Million Mask March—
Anonymous is Not Just a Virtual Movement Anymore pg. 4
Massive Cuts to Food Stamp Recipients, GOP Wants Much, Much More
Graphic: Mathew Highland
GOP Punishes the Poor/ to p. 17
November 15 - 27, 2013
good part of the food stamp debate in Congress and the media is not an evidence-based conversation, it’s fantasybased,” said Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, to Greg Kaufmann of the Nation magazine back in June. But things are now much more dire than they were then. Roughly 900,000 veterans were among those affected Nov. 1, when automatic cuts to food stamp spending kicked in, due to the expiration of a boost included in the 2009 stimulus bill. “The expansion of food stamps in the stimulus helped millions of people who were living at the edge of the poverty line,” economist Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Research, told Random Lengths. As the number of unemployed grew by 94 percent from 2007 to 2011, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participation grew 70 percent in response, government figures show. “It also had the effect of boosting the economy since this was money that was spent, creating additional demand and jobs,” Baker said. “It is hard to see who is benefited by cutting it back." And yet, benefits from SNAP were cut back—an average of 7 percent for each of almost 48 million SNAP recipients, 87 percent of whom live in households with children, seniors or people with disabilities. This amounts to a loss of about $9 per person per month or $36 a month for a family of four. Food stamps will now average less than $1.40 per person per meal. It’s a significant loss for individual recipients, especially children, but the total cut of about $5 billion comes to just over one-tenth of 1 percent of the federal budget, barely a rounding error. But that’s not nearly enough pain and suffering for angry House Republicans, who cost the government $2 billion with their recent government shutdown. Roughly six weeks earlier, Sept. 19, House Republicans passed a bill slashing another $39 billion from food stamp spending over the next decade—a move that would kick 3.8 million people off of food stamps in the next year
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By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor
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