Republicans in the House of Representatives have passed a proposed cut of $40 billion to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) covering the next 10 years, cuts that would affect about 4 million working Americans, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The same bill gives huge subsidies to billionaire farmers.
According to Emily Cohn’s article in the Huffington Post, Walmart tells workers to apply for food stamps and get second jobs instead of paying them a living wage. Other large companies pay workers pathetic wages in spite of high profits and excessive executive pay.
Nearly half of the recipients of food stamps are children and about 10 percent are poor seniors. “Christian” representatives should help the needy, not cut programs such as food stamps, Social Security and Medicare. If America had enough decent-paying jobs, workers would not need extra help.
On the other hand, Republicans love to spend enormous amounts of tax money on unnecessary military spending. They have given many unfair advantages to the rich, including a huge tax cut to corporations that send jobs overseas.
In 2013, corporate tax breaks have cost about $108 billion, according to the National Priorities Project. During the past few years, badly needed programs such as Head Start have been cut, but the government has not raised a penny from tax increases for the very wealthiest people and their corporations.
It is time to leave the poor and middle class alone and stop giving unfair tax breaks to the richest Americans.
Ellen Field, New Gloucester
Editor’s note: This letter was originally printed Nov. 17 and is being reprinted because a word was inadvertently omitted that changed the meaning of a sentence.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
