'Welfare for the Wealthy'

Deficit reduction as a "sacred excuse for ... cruelty":

Welfare for the Wealthy, by Mark Bittman, Commentary, NY Times: The critically important Farm Bill is impenetrably arcane, yet as it worms its way through Congress, Americans who care about justice ... can parse enough of it to become outraged. The legislation costs around $100 billion annually, determining policies on matters that are strikingly diverse...

The current versions of the Farm Bill in ... the House ... is proposing $20 billion in cuts to SNAP — equivalent ... to “almost half of all the charitable food assistance that food banks and food charities provide to people in need.”

Deficit reduction is the sacred excuse for such cruelty, but the first could be achieved without the second. Two of the most expensive programs are food stamps, the cost of which has justifiably soared since the beginning of the Great Recession, and direct subsidy payments.

This pits the ability of poor people to eat — not well, but sort of enough — against the production of agricultural commodities. That would be a difficult choice if the subsidies were going to farmers who could be crushed by failure, but in reality most direct payments go to those who need them least.

Among them is Congressman Stephen Fincher, Republican of Tennessee, who justifies SNAP cuts by quoting 2 Thessalonians 3:10:  “For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat.”

Even if this quote were not taken out of context... [there is no need] to break a sweat countering his “argument”... 45 percent of food stamp recipients are children, and in 2010, the U.S.D.A. reported that as many as 41 percent are working poor. ... Fincher himself [is] a hypocrite.

For the God-fearing Fincher is one of the largest recipients of U.S.D.A. farm subsidies in Tennessee history; he raked in $3.48 million in taxpayer cash from 1999 to 2012, $70,574 last year alone. The average SNAP recipient in Tennessee gets $132.20 in food aid a month; Fincher received $193 a day. ...

Fincher is not alone in disgrace, even among his Congressional colleagues, but he makes a lovely poster boy for a policy that steals taxpayer money from the poor and so-called middle class to pay the rich...