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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / A Very GOP Xmas: Taking Food Benefits From the Desperate

A Very GOP Xmas: Taking Food Benefits From the Desperate

by Anne Laurie|  December 24, 20192:51 pm| 23 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Open Threads, Republican Venality, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You

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Trump Santa's Opposite - John Deering

(John Deering via GoComics.com)

We never went on food stamps because mom had been convinced they were only for poor white trash, and that we somehow weren’t. We ate less as a result. Kids everywhere qualify for free school lunches, but don’t apply. That’s the human cost of stigmatizing public assistance. https://t.co/94wYV6HhDF

— Every Billionaire Is A Policy Failure (@DanRiffle) December 22, 2019

But the GOP can’t celebrate unless they know someone else is suffering:

Total Trump food-stamp cuts could hit up to 5.3 million households https://t.co/9qVVEWoUWA via @cbsmoneywatch

— Carol Shea-Porter (@TeamSheaPorter) December 16, 2019

He'll blame Democrats and his voters will believe him. https://t.co/fMYDJoKt2J

— Schooley (@Rschooley) December 19, 2019

Scrooge Trump & His Sidekick Miller

(Jeff Danziger via GoComics.com)

Just Ask Your Old Man for A Million - Sheneman

(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)

Correct. pic.twitter.com/gxe8Y0SVQo

— DrLearnALot-Sticky, stubborn residue?? (@DrLearnALot) December 22, 2019

NEWS: The Trump administration may let banks consider NFL stadium financing as aid to the poor.

By @NBuhayar + @jesseahamihttps://t.co/INbOVYnYln

— Alex Wayne (@aawayne) December 16, 2019

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Reader Interactions

23Comments

  1. 1.

    West of the Rockies

    December 24, 2019 at 3:06 pm

    Regarding the NFL bit, I hope the Player’s Union comes down on it like 12 metric tons of bricks.

  2. 2.

    Derelict

    December 24, 2019 at 3:09 pm

    Away in a manger, no crib for his bed
    The little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head.
    So Trump called Him lazy and illegal scum,
    And had Him deported alone, just for fun.

  3. 3.

    trollhattan

    December 24, 2019 at 3:17 pm

    Holy cow, that CRA workaround is deliciously cynical, so I assume it’s completely true.

    SOB–Save Our Billionaires!

  4. 4.

    Ohio Mom

    December 24, 2019 at 3:17 pm

    You left out the coming attack on Social Security for disabled people (SSI and SSDI).

    I hate every single last Republican in my life. I mean, I hate all Republicans but the ones I can picture because I know them (starting with the next door neighbors on the east side of the house), that just makes the banality of their evil more real to me.

  5. 5.

    trollhattan

    December 24, 2019 at 3:20 pm

    @West of the Rockies:

    Are they wired for civic engagement and social justice? I truly don’t know and think of NBA players as probably the most involved of the major sports, but then am blindsided by Lebron and the Hong Kong thing, which has me reappraising it all.

  6. 6.

    scav

    December 24, 2019 at 3:21 pm

    I can smell the incense of Evangelical All-American Blue-Eyed Jesus-Juiced CHRISTianity from here.  Second Coming!

  7. 7.

    Kelly

    December 24, 2019 at 3:27 pm

    I have a niece that as a pedestrian was hit by an uninsured  driver when she was 14. Brain injury from the impact left her disabled for the rest of her life. She’s now in her 30’s. Social security disability, food stamps and family is all she has and all she ever will have. No idea if her food stamps will be cut by this.

  8. 8.

    Mike in NC

    December 24, 2019 at 3:30 pm

    Let’s all wish a Merry Impeachment to the Fat Orange Grinch, with several more articles coming in 2020.

  9. 9.

    debbie

    December 24, 2019 at 3:36 pm

    Not sure how nationwide this story was, but the LSU QB who won the Heisman Trophy and is from Appalachia got a lot of attention with his acceptance speech. He spoke of the considerable poverty in his area, and this generated donations totaling about $1,000,000 to his county’s food bank. The director of the food bank has been musing aloud on the local news as she tries to figure out how to spend it; I’d like to suggest she share with the neighboring food banks who are struggling just as much as ever.

  10. 10.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    December 24, 2019 at 3:41 pm

    I like the nym: Every Billionaire Is a Policy Failure.

  11. 11.

