The US should be ashamed!

This defines the Moral Bankruptcy of a Nation! 

The Hunger Site

It's a fair question.

Shame!

When a nation allows its children to go hungry rather than raise taxes on the Welfare Wealthy or allows Big Corporations to pay no taxes, how does a person continue to consider themselves a member of the political party that supports that policy and not be ashamed?

The Hungry Child

	We were homeless. My mom. My big sister and me. We slept in the car. . . We went to IHOP and we only got one pancake and we shared it. That was our breakfast... When I was tired of sitting in the car, I would talk to my mom. She would always say a prayer so we could have a better life. We should buy kids good food when they are homeless. We should help them out. -- Jasmine, age 7
	There are six people in our family. But only five sit down to dinner. That’s because my mom doesn’t eat. She wants to make sure we have enough food.

Some children cheer when schools close for winter storms, but there are hungry children in America right now for whom another snow day this week meant another day without access to school breakfast or lunch. Despite criticism some big city mayors have kept schools open on snowy days this winter so their children would not go without food. These same children suffer over the weekends. While some schools have food pantries and send children home on the weekends with backpacks filled with food, it is still far, far from enough and only a drop in the bucket of need. Schools report students who arrive hungry on Monday morning or cry when they miss the bus or it’s late because that means they’ve missed breakfast.

The record 16.1 million children living in poverty, including over seven million living in extreme poverty, leaves millions of children suffering from hunger in our nation with the world’s largest GDP. In 2012 more than one in nine children in the United States lived in households where children were food insecure, meaning they lacked consistent access to adequate food; more than one in five children — 15.9 million — lived in households where either children or adults or both were food insecure. In some families, like Jasmine’s, hunger compounds other crises like homelessness, making them even worse. In many others hunger is almost hidden—a quiet secret of parents struggling to recover from the recession and no longer able to stay afloat. Food pantries have reported that some of the same community members who were once regular donors helping to fill the shelves are now regular visitors in need of help themselves.

Black and Hispanic households with children were more than twice as likely as White households to have food insecure children, but White households comprised the largest group of households (43 percent) with food insecure children. In 2010 and 2011, three-quarters of households with food insecure children had one or more working adults, 80 percent of whom worked full-time.

Children’s physical health and brain development depend on access to nutritious food, especially in the earliest years of life. Hunger and malnutrition have devastating consequences for children. Federal nutrition programs continue to be a critical support to ensure children’s daily nutritional needs are met: they put food on children’s plates, help build healthy minds and bodies, and help lift families out of poverty. A recent study found that needy children who received food assistance before age five were in better health as adults. Food programs are particularly crucial for younger children, as they are more likely to be in poor health, experience developmental delays, and be food insecure when their families’ food benefits are reduced or ended. These programs work. Yet they are not reaching every child in need.

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, which serve over 22 million children — more than one in four children in America — were cut in the recent farm bill by $8.6 billion over 10 years. An estimated 850,000 households, including 1.7 million people, will see a reduction on average of $90 a month in their food assistance. This cut comes on top of the substantial across-the-board benefit reduction that took effect in November 2013 and affected all SNAP households. These cuts are morally offensive and economically indefensible, especially when so many non-needy farmers and others will continue to get agricultural welfare subsidies. SNAP is the only defense against the wolves of hunger for 1.2 million households with children who had no cash income other than SNAP in an average month in FY 2011; FY 2012 is expected to show an increase. It is shameful that Congress continues to treat poor Americans like second class citizens by cutting supports they desperately need.

Like SNAP, the school lunch, breakfast, and summer feeding programs, which provide meals to children in school and during the long hot summer months, are crucial and effective anti-poverty investments that help combat child hunger. They also play a vital role in ensuring children are fed and able to succeed in the classroom. In one study, children who were food insecure in kindergarten saw a 13 percent drop in their reading and math test scores by the third grade compared to their food-secure peers. In FY2012, more than 21 million children received free or reduced-price lunch through the National School Lunch Program and nearly 11 million children received free and reduced price breakfast. When school is out, though, it’s a different story.

