Republicans starving their own supporters

Farm Bill? Not this year

    I once told a rural friend, who later turned out to be a Trumper and therefore unreachable, that the saddest thing in the US of A was a poor Republican. My reasoning was that they voted for people who would cut off that same voter’s safety net. I almost convinced him to switch his political alliance, but then 2016 came around and he went over to the dark side, lock, stock, wife and dog. By the way, his dog died a few days later which may or may not be cause and effect.

    Now I find through that great Iowa seer Art Cullen that Kentucky strong man Senator Mitch McConnell feels the same way, and he is a Republican, though not a Trump Republican, which as we know is not Republican at all. In his latest ‘Notebook’ Cullen wrote, “Minority Leader Mitch McConnell understands how important SNAP benefits are to poor rural Whites in Kentucky.”

    For those not keeping up with welfare jargon, SNAP is snappy word for food stamps, and SNAP is provided through the 2024 omnibus farm bill which since it comprises around $1.5 trillion should properly be capitalized Farm Bill. By the way, last year the Congressional Budget Office projected the new Farm Bill would cost about $700 billion over the next five years. Farm Bills last for five years; so the $1.5 trillion bandied about above (and below) is more than twice last year’s estimate. (Unofficially), Yipes!

    SNAP serves 40 million people annually. Last year the Congressional Budget Office estimated SNAP costs would rise 8.4 percent over the next ten years. They did not say anything about it more than doubling.

    What Editor Cullen discovered is that the new Farm Bill which was sent to the full Senate “cut nutrition benefits” (SNAP) “by $27 billion, which Democrats cannot accept.”

    Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) is chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, which received the FFNS bill from the house on May 17th. She bit into it quickly. “The Food, Farm and Natural Security Act clearly crosses those bright red lines and turns back the clock on decades of progress for farmers and families…Democrats have made clear from the beginning that we will not walk away from our commitment to the most vulnerable among us or from our farmers battling the effects of the climate crisis every day.”

    The House Agriculture Committee is controlled by Republicans and they are the ones who would starve McConnell’s poor white constituency, and all, apparently, to make an old Clinton-era point about ‘welfare queens,’ whom I suppose those Ag Com Republicans consider colored people. In other words, they are willing to starve poor white people so they can equally starve blacks and browns and reds. Proving yet again, hatred is insidious, and also proving the truth of my earlier statement, the saddest thing in the US of A is a poor Republican.