    Warblewarble

    December 24, 2019 at 3:49 pm

    Hunger builds character.The tRUMPthuglican christmas gift.

  12. 12.

    joel hanes

    December 24, 2019 at 3:56 pm

    The cruelty is the point.

    Worse than Scrooge.

    From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

    “Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!” exclaimed the Ghost.

    They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

    Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

    “Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.

    “They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.

  13. 13.

    TomatoQueen

    December 24, 2019 at 4:06 pm

    @Kelly: From experience and the sound of things, the savagery being inflicted on the SNAP program has to do with the eligibility of recipients considered “able-bodied”, that is to say recipients not receiving an SSA or other disability benefit, who may or may not be working. This category of recipient always gets the extra vetting, the produce-more-paper-or-lose-the-benefits harassment, which tends to wax and wane depending on who is in office. Your niece is very unlikely to be in the target category, but whoever is in charge of getting her mail needs to be hypervigilant, watch for new notices, because this is policy where the states have a lot of leeway as to how they go about enforcement, and they could easily start bombarding all recipients with new requirements, new paper, new verifications. This happens about twice as often as actual direct reductions in benefit amounts. The proposed beat-down on SSI/SSDI as it is now in the comment period (so hurry up and comment on ssa.gov) will be done similarly: continuing disability reviews done more often than the standard 3 year intervals, which will be hardship for a lot of people as they are stringent as to what documentation/sources are allowed and require all new medical info–this is not at all something a disabled person can expect to get through on his/her own. Just more evil.

  14. 14.

    coin operated

    December 24, 2019 at 4:20 pm

    @Derelict: stealing this….

  15. 15.

    artem1s

    December 24, 2019 at 4:22 pm

    but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

    even Scrooge was embarrassed by his actions when exposed to light – saintly compared to the current crop of austerians.

  16. 16.

    cliosfanboy

    December 24, 2019 at 4:27 pm

    @Warblewarble: it builds character for OTHER people

  17. 17.

    hells littlest angel

    December 24, 2019 at 5:10 pm

    Republicanism always puts me in mind of this observation of Curzio Malaparte: “Capitalist society is founded on the conviction that in the absence of beings who suffer a man cannot enjoy to the full his possessions and his happiness.”

  18. 18.

    Juju

    December 24, 2019 at 5:10 pm

    My comments lead to bad gateways. I give up. Feel pity for these empty people, not hate. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

  19. 19.

    Brachiator

    December 24, 2019 at 5:41 pm

    Trump’s move here is extra cruel for all kinds of reasons.  Among them is that it also affects the working poor, who may not always have enough hours of work during a given period of time.

    This stupid move also affects some supermarkets, which may in fact be employing people most likely to be affected by this tightening of eligibility requirements.  So, businesses and people are both hurt.

    Related to this, the Democrats tried to include some expansions to the Earned Income Credit in the massive budget bill just passed.  The GOP rebuffed these efforts.  Trump and his GOP buddies believe in giving the maximum amount of tax cuts and benefits to the wealthy.  The poor, in particular, get a few scraps of cuts and benefits, and are expected to be grateful for what little attention is focused on them.

     

    I would like to see the Earned Income Tax Credit expanded to give more to single people, to married people without children, and to seniors who continue to work after they have reached retirement age. Yeah, this comes close to universal basic income.  Baby steps.

  20. 20.

    oatler.

    December 24, 2019 at 5:54 pm

    @joel hanes: This passage was recreated in full during the excellant 1971 animated version.

  21. 21.

    James E Powell

    December 24, 2019 at 6:11 pm

    He’ll blame Democrats and his voters will believe him.

    When their benefits are cut, his supporters will convince themselves that African Americans and immigrants are still receiving benefits. They will tell tales of young bucks and cholos buying steaks and lobster. Someone will mention Obama-phones.

  22. 22.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 24, 2019 at 7:20 pm

    @hells littlest angel: They can’t enjoy their grand meals unless they know someone else is starving.

  23. 23.

    Mart

    December 24, 2019 at 7:52 pm

    I get the disgusted look when I tell Republicans my 63 yo wife and I are on Obamacare, or back ten years ago when I got a couple weeks of unemployment checks. I imagine work requirements will be coming soon to our red state so no more ACA for us, unless the Supremes toss it right after the election. A lot of young men I speak to got Ayn Randed in their youth so plenty of mean I got mine fuck you all Republicans in the pipeline.

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