The long summer break can be the worst time of all for our young as hunger does not take a summer vacation. The Children’s Defense Fund’s latest report shows only 10 percent of the number of children who relied on free or reduced-price lunch during the school year received meals through the Summer Food Service Program. Despite the fact that it is 100 percent federally-funded and has the potential to create local jobs for cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and others, too many states and communities drag their feet, create mindless bureaucratic hurdles, and make it as difficult as possible to get resources to serve meals to hungry children during the summer. I have never understood why and it should be stopped. Click here to see the 10 best and 10 worst states for child enrollment in Summer Food Service Programs.

It is crucial to start asking about and planning right now for summer feeding programs in your community to make sure there is no child hunger crisis in your area this summer. Encourage local congregations, organizations, community centers, parks and recreation departments, and others to open their doors and feed hungry children this summer. These entities are eligible to become summer feeding sponsors and sites. If you have a connection to a local service or civic program discuss this issue with them and encourage them to take advantage of the opportunity to help hungry children get food. Adults and older children can volunteer to help prepare or serve meals at local sites. Visit the USDA’s website to learn more.

There should be no hungry people—especially no hungry children—in any community in rich America. Jasmine, Vanessa, and millions of children like them deserve better.

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Click here to share your comments and find out what others are saying.

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Marian Wright Edelman is President of the Children's Defense Fund whose Leave No Child Behind^® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. For more information go to www.childrensdefense.org.

Mrs. Edelman's Child Watch Column also appears each week on The Huffington Post.

25 E Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001 Tel: (800) 233-1200 Children's Defense Fund© 2014 All rights reserved.

Allowing Americans to go hungry is NO compromise!

Thank you Senator Markey for standing up for what's right!

Leo Maley

THANK YOU, Senator Edward J. Markey, for your vote against cuts to SNAP. The Massachusetts delegation was great on this. Still, the forces of heartless inequality can chalk up a "win." Not to worry, though, b/c Obama says its OK: "As with any compromise, the Farm Bill isn’t perfect – but on the whole, it will make a positive difference not only for the rural economies that grow America’s food, but for our nation." Yeah, right. http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/197416-senate-sends-farm-bill-to-obama

 

Edward J. Markey

Today, I voted against passage of the Farm Bill which cuts the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by $8.6 billion over ten years. SNAP is the most... effective anti-hunger program we have. In Massachusetts, 125,000 households may lose $70 per month in food assistance. Instead of stopping wasteful aid to the wealthiest farmers, the Farm Bill slashes SNAP benefits for the poorest Americans, the elderly and disabled. http://1.usa.gov/1gKnX9L

Redemption! et al

Urgent Dogs and Cats at the Garland Shelter, TX shared No Kill Advocacy Center's photo.

Tell your friends in those places where it will be shown. It will be in Austin on August 3rd. Let's get them to come to Dallas!

 

 

Save the date for a screening of Redemption, the film about the No Kill revolution in America, coming soon to a city near you. - Minneapolis, MN. June 6 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL. June 21 - New York, NY. July 17 - Washington, D.C. July 26 - Norfolk, VA. July 27 - Austin, TX. Aug 3 - Phoenix, AZ. Aug 16 - Fayetteville, AR. Aug 23 - Troy, MI. Sep 4 Additional cities and dates to be announced soon: Denver CO, Atlanta GA, Chicago IL, Cleveland OH, Charlotte NC, Los Angeles CA, Buffalo NY, Seattle WA, Albuquerque NM, Nashville TN, and Louisville KY. RSVP info to follow shortly. Learn more: www.nokill.orgWatch the trailer: http://vimeo.com/48445902Tickets to the Minneapolis event, the first ever screening, include an after party: www.animalarkshelter.org/redemption/

Urgent Dogs and Cats at the Garland Shelter, TX shared Cats R Cool's photo.

 

Urgent Dogs and Cats at the Garland Shelter, TX shared Life and Dog's photo.

