Tuesday, September 24, 2013

GOP Food Stamp Bill Will Increase Government Spending

The food stamp bill passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives earlier this month, widely criticized for supposedly cutting the nutrition assistance program to the poor, would actually raise spending over the next decade by 57 percent, to $725 billion from the $461.7 billion that was spent on the program in the last decade.
No sooner had the House voted, 217 to 2010, on September 19 to pass the Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act than the usual suspects were rushing to portray the measure as stingy and coldhearted. “House Republicans Pass Deep Cuts in Food Stamps,” was the headline  in The New York Times national news section. The Republican “war on food stamps” shows that the congressmen are “meanspirited class warriors,” wrote  Nobel laureate Paul Krugman.
That line of attack seems to be getting traction. “I agree with Krugman here,” a prominent New York rabbi wrote on Facebook. A news reporter at the Wall Street Journal posted on Facebook, “It’s stark to have this wonderful Pope preaching charity at the same time House Republicans are defunding food stamps.”

http://reason.com/archives/2013/09/23/gop-food-stamp-bill-will-increase-govern

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