Trump's holiday menu: handouts for billionaires, hunger for the poor

Republicans defend cuts to food stamps by saying that keeping people hungry will make them work harder. But we know this is just about cruelty

Bernie Sanders and Rashida Tlaib

@SenSanders
Tue 24 Dec 2019 09.26 EST

Excerpt:

It goes without saying that we must fight as hard as we can against the Trump administration’s savage attack on nutrition assistance. But we need to go beyond that. We must demand that the ultra-wealthy finally start paying their fair share so we can dramatically expand nutrition support. In the richest country in the history of the world, we have a moral obligation to eradicate the hunger that more than 37 million of our fellow Americans suffer every day.

We can start by increasing nutrition assistance by $47 per person per month – that is the shortfall between what low-income people need to prepare adequate meals and what they get in benefits. We should also significantly increase the income threshold for this program, so everyone who needs help gets it. We must also guarantee that all schoolchildren get free breakfast and lunch at every public school in America.

And we should also lift the onerous conditions on what people can buy with nutrition assistance. One Vermonter shared how, in the cold winter months, she wished she could buy her children a hot-roasted chicken from the store, because she had no access to an oven. Under the current program, she can only buy the day-old cold roasted chicken. Multiple Michigan families have similar stories to share. These are the kinds of requirements that force poor people to jump through humiliating hoops but they accomplish nothing in the fight to end hunger.

Ultimately, we must make a choice as a society: will we tolerate the insatiable greed and cruelty of the billionaire class?
This holiday season, we should work in our communities to make sure our most vulnerable neighbors are taken care of and do not go hungry. But we must also be prepared to mobilize millions of people to defeat the Trump administration’s latest attack on the poor – the same way we came together to block Republicans’ attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act and kick 32 million Americans off their health insurance.

As the new year approaches, let us commit to fighting for a government and an economy that works for the overwhelming majority of the people. That is how we will make food security a human right in America.

Bernie Sanders serves Vermont in the United States Senate. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat, represents Michigan’s 13th congressional district in the US House.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/24/food-stamps-billionaires-nutrition-assistance-bernie-sanders-rashida-tlaib

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