 

What's for breakfast?

 

Please like this page ➳ - Police the Police -☞ Americans Killed by Cops Now Outnumber Americans Killed in Iraq War ▶▷ Read more HERE: http://bit.ly/1ecCQ0Y☞ US Citizens: 29 Times More Likely to be Killed by Police Than Terrorists ▶▷ Read more HERE: http://bit.ly/1dwiBdm

Stop Telling Lies About Liberals And We'll Stop Telling The Truth About You shared Political Loudmouth's photo.

(chs)

What do you think?

 

(K) If you agree, sign. If you don't, tell us why. To sign:http://www.credomobilize.com/petitions/end-the-nfl-s-charity-tax-break?akid=9853.2772439.lj4PoR&rd=1&suppress_one_click=true&t=3To read more:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-24/americans-think-nfl-should-pay-taxes.html

 

 

CommonDreams.org

A great move by a group of philanthropic foundations:

To Break Fossil Fuel Industry's Grip, Foundations Divest Nearly $2 Billion

commondreams.org

Seventeen philanthropic foundations controlling nearly $2 billion in assets on Thursday put their money where their ethics, announcing they will be divesting all their holdings in the fossil fuel industry and reinvesting in the clean energy sector.

 

 

Anti-Republican Crusaders shared One Million Moms and Dads Against Gun Violence's photo.

[hz]

 

 

 

Wed Jan 29, 2014 at 07:56 PM PST

40 Moocher children in school in Utah have lunches thrown out for being in debt

by Horace Boothroyd III

 

 

 

About forty lazy takers were in arrears on their lunch money. The best way to teach those filthy beggars a lesson? Humiliate them publicly by taking away their lunches and throwing them in the trash.

It just makes good business sense not to let lazy children that haven't worked a day in their lives take food they did not pay for.

No matter we are experiencing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression those students obviously are just moochers trying to game the system.

Jason Olsen, a Salt Lake City District spokesman, said the district’s child-nutrition department became aware that Uintah had a large number of students who owed money for lunches.

As a result, the child-nutrition manager visited the school and decided to withhold lunches to deal with the issue, he said.

But cafeteria workers weren’t able to see which children owed money until they had already received lunches, Olsen explained.

The workers then took those lunches from the students and threw them away, he said, because once food is served to one student it can’t be served to another.

That will teach them.

 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/29/1273243/-40-Moocher-children-in-school-in-Utah-have-lunches-thrown-out-for-being-in-debt?detail=facebook
 

 

It is inconceivable that folks elect such poorly educated and ignorant people to represent them.

When this level of ignorance prevails, how can the U.S. compete in the world?

Truly horrifying for the future!

Bill Moyers

In a new essay, Bill Moyers takes on radical-right Republicans for denying the science behind evolution and climate change, showing a video clip of Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), who says evolution is a lie “straight from the pit of hell” and climate change, a hoax. Watch more...

 

Bill Moyers Essay: When Congressmen Deny Climate Change and Evolution

billmoyers.com

Bill Moyers takes on radical-right Republicans for denying the science behind evolution and climate change, showing a video clip of Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), who says evolution is a lie “straight from the pit of hell” and climate change, a hoax.

 

 

 

 

 

Christian Values?

Carl Younger shared John T Duren Jr's photo.

 

 

Bernie Sanders

Today's news from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.):

Cuts Hit Nutrition Programs: In what Sen. Bernie Sanders called a "real blow to millions and millions of families," billions of dollars in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program took effect on Friday, CBS News reported. The typical family of four will lose about $35 a month in food stamps. “For some people it doesn't seem like a lot of money, let's go out to lunch, $35 for lunch. For other people it is a question of whether you adequately feed your kids.

 

It's whether you have milk for your children, so $35 is a lot of money for families in need," Sanders said on WCAX-TV. Sanders said many families on food stamps include people who work full-time in minimum-wage jobs and still don’t make enough to buy groceries, according to WTOP-AM, the all-news station in Washington, D.C., WPTF-AM in Raleigh, N.C., and other CBS affiliates.

