Summary
House Republicans are considering a 20% cut to SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits, impacting over 22 million households, as part of a $5 trillion deficit reduction plan.
The proposed changes to SNAP would save $247 billion over a decade by rolling back a Biden-era increase tied to the USDA’s “thrifty food plan.”
Critics argue the cuts could harm vulnerable populations and reduce demand for food production, while Republicans view the changes as a way to curb spending and encourage employment.
They don’t give a shit about harming anyone.
In fact, they revel in it. Wallowing in the pool of poor people’s tears, ahhhhh so so good.
They do give a shit. It’s their entire goal.
Aggravated crime rates are down in the U.S.
GOP: Hold my champagne
reduce demand for food production
…
There’s another name for that.
Well, prices are so high because too many people are demanding food. Let some starve to death, boom, less demand and lower prices. Get two birds stoned at once. The second bird being MAGA reveling in other people’s suffering.
Let them eat cake.
since when do they give a fuck about the deficit?
oh, right. it’s their battle cry when they’re trying to hurt (the ‘right’) people by cutting essential services.
then they pat themselves on the back as they cut taxes for the wealthy by far more than was ‘saved’.
First, the Two Santas strategy dictates, when Republicans control the White House they must spend money like a drunken Santa and cut taxes to run up the U.S. debt as far and as fast as possible.
This produces three results: it stimulates the economy thus making people think that the GOP can produce a good economy; it raises the debt dramatically; and it makes people think that Republicans are the “tax-cut Santa Clauses.”
Second, when a Democrat is in the White House, Republicans must scream about the national debt as loudly and frantically as possible, freaking out about how “our children will have to pay for it!” and “we have to cut spending to solve the crisis!” Shut down the government, crash the stock market, and damage US credibility around the world if necessary to stop Democrats from spending money.
This will force the Democrats in power to cut their own social safety net programs and even Social Security, thus shooting their welfare-of-the-American-people Santa Claus right in the face.
This is short sighted.
Hungry folks’ anger knows no limits. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
That’s where the part of declaring martial law on day 1 comes into play.
I mean, this is from the people who want to gut the benefits of individuals they trained to be killers.
And the rich are really tasty.
Empty calories though
Yeah but under the current misinformation curve the people who rely on government support the most will direct their anger at those that are trying to help them.
Well, if they let people like Alex Jones take a dump in their skull on the regular, they can be led to believe that Big Government Liberals/World Economic Forum/Bilderburgs/Freemasons/The Trilateral Commission/The Jews are laying plans to have them to own nothing and eat bugs and/or give up the mass consumption of meat and dairy or whatever the heck the crazies like Alex are telling them these days.
So they vote for donvict because “he’ll fight the deep state and the globalists”…and what will they end up with as a result? They’ll end up kicked even harder by austerity measures.
Wait until they find out the SNAP program (aka food stamps) is run by the Department of Agriculture because it’s about increasing demand for agricultural products, not helping the poor. For comparison, TANF (aka welfare) is under the Department of Health and Human Services.
Right, it’s not just the poor lobby that cares about snap. The farmers rely on it a a form of price support. Large landowners have better lobbyists than the poors.
It’s going to be a crazy administration as they randomly wail, fight with each other, piss off their donors.
Republicans considering cutting SNAP benefits as part of
deficit reduction planhurting the poorsDo you want Luigis?
'cuz this is how you get Luigis.
Ah yes this is what all the invading Greenland and annexing Canada rhetoric was hiding.
That and things like the tariffs. Just wait until people get a load of that.
Great idea. Take away from those that have nothing, should work out just fine.
The world is 9 meals away from anarchy
Fire comment
People on snap barely get anything as it is. What a shitty thing to do.
SNAP pays out almost nothing already. You can’t eat on $292 per month, especially if you’re poor enough that you actually qualify for SNAP.
Is that amount for a family, cause I can definitely eat on $292 a month in a very expensive city. I’d need to make adjustments, but it’d easily be doable.
