Today, the House Agriculture Committee approved the final version of the 2012 farm bill, complete with its draconian cuts for families struggling to put food on the table. The proposed bill cuts $35 billion from the federal food and nutrition budget, about $16.5 billion of which come from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — more commonly known as SNAP or food stamps.
The cuts work by eliminating “categorical eligibility,” which provides assistance to families whose assets or income put them slightly above the technical line for SNAP eligibility. Repealing categorical eligibility means that between two and three million Americans will lose access to food stamps and roughly 280,000 children will drop out of their automatic enrollment in the free lunch program at school. So the House bill has anti-hunger advocates up in arms:
“With the economy being in such bad shape, depriving that many people of nutritional assistance is going to have a devastating effect,” said Eric Olsen, [Feeding Hunger]’s senior vice president of government relations and public policy.
One needs simply to look to the story of Dorothy Moon, a stay-at-home mother in Texas whodepends on food stamps to feed her six children while her male partner looks for new work, to understand Olsen’s point. Of course, some in the GOP want to ignore “sob stories” about the plight of people who struggle to put food on the table.
SNAP assistance saved five million American from poverty in 2010 and halved the number of children in poverty in 2011.
Related articles
- House Committee Votes To Take Food Stamps Away From Millions Of Low-Income Americans (thinkprogress.org)
- Food stamp cuts fire up Dems on Farm Bill (politico.com)
- Why is the YWCA encouraging women to sign up for food stamps? (theblaze.com)
- Obama Administration Uses Spanish Soap Operas to Push Food Stamps to Illegals and US Citizens (Video) (thegatewaypundit.com)
- Food stamps to get 19-day issue in Georgia (jacksonville.com)
- Republicans Cut off Food Assistance to Millions of Americans who own a Car (easyjjgrand3.newsvine.com)
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Nick S
Oracleofcrows
phoebe53
thatmrgguy
WCMA Blog (this page will be assuming anothr name shortly) 
This is a messed up situation. As a person who works hard for the money that I do make, and still earning Food Stamp Benefits to put meals on my table, Taking it away is not only a slap in my face, but a slap in my childs face, and NOBODY hits my child. Personally, There should be a riot over this.