Budget Negotiations: Select House and Senate negotiators ...met this week to exchange ideas on the federal budget. Sen. Sanders, one of the conferees, told colleagues that the budget should focus primarily on lowering unemployment. "The most important issue on peoples' mind is not the deficit," Sanders told The Thom Hartmann Program on Friday. "What people are telling me is that jobs are the most important issue."

Save Social Security: President Obama has expressed worry about the long-term viability of entitlement programs. Liberals in Congress are watching that issue closely to stop proposals to cut benefits for the elderly and disabled. Sen. Sanders, who is a member of the new budget committee, said on The Wall Street Journal Report on KLIF-AM in Dallas that the president “is wrong on this issue and I hope he rethinks it.”

VA Budget: The Department of Veterans Affairs this week announced its opposition to a proposal which would protect veterans programs in the event of a government shutdown, The Hill reported. Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Sanders supports the legislation and intends to mark up the bill in the coming weeks. "This is one pill that the VA is just going to have to swallow," said Alexander Nicholson, legislative director of the Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Continue reading here: http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/newswatch/110213See More

News November 2 | Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont

www.sanders.senate.gov

The Official U.S. Senate website of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont

 

 

 

 

Struggling with hunger...Thank you Congressman McGovern for standing for what's right!

Only a Morally Bankrupt Nation would be debating this issue.

USAction and Ruth Rodriguez shared Congressman Jim McGovern's photo.

 

Share if you're ready to stand with me on this tough fight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Starving the Poor to Feed the Kochs!

You don't reduce the deficit by starving Americans!

Christians for a Change shared Blueprint Campaign Consulting's photo.

 

Our level of childhood hunger is truly embarrassing.

Republicans look like meanspirited class warriors......

If you blindly support these archaic policies, you might want to re-consider.....Republican is, in fact, becoming a dirty word.

Free to Be Hungry

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: September 22, 2013

The word “freedom” looms large in modern conservative rhetoric. Lobbying groups are given names like FreedomWorks; health reform is denounced not just for its cost but as an assault on, yes, freedom. Oh, and remember when we were supposed to refer to pommes frites as “freedom fries”?

The right’s definition of freedom, however, isn’t one that, say, F.D.R. would recognize. In particular, the third of his famous Four Freedoms — freedom from want — seems to have been turned on its head. Conservatives seem, in particular, to believe that freedom’s just another word for not enough to eat.

 

Hence the war on food stamps, which House Republicans have just voted to cut sharply even while voting to increase farm subsidies.

      

In a way, you can see why the food stamp program — or, to use its proper name, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) — has become a target. Conservatives are deeply committed to the view that the size of government has exploded under President Obama but face the awkward fact that public employment is down sharply, while overall spending has been falling fast as a share of G.D.P. SNAP, however, really has grown a lot, with enrollment rising from 26 million Americans in 2007 to almost 48 million now.

 

Conservatives look at this and see what, to their great disappointment, they can’t find elsewhere in the data: runaway, explosive growth in a government program. The rest of us, however, see a safety-net program doing exactly what it’s supposed to do: help more people in a time of widespread economic distress.

      

The recent growth of SNAP has indeed been unusual, but then so have the times, in the worst possible way. The Great Recession of 2007-9 was the worst slump since the Great Depression, and the recovery that followed has been very weak. Multiple careful economic studies have shown that the economic downturn explains the great bulk of the increase in food stamp use. And while the economic news has been generally bad, one piece of good news is that food stamps have at least mitigated the hardship, keeping millions of Americans out of poverty.

      

Nor is that the program’s only benefit. The evidence is now overwhelming that spending cuts in a depressed economy deepen the slump, yet government spending has been falling anyway. SNAP, however, is one program that has been expanding, and as such it has indirectly helped save hundreds of thousands of jobs.