It’s for a household of 1, in Milwaukee. I could do it here if I cooked every meal and ate meat at most twice a week.
A person poor enough to qualify for this probably doesn’t have time to shop properly and cook for every meal, and probably doesn’t have a full kitchen.
Ya, it’d be a lot of vegetarian meals. If you can get to something like a Sams Club or Costco (although that has it’s own cost) you could get things like eggs, rice, oats, and even some spices over a few months to get you going, really cheap compared to other places.
Even being able to get something like a bulk frozen blueberries to be your fruit for the month that you can put in the oatmeal for example would go a long way, but is probably too pricey if you’re buying it in small quantities.
Trying to do that at an expensive grocery store and no access to cheaper bulk pricing would make that less comfortable.
You appear to assume everyone has a chest freezer or even a fridge with enough freezer space accommodate these suggestions.
You note the cost of club memberships but ignore the cost of transportation.
I challenge you to live on these suggested diets for a year without going over budget.
You don’t need a chest freezer for a 2-3kg bag of frozen veggies and berries. Any standard fridge will fit that with plenty of additional space.
Nor do you need a membership to even get these things at all places, but it can make it cheaper (and likely pay for itself)
I would expect a person this poor to likely have a bus pass, they probably wouldn’t be driving. So transportation costs are probably already covered, so the real issue is, is there a place they can buy frozen/bulk food within a reasonable bus distance.
Edit: E.g Krogers in Milwaukee where OP referenced has frozen peas 60oz for $5.29 (NOT on sale), as well as other vegetables. Ideally find a mixed bag. That’s your veggies for the week, and it’s only $0.75 of you’re $9.41 day for eating, and no paid membership. I’m not saying this is good, it’s poverty, but it’s doable.
Edit: In Log Angeles at Food4Less you can get 80z mixed veggies for $6.99 on sale ($1 off), that’s $0.699 a day for 10 days, even cheaper, in LA an even more expensive city! You can even get that down to $0.54 a day at Walmart.
I have a Costco membership. I don’t buy things like this or frozen vegetables there because they cost more per unit than they do at Kroger (let alone Lidl or Aldi).
Really? That’s interesting, even rice and oats?
Edit: where I’m at for spices, you can get 3-4x the amount at Costco vs the grocery store, but on a budget like this you’d probably only get 1 a month while you built up the kitchen. I’ll check rice again next time I’m out but I swear it’s cheaper as well. Haven’t bought oats in awhile, but used to have them for breakfast daily (the basic quaker oats kind, not the expensive flavored sachets)
Edit: Also I’m annoyed that you can’t see Costco warehouse food prices online. You get the online/delivery prices which are raised making price shopping more difficult.
Costco online is run completely separately.
If you want bulk spices hit up an international store. Might be slightly leaded, but they’re dirt cheap and sold by the pound
Uhhhh minus the lead you almost had me interested to try it out.
Regular grocery store prices for spices can be stupid at times.
In Los Angeles I’m paying like $50 for a barebones, mostly produce and raw ingredients shopping trip 1-2 times per week. I’m vegan so I’m not buying milk, eggs, meat, etc. but sometimes I’ll buy processed fake meat (but those prices are insane right now too).
Not that I suggest you do this, but in the context of eating cheap, you can get that cheaper by finding a place that sells larger bags of frozen vegetables, such as the carrot, pea, green bean, corn mixes. Go for the store brand to get that cheapest. They’re just as nutritious as they get flash frozen when their nutrients are at their peak. It won’t be very exiting though.
You won’t have a lot of variety trying to eat on $292 a month.
Good point. I do that to an extent for the reasons you’ve listed. I thought of produce because lately I’ve been into salads and wraps.
I have no clue why others are downvoting you for this.
Yeah and you’re probably getting your bulk from potatoes and rice. A lady i know is amazing at cooking potatoes and eggs because she was off and on homeless in college and when you need a lot of filling calories cheap you go for potatoes (and eggs back then)
I wish potato’s lasted longer without a dark chilled area to keep them. Sometimes the grocery store by me puts on these crazy deals for 10lb-20lb bags, but I can’t go through that that fast.
