Senate Defeats Proposal To Trim Food Stamp Program
WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Tuesday began plowing through 73 amendments to a $500-billion bill that will set farm policy and fund the food stamp program over the next five years. One of its first votes was to reject a proposal to trim food stamp spending.
The farm bill, one of the last major pieces of legislation that could clear Congress before the election, carries out major changes to the federal safety net for farmers, replacing their direct payments, even when they don't plant crops, with greater emphasis on crop insurance and a new program to protect farmers from revenue losses.
The Senate is expected to vote on all the amendments and pass the bill by the end of the week. It then goes to the House, where it could run into resistance from fiscal conservatives.
An early amendment in the Senate dealt with the price of the food stamp program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which now totals $80 billion a year, about 80 percent of the bill's spending. Food stamp rolls have doubled over the last eight years to 46 million people, driven by the recession.
The Democratic-led Senate defeated 56-43 a proposal by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., that would have restored strict asset tests for food stamp eligibility.
Wellllll, it looks like the Senate fought back another knuckle-dragger assault by the GOP racist to cut funding for nutrition programs. Now it can go back to the House to upset the teabaggers.
So, the tit-dragger liberals need to keep their constituents happy so that they can buy their votes this fall. Democrats are NOT statesmen.
LOL wrote: Weren't you the one complaining about charity at Kings Soopers the other day? LOL
I don't have a problem with charities, I have a problem with them asking me for money when i'm buying my food.... Maybe the vetrans should hang around the gas pumps panhandling since thats what we fought the last war for..
Food Stamps are part of the saftey net. One that stimulates the economy and feeds the starving
Democracy4Sale wrote: One of your favorites, huh... "Obesity" versus "nutrition", when you have idiots on the right talking about how you can take rice/beans/macaroni and other low-nutrition high-fat/high-carb foods and use them to stretch the food dollar.
Gee, you sound almost as intelligent as Boehner criticizing Obama for "derailing the DREAM Act", when it was Boehner who derailed it in April, 2010. (Got to kill ANYTHING Obama was for, even if it was proposed by the paleo-cons themselves.)
There are parts of the food stamp program which only distribute healthy food. This needs to be expanded. Unlike the current travesty where they are expanding the fast food that can be bought with the cards.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
Fast Food is not eligible to be bought with the cards. The fact that some unscrupulous "job-creators" find a way around it is not my problem....
If the hungry and the people without enough food to eat are "constituents", then I'd rather keep them happy than the slime at the top--(sorry, "job-creators")--that just look for more tax-breaks.
