Katrina vanden Heuvel: Food Stamps or Teachers?

from The Nation:



The GOP midterm election strategy is clear: stubbornly oppose anything and everything that might improve the economy and bank on voters to blame Democrats for these tough times come November.

There is perhaps no clearer sign of the poisonous political environment this stance has created than the battle to pass a $26 billion package to help states and local governments make Medicaid payments and avoid laying off 140,000 teachers. The only way Majority Leader Harry Reid was able to break a Republican filibuster was with offsets largely through—if you can believe it—$12 billion in cuts to food stamps.

That's right. Never mind that many people using food stamps are already living through a depression, not a recession. Never mind that food stamps are one of the most reliable ways to stimulate spending—those receiving the benefit are definitely going to pump that money back into the economy by purchasing goods.

But the food stamp lobby doesn't have quite the same pull as the Chamber of Commerce or US corporations—which have seen their profits rise by 36 percent this year and enjoy profit margins as a share of GDP that are near post-war records—or the states themselves which face $140 billion in budget shortfalls in the upcoming year.

Even worse, Reid initially had to table this proposal because the (all hail the) Congressional Budget Office said the bill would still add $4.9 billion to the deficit when Democratic leadership proposed cutting "only" $6.7 billion in food stamps. By nearly doubling that food stamp cut the Democrats won the votes of Republican Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to break the filibuster. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blog/153881/food-stamps-or-teachers

Hungry children do not do as well in school, since they are not concentrating on the lessons---they are only thinking about food. So going this route really is not a win any way you look at it. Might as well cut the teachers too, and save all that money. I am getting really tired of "compromise".

and the salaries of the suits who are left? It's not like they are above facing the same pain the rest of us have.

Who knows? Maybe they could do both, feed hungry families and keep teachers on to make sure kids have a future.

which gives Democrats a chance to reinstate the additional funding later (likely in a budget reconciliation bill which just requires 50 votes).

Though I'm glad she at least doesn't attack Democrats for the Republican obstructing that forced this decision.

the food stamps later.

But then, teachers AREN'T allowed to do their jobs effectively, are they?

ETA: the idea of specifically cutting food stamps