      

But, say the usual suspects, the recession ended in 2009. Why hasn’t recovery brought the SNAP rolls down? The answer is, while the recession did indeed officially end in 2009, what we’ve had since then is a recovery of, by and for a small number of people at the top of the income distribution, with none of the gains trickling down to the less fortunate. Adjusted for inflation, the income of the top 1 percent rose 31 percent from 2009 to 2012, but the real income of the bottom 40 percent actually fell 6 percent. Why should food stamp usage have gone down?

      

Still, is SNAP in general a good idea? Or is it, as Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, puts it, an example of turning the safety net into “a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency.”

 

One answer is, some hammock: last year, average food stamp benefits were $4.45 a day. Also, about those “able-bodied people”: almost two-thirds of SNAP beneficiaries are children, the elderly or the disabled, and most of the rest are adults with children.

      

Beyond that, however, you might think that ensuring adequate nutrition for children, which is a large part of what SNAP does, actually makes it less, not more likely that those children will be poor and need public assistance when they grow up. And that’s what the evidence shows. The economists Hilary Hoynes and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach have studied the impact of the food stamp program in the 1960s and 1970s, when it was gradually rolled out across the country. They found that children who received early assistance grew up, on average, to be healthier and more productive adults than those who didn’t — and they were also, it turns out, less likely to turn to the safety net for help.

 

SNAP, in short, is public policy at its best. It not only helps those in need; it helps them help themselves. And it has done yeoman work in the economic crisis, mitigating suffering and protecting jobs at a time when all too many policy makers seem determined to do the opposite. So it tells you something that conservatives have singled out this of all programs for special ire.

      

Even some conservative pundits worry that the war on food stamps, especially combined with the vote to increase farm subsidies, is bad for the G.O.P., because it makes Republicans look like meanspirited class warriors. Indeed it does. And that’s because they are.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/opinion/krugman-free-to-be-hungry.html?hp&_r=0

Food Stamp President

It defines the Moral Bankruptcy of the Republican House when they slash Food Stamps!
Please add your name to the petition and speak out against allowing Americans to go hungry:


Last week, the House voted to drastically slash food stamps. So now the House and the Senate will barter over how much of a cut is acceptable.

Let's be clear. This isn't the difference between building a bridge or not, or adding a few more kids to a classroom or public funding for one more police officer. This is food. This is life. This is the difference between a single mother being able to feed her kids or pay the rent. This is the difference between feeding children and starving children... in America.

The impact is harsh, immediate and cruel.

With all of Congress agreeing to cuts, we are left with only one option. We need a Food Stamp President.

Demand President Obama veto any cuts to food stamps.

Like most of us, I have swallowed one compromise after another in the same way I swallow liquid cold medicine. It tastes and feels awful but the temporary relief promised is better than the suffering. With these cuts, there will be no relief, only more suffering.

The recession isn't over for low and middle income families. We haven't created enough living wage jobs. These cuts do almost nothing to buy us out of the deficit. And all the while, we are passing out money to corporations like it's candy on Halloween. Real people with real need have been abandoned by Congress.

It's disgusting and wrong.

President Obama has the opportunity to be the moral center we need right now -- a unifying figure who can draw a definite line in the sand over important life and death issues. Someone, who instead of running away when Republicans call him the Food Stamp President, embraces it. Let's make sure he knows that we do not accept food stamp cuts. Not here. Not ever.

Tell President Obama to draw a line in the sand.

I don't need to know what hunger feels like to know that I never want anyone to feel it. To know, that if I can help, I will. I expect the same of my president.

Thank you for all that you do.

