@gop @speakerboehner Republicans offer details on plan to starve American citizens

from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/02/1228393/-Republicans-offer-details-on-plan-to-starve-American-citizens#

attribution: MSNBC Screenshot

Republicans want to replace the sequester with hunger games

Yes, I know that if you're one of the beltway insiders who spends their evenings thumbing through the index of This Town, it's probably shocking to see a headline saying that Republicans are consciously pursuing a policy of starvation ... but this isn't a question of opinion. It's fact:

House Republicans are proposing to double their food stamp savings to nearly $40 billion by rolling back waivers for able-bodied adults and targeting funds to states that are willing to impose greater work requirements on the parents of young children.

I suppose that we can debate whether or not it's a good thing that Republicans are pursuing policies to take food away from hungry people, even though the answer ought to be self-evident. But there's no question about whether or not this is the Republican policy:

The prime target appears to be able-bodied beneficiaries under 50 years old and without dependents — a population that has grown significantly since 2008 because of the bad economy and increased state waivers of a 20-hour-a-week work requirement.

By rolling back these waivers, large savings are possible, essentially by forcing millions off the rolls if they don't find work after three months. Unless approached with some care, the impact could be severe in areas of chronically high-unemployment, such as the Rio Grande Valley, poor urban areas and Indian reservations, for example. And the final details of the bill have not been made public.

A second area of more modest but still controversial savings would come from using federal funds to pressure states to take a more aggressive welfare reform-like approach imposing work requirements on able-bodied parents with young children.

The second round of cuts would hit New York and California particularly hard. I guess to Republicans, that's okay, because who the hell cares if people in "Democrat" parts of the country don't have enough food to eat? And of course their other cuts go after areas with much larger minority populations than you'd find in the typical Republican congressional district. Which again is okay, because why should people who didn't vote for Mitt Romney be allowed to eat?

I'm sure that if pressed to explain their heartless and cruel policy, Republicans will say something along the lines of they don't want a country where so many people need help in order to keep food on the table. But if that's really the case, why don't they do something about creating jobs and growing the economy?

Tell Congress: Oppose all cuts to food stamps.

rest at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/02/1228393/-Republicans-offer-details-on-plan-to-starve-American-citizens#