Making hundreds of thousands hungry or homeless: 'Brutal' or 'a pittance'?

by Laura Clawson

Rand Paul and reality are going their separate ways when it comes to the effects of sequestration on the lives of Americans, particularly poor and vulnerable ones.

“President Obama proclaimed that the sequester’s ‘brutal’ and ‘severe’ cuts will ‘eviscerate’ America’s domestic spending,” Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, wrote in a recent article published by Investors.com. “But ‘eviscerate’ is not the adjective I would use; in fact, I believe the sequester is a pittance.”

The reality, meanwhile, is this:

King County in Washington State, which includes Seattle, stopped issuing new housing vouchers on Friday.

“Sequestration will result in some 600 fewer families in our local communities receiving crucial rental assistance over the next year,” Stephen Norman, the executive director of the county housing authority, said in a statement. “Because rents are so high, many of these families may, quite literally, find themselves out on the street.”

Nationwide, as many as 775,000 low-income women and children may lose WIC nutrition assistance, a program that produces a huge array of positive effects on children's health, including ones that cut health care costs. In the late 1980s, a study found that:

... every dollar spent on prenatal WIC participation for low-income Medicaid women in 5 States resulted in:

• longer pregnancies; <...>
  
  
• fewer infant deaths;
  
  
• a greater likelihood of receiving prenatal care; and
  
  
• savings in health care costs from $1.77 to $3.13 within the first 60 days after birth.

To Rand Paul, 775,000 women and children not receiving the aid that produces those results is "a pittance." Making 600 families at risk of homelessness in Seattle alone, and around 125,000 across the country, is "a pittance." Whose description do you think is more accurate? Paul's "pittance," or President Obama's "brutal" and "severe"?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/04/1191432/-Making-hundreds-of-thousands-hungry-or-homeless-Brutal-or-a-pittance