- Monique

Monique Teal, Campaign Manager
Democracy for America

Debunked: 4 Republican misconceptions about the food stamp program

Members of Progressive Democrats of America and other activists hold a rally in front of Rep. Henry Waxman's office on June 17, 2013 in Los Angeles, California.. Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Debunked: 4 Republican misconceptions about the food stamp program

Sticking to their promise, House Republicans passed nearly $40 billion in cuts to the nation's food stamp program, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

In a close vote, 217-210, with no help from any Democrats and even 15 members of their own party voting "NO," congressional Republicans passed deep cuts to a program that is vital especially in an economy that is in a slow recovery. Understanding why Republicans are obsessed with cutting programs for low-income Americans isn't too difficult, but it's hard to agree with. Republicans hold an ideology that if you can't make it on your own, the government shouldn't be there to help hold you up. Pushing the false narrative that anyone using government services is lazy, millions of Americans side with the GOP, wondering why those "lazy" Americans won't just get a job and make it on their own.

Looking deep into the program itself, here are four reasons why cutting the food stamp program is bad for the economy while debunking common Republican misconceptions.

1. The truth about who really uses food stamps:

Republicans often claim that food stamp recipients are mostly lazy Americans who don't want to work, the reality is much different. According to snaptohealth.org, half of the people using the SNAP program are children under the age of 18 years old. Nearly 70 percent of those under the age of 18 are living in a single parent household. The research also notes that over 25 percent of benefits also go to disabled Americans and senior citizens.

"SNAP eligibility rules require that participants be at or below 130% of the Federal Poverty Level. Recent studies show that 49% of all SNAP participants are children (age 18 or younger), with almost two-thirds of SNAP children living in single-parent households. In total, 76% of SNAP benefits go towards households with children, 16% go to households with disabled persons, and 9% go to households with senior citizens.
According to demographic data, 43% of SNAP participants are white, 33% are African-American, 19% are Hispanic, 2% are Asian, and 2% are Native American."

2. Is it true that most food stamp payments are being abused? Actually, no:
Over 95 percent of SNAP payments were considered accurate in 2012, which is the highest rate of accuracy in the program's history. Research shows that only 1 percent of benefits were exchanged for cash, showing a very minimal amount of fraud and waste.

"According to a recent USDA analysis, SNAP reached a payment accuracy of 96.19% in 2012 (the highest that the program has ever seen). Trafficking rates—the number of benefits exchanged for cash—are at 1%. There is always room for improvement, but the integrity of the SNAP program is currently functioning at the highest level it has ever seen."

3. Food stamps are actually keeping people out of poverty:
According to the most recent date from the Census Bureau, the SNAP program lifted 4 million people out of the poverty in 2012. As the Huffington Post points out, in addition to 4 million people being lifted out of poverty, millions more were considered less poor because of the program.

"In addition to keeping some people out of poverty, SNAP also made tens of millions of people less poor in 2012. For these individuals, the program reduced the gap between their income and the poverty line and made them better able to afford a basic diet.
SNAP is highly effective in reducing the extent and depth of poverty and reducing hunger, but millions of Americans still struggle to afford food. Data released earlier this month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed that 17.6 million American households lacked access to adequate food at some point in 2012 because they didn't have enough money or other resources to meet their basic food needs."

4. People aren't living the "high-life" like the GOP claim:
Republicans often promote the message that those on food stamps are taking that money and buying high luxury items, going out to fancy dinners and purchasing an elaborate wardrobe. The reality is that the average SNAP client receives a monthly benefit of only $133 while the average household receives a monthly payment of $289. The money received is used for food, with only 1 percent of benefits used for a trade in for cash.

Suggested by the author

President Obama: Republicans in congress are accelerating income inequality

New poll: Majority of Americans disapprove of GOP efforts to defund 'Obamacare'

 

 

http://www.examiner.com/article/debunked-4-republican-misconceptions-about-the-food-stamp-program

 

 

Reverse Robin Hood

By CAP Action War Room on September 20, 2013

House Republicans Vote to Slash Food Stamps

Yesterday, in a party line vote, 217 House Republicans voted to cut $40 billion from the food stamps program. The vote represents the latest example of the party’s increasingly out of touch, immoral, and economically backward positions that favor the rich at the expense of the poor and the middle class.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that Thursday’s cuts will bump 3.8 million off the program next year, with an additional 2.8 million losing them each year on average over the next decade. Additionally, an estimated 210,000 children will lose access to free school lunch programs and 55,000 jobs will be lost in the first year of cuts alone.