In the first few years out of college, I was able to really stretch my dollar with dry beans and rice and a big bag of yellow onions. I had salt and pepper and sometimes I’d add some butter for flavor. I’d chuckle as people would ask “but where do you get your PROTEIN” when I was using this for a lot of my dinners: “uh, the butter and the rice and the beans? Not to mention the other meals?”. Sometimes, I would throw this in a container and take to work for lunch when things were especially tight.
Nutritional beliefs in this country are still pretty terrible, but back then, even as an omnivore for every other meal, when I’d eat only rice and beans for dinner, I’d get serious concern from family and friends about this, like I was going to die from a protein deficiency. Still makes me shake my head…I think most people have such a silly view of things that they actually assume that protein is a synonym for “beef”.
going to die from a protein deficiency
Haha, ya that is amusing. Protein is probably the easiest thing to manage in that situation as long as you can enjoy rice and beans.
I’ll buy processed fake meat
If only this was subsidized like meat is. I find it absurd when I look at the prices for a lot of that stuff. Completely upside-down, especially given our health situation in this country. It makes it very difficult for people to start transitioning away from SAD, when it’s funded and marketed with so much money…even if some of the substitutes are often not much more healthy than the standard carnist stuff.
I’m not too concerned about the healthiness of them and always find this to be a distraction—people don’t eat hamburgers to be healthy.
But yeah, it’s upsetting. Especially restaurants that upcharge vegan products without expensive meat.
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Right, because THAT’S where the untold billions of dollars are going. Not the defense and weapons spending
Well, we also have billionaires in this country, when that should not even be a thing. It’s time to Make America Great Again, and tax these fuckers at 92%. Like the 1950s.
Wow, if they reduce egg prices any more through all those cuts they’ll have to start giving them out for free!
Conservatives believe you have it too good and that makes you lazy. They promise to make life harder as a way of motivating you to work more.
Encourage employment? Do these people think you can somehow live off snap? It doesn’t pay for rent, transportation, cooking utensils, napkins, toilet paper… Anything bit uncooked foods. If you want to cut the money needed for snap, increase minimum wage so they make enough money to pay living expenses while working.
They want you to get a 2nd job, they want you working one extra shift whenever you can.
You work three jobs? Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that."
To a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005
- George W. Bush
He said that 20 fucking years ago, and the qons have not changed since. America, where you can work your fingers to the bone to get by, isn’t that a beautiful thing?
I don’t know if the Republicans have any idea of how to deal with what is coming when it comes to the job market. If software eats the world, AI will eat software…and even all the “good” jobs will soon be scarce to nil - turns out even the “creative” jobs can and will be automated. As expected, the C-suite stuff could be some of the easiest stuff to automate, but that’s not where they are going to start eliminating jobs, as you can well imagine. I think some people - myself included - thought that things like trucking and mining would be reduced to basically zero jobs first. But they are shooting for things like writers, animators, software developers, basic lawyer stuff, tax preparation, and it’s quite possible those jobs will be most impacted first. So telling your kids to level up on skills? Well, you can fuck right off with any of those skills unless you have a massive pile of money, too.
How are we going to determine how to distribute all the wealth being created when jobs are increasingly going to disappear? We have been playing musical chairs all this time and now the music stops, and it just means that more and more wealth is accrued by dipshits like Elon, while everyone else is kicked harder?
I wonder how long the broligarchs really think that will last? These assholes are building bunkers for a reason, and it’s because they know full well the guillotines are going to come out if this reaches what looks to be an obvious conclusion.
My son got $150/mo for SNAP. His SSDI got raised by $75/mo so they reduced his SNAP by $75. Not sure what it is down to now after the new increase.
They need higher crime rates to enable pushing for more authoritarian spending on police and enforcement.
