposed by liberal Democrats already criticizing the Senate's $4 billion proposal.

Hoyer predicted that "the majority of Democrats may feel that they cannot support it because of the SNAP cuts."

The savings come by making it tougher to receive enhanced food stamp payments through the federal home-heating assistance program. Under current law, some beneficiaries can receive additional SNAP benefits, if they receive as little as $1 per year through the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP.

Hoyer said the deal that farm bill negotiators are considering would raise that threshold to $20-- a provision contained in the House GOP proposal.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D) has been a vocal critic of the SNAP cuts. Still, the California liberal this week remained open to supporting a $9 billion SNAP reduction as part of a broad farm bill agreement, something she said “we very much want."

“I look forward to seeing it and how they arrive at that figure and what their timetable is on it,” Pelosi told reporters Thursday in the Capitol.

“I’ve been very concerned about the food stamp and nutrition cuts that are in the bill," she added. "[But] we very much want a farm bill and hope that the final formulation will be acceptable.

In between promulgating bad policy for his New Dem and Blue Dog allies to get behind, he's out campaigning for the most conservative fake Democrats Steve Israel has managed to dig up-- like anti-Choice/anti-gay fanatic Jennifer Garrison in Ohio and Chained CPI zealot Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky in Pennsylvania. Hoyer and his cronies-- Steve Israel and Joe Crowley, each of whim he was able to install into caucus leadership positions-- taking over the House Democratic party will spell doom for the Democratic Party as remotely plausible alternative to Republican conservatism.

Under House Republicans The War On Poverty Has Morphed Into A War On The Poor

House Republicans may not have "the time" to vote on important measures with wide popular support like comprehensive immigration reform, ending workplace discrimination against the LGBT community (ENDA) or raising the minimum wage-- none of which Boehner will allow onto the 2013 schedule-- but they do have time to further attempt to steal the food out of the mouths of children by more chopping from the food stamp program. House Republicans look at the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas and what they see is another chance to pass a bill to accelerate their endless class warfare against working families going through hard times because of the GOP ideological economic agenda that wrecked the economy. Lobbyists are drooling at the thought of their big Farm Bill payoff.

The top leaders of the House-Senate farm bill have come close to a framework during several tense negotiating sessions in the past two weeks, raising hopes on K Street that legislation could squeak through Congress by the end of the year. The four negotiators spoke via conference call Tuesday and reported no new developments.

“Everyone is still working hard to bring this together, which is what you want to see,” said lobbyist Tom Sell of Combest and Sell, who as a staffer was instrumental in crafting the 2002 Farm Bill.

“I’m in the optimist camp,” said Chandler Goule of the National Farmers Union. “There is plenty of time to get this done. Every time there is a meeting, there has been progress.”

House Agriculture Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), House Ranking Member Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Senate Ranking Member Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) failed to resolve their differences in a Monday conference call.

The biggest sticking points are cuts to food stamps, and work requirements in the House farm bill for recipients of that aid.

The House bill cuts $39 billion from food stamps, while the Senate's cuts $4 billion.

The White House is pushing to limit the food stamps cuts, and on Tuesday released a report that shows how many dependent families are on the program.

Food stamps were automatically cut by $11 billion on Nov. 1, when extra money provided under President Obama’s stimulus law expired.

Stabenow wants to count the $11 billion for the farm bill and is arguing against cuts that go beyond what is in the Senate bill. Republicans say that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) cannot credit the farm bill with that deficit savings since it already happened.

Reaching an agreement on food stamps is key to resolving the two main problems in the farm subsidy title. Bigger cuts to food stamps gives negotiators more wiggle room to deal on the farm subsidies and still get a sizeable deficit-cutting score that could win over fiscal hawks.

“There is a lot of work left to do,” said Dale Moore, executive director for public policy of American Farm Bureau. “They need to make the decisions at the top end of the decision tree and then the rest will fall into place.”

On commodities, the House farm bill calculates subsidies by relying more on actual planted acres than what farmers planted historically.

That can be said to more accurately reflect risk, but at the same time it can distort the market by encouraging more production. The House bill offers more generous subsidies but forces producers to chose between price supports and revenue-based margin insurance.

The rift on farm subsidies can be bridged more easily than the one on food stamps, as was evident when corn, soy and canola producers floated using a rolling average of recent planted acres.

The cuts that already began this month translate to 20 fewer meals per month for every child and every vet who is struggling to survive on food stamps. This conservative class war against the poor has got to stop. But it will only stop if voters want it to stop enough to refuse to vote for Republicans and refuse to vote for New Dems, Blue Dogs and other right-wing Democrats. And it isn't just religionist hypocrites like Stephen Fincher (R-TN) who are guilty. Democrats in Congress should refuse to vote for the Farm Bill if it includes any cuts to food stamps until unemployment gets to 3%. Only 15 Republicans, almost every one of them cowering in blue-leaning districts, crossed the aisle to vote with the Democrats against more draconian cuts. 217 Republicans voted for more draconian cuts. Almost all are Republicans the DCCC is running against. There are plenty of Republicans in blue-leaning districts who the DCCC isn't challenging and who all voted for the cuts.

Among those Republican class-war extremists who can be defeated but whom the DCCC gives immunity are Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, John Kline, Buck McKeon, Fred Upton, Mike Rogers, John Mica, Dave Reichert and, of course, Paul Ryan, who cynically insists he's fighting poverty even while he votes to cut food stamps. Paul Upton's and John Mica's constituents have been polled recently and in both cases, there is a clear willingness to end their careers and replace them with Democrats. But Steve Israel is protecting each of them and refuses to back either Paul Clements in Michigan or Nick Ruiz in Florida, their opponents.

Paul Clements told us that this class war jihad by Republican congressmen like Upton against working families is "deeply un-American. He voted for a bill that kicks 3.8 million people out of the food stamps program by 2014. Michigan still has 9% unemployment, many people have used up their unemployment benefits, and our food banks can’t keep up with demand. Many children in Fred Upton’s district already struggle with hunger. I wonder how much time Fred Upton has spent with children who don’t have enough to eat? We do not need more hunger in America. Mr. Upton, in America we can afford to feed our people."

Nick Ruiz is running against a worthless old hack, John Mica and he and Clements are on the same page. "In voting to cut food aid to citizens who need it most," asked Nick, "what exactly does John Mica hope to prove? That he's heartless? That he doesn't care about the health of citizens who are having difficulty providing basic nutritional food for themselves or their families? There's no greater sign of weakness and dishonor than to prey upon the weak or downtrodden: today John Mica has proven his worthlessness as a representative of all American families."

Help Blue America replace these class warriors like Upton and Mica, with leaders who want to solve the hunger crisis, not exacerbate it. You can find Paul Clements and Nick Ruiz here on our ActBlue page, as well as the other Blue America candidates, each of whom wants to deal equitably with families who have fallen on hard times.