But this isn’t just about numbers. Here are three quotes from Proverbs that House Republicans clearly ignored yesterday:

Proverbs 14:31 - “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.”

Proverbs 22:16 - “He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich – both come to poverty.”

Proverbs 29:7 - “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.”

For more on how food stamps benefit Americans, check out this Center for American Progress and Half in Ten infographic



BOTTOM LINE: With over one in five children living in households that run short on food, it is time to stop playing politics with hunger and work to pass a Farm Bill that does not increase poverty and hardship.


http://thinkprogress.org/progress-report/reverse-robin-hood/

Food stamps to be cut by average $30 a month

Thu Sep 12, 2013 at 07:57 AM PDT

No more fruit for you: Food stamps to be cut by average $30 a month

People getting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits don't just face the prospect of House Republicans slashing $40 billion from the program over the next 10 years, they face the immediate, certain prospect of losing an average of nearly $30 a month in benefits starting in November, as a temporary increase in benefits included in the stimulus expires.
That will take money from the food budgets of people who really can't afford it, people whose food assistance already doesn't stretch as far as it needs to:

At the Capital Area Food Bank, a 100,000-square-foot warehouse facility—a kind of Sam’s Club for food pantries in the metro Washington area—officials say food-stamp funds typically last recipients two and a half weeks. After the benefits run out, many go to food pantries to help make ends meet, according to the Food Bank’s Brian Banks.

Republicans like to talk about SNAP as being plagued by fraud (even though its fraud rates are vanishingly low) and, even with unemployment high and the minimum wage so low that many who work still qualify for food stamps, to stigmatize recipients. They like to pretend its easy to live on a food stamp budget. But in reality, this is an economy where too many are unemployed or stuck in part-time work when they want full-time work. It's an economy where you can work full-time at minimum wage and still be poor, still need food assistance. And SNAP benefits can be the difference between having some fruits and vegetables occasionally and eating nothing but processed foods. For instance, for one family first displaced by Hurricane Katrina, then left without work by the BP spill:

With the program’s help, her daughters Michelle, 17, and Denise, 15, ate fresh fruits and vegetables for snacks, and Elizabeth could make everyone’s favorites for dinner, albeit on a budget: spaghetti for Kenny Robert, roast for Michelle, and “anything you put on a plate” for Denise. Without the assistance, “we just learned how to eat hot dogs and biscuits and called them pigs-in-a-blanket,” she said.

That family will be losing $36 a month come November—not a return to full-time pigs-in-a-blanket, but they'll definitely be losing out on some fruits and vegetables. But the debate in Congress is not about replacing those lost benefits until unemployment drops, it's about whether to cut $4 billion or $40 billion more.

Please sign our petition telling the House and Senate to put low-income families ahead of corporate welfare and to oppose all cuts to food stamps.


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/09/12/1238337/-No-more-fruit-for-you-Food-stamps-to-be-cut-by-average-30-a-month?detail=facebook#

It defines a nation when its citizens go hungry!
This defines the moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party.

Many Americans Still Struggling to Feed Their Families

September 4, 2013

by Dr. Mariana Chilton

 

A new report from the Department of Agriculture released today notes that many Americans continue to struggle to put food on the table. About 17.6 million households — or 14.5 percent — were food insecure last year. About 7 million — or 5.7 percent — had very low food security, meaning some members of the household had to skip meals.

This post by Dr. Mariana Chilton, the director of the Center for Hunger-Free Communities in the Drexel University School of Public Health — and a recent guest on Moyers & Company — first appeared on the Drexel News Blog.

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Too many Americans are still going hungry. Proven programs that help are still not helping as much as they should.

Through research conducted at Drexel University’s Center for Hunger-Free Communities, we know that food insecurity can have lifelong impacts especially on young children – hunger can impact a child’s cognitive, social, and emotional development. Today’s USDA data tells us that 22.7 percent of children under the age of six are living in food insecure households. Almost a quarter of young children in the U.S. could suffer these lifelong impacts. This becomes especially noticeable upon arrival at kindergarten where children who suffer food insecurity are likely to be unprepared and may never catch up.

The food insecurity numbers released by the USDA have not changed much since 2008. While the problem has not gotten substantially worse, it is also not getting any better. From our research with Children’s HealthWatch we know what helps to solve hunger – programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Women Infants and Children (WIC). Young children whose families received SNAP, compared to those whose families were eligible but did not receive SNAP, were less likely to be in fair or poor health, under weight, at risk developmental delays, or to be hospitalized. In addition, children under the age of three who receive WIC are more likely to be in good health as compared to children not receiving WIC.

Despite the positive effect programs like WIC and SNAP have, benefits received by the families are often not enough to ensure they can be food secure. Families receiving SNAP are scheduled to lose some of these essential benefits as the benefit increase that was part of the 2009 stimulus is scheduled to expire on November 1. As more than 14 percent of households currently suffer from food insecurity, these cuts will only cause more chaos and suffering.

While funding for such critical nutrition programs continues to be debated, the data from the USDA and our research show that these programs can help to solve hunger in America – if they are accessible and adequate for those who need them. America can and must do better for the health and wellbeing of its children and families.

Watch an interview with Dr. Chilton on Moyers & Company:

 

Related Features

• The Gap Between SNAP and Basic Economic Security
• Why is SNAP Part of the Farm Bill?
• Hunger and the Sequester, By the Numbers
• Confronting Congressional Hunger Games

http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/04/many-americans-still-struggling-to-feed-their-families/

Where's Your MORAL OUTRAGE?

The hungry children in American don't line up.

They don't perform well in school because they're HUNGRY.

Yet Republicans condemn, complain and slash SNAP -- FOOD FOR KIDS, FOOD FOR VETERANS, FOOD FOR ACTIVE MILITARY, FOOD FOR THE DISABLED.

Where's your MORAL OUTRAGE?

Robert Reich

While attention is focused on Syria, food stamps for the nation’s poor are about to be cut. So are funds for low-income housing. And although jobs are slowly returning, the median wage continues to drop, adjusted for inflation. At the same time, both income and wealth continue to become more concentrated at the very top. A single income of one of the ten richest Americans could buy housing for every homeless person in the United States for an entire year. (Based on a typical day last winter, when over 633,000 people were homeless, and the typical monthly rental cost of a unit with single room occupancy of $558 per month.) The 400 richest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million put together. But we are not talking about any of this. We are not debating about what’s happening to our nation. We are not raising the minimum wage or reforming our tax code or fixing our schools or getting big money out of politics. We are paralyzed at home, and now turning our attention to a potential quagmire abroad. This is the great tragedy of our time.

Hunger in America and the Moral Bankruptcy of Republicans

God Bless the President of the United States

This is OUTRAGEOUS! The GOP doubles down on the SNAP cuts, we need to VOTE these heartless, greedy politicians OUT in 2014! "Dorothy Rosenbaum and Stacy Dean of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive D.C. think tank, said the cuts will "cause significant hardship to several million low-income households," and that 280,000 children from low-income families will lose access to free school lunch." Arthur Delaney- Huffington Post

 

 

More Than Half Of Teachers Report Buying Hungry Students Food With Their Own Money

 

We often hear about U.S. teachers being paid poorly for all the work they do to educate children. But did you know that 63 percent of teachers report buying food for the classroom each month with their own money? That's just one statistic from a report put out by Share Our Strength, which surveyed teachers across the country about hunger in America's classrooms.

You can download the full Teachers report and learn more surprising facts about hungry kids and the teachers trying to help them at the Share Our Strength site.

Share Our Strength also interviewed two teachers in New York City about their personal experiences with students who have come to depend on them for enough food to get them through the day.

WATCH THE VIDEO:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/23/more-than-half-of-teacher_n_368356.html