Food Stamps and Welfare for the Rich

Dear Mr. President,

How is it that “the richest nation on earth” has 47 million people on food stamps—and 45% of them are children? (today’s NYT, “ Cuts in Food Stamps Forces Hard Choices on Poor” p. A1). How is it that “the richest nation on earth” had to cut $9 this month from Leon Simmons’ $42 worth of food stamps but continues to pay Paul Allen—worth $16 billion—his federal farm subsidy of about $124/month for the barley he grows on his farm (the average he received between 1996 and 2006) plus an unreported amount for “crop insurance”? Mr. Simmons says there’ll be no meat on his table this month with that $9 cut but I bet Mr. Allen won’t be changing his diet. In 2011 the richest 5% of the population—which includes Paul Allen, Charles Schwab, S. Truett Cathy and George Kaiser, all billionaire “farmers”—sucked up an additional 5% of the nation’s total wealth and by last year the richest 1% owned 40% of all our country’s wealth, a steady increase over the past 30 years. But Ingrid Mock who is disabled and relies on food stamps to feed her 12-year-old daughter, has seen her food stamps steadily decrease from $309 six years ago to $250 this month. There are about 800,000 homeless in the U.S. on any given night and more than 46 million of us live in poverty. The 40 Walmart heirs have more wealth than the poorest 150 million Americans. Walmart pays their employees so little and gives them so few benefits that most are on food stamps and Medicaid. (Walmart actually encourages people to sign up for Medicaid.) This is clearly a government subsidy for the rich Walmart heirs but I don’t hear anyone ranting about that. Is welfare for the rich an American value, Mr. President? Could you say a few words on this? And also why you didn’t protest the cuts in food stamps for the poor? You made Bush’s temporary tax cuts for the rich permanent and your big deal tax increase last year on the richest Americans was a whopping 4% while Mr. Simmons’ food stamps got cut by roughly 19%. Democrat or Republican, the name of the game is soak the poor to give to the rich. This is not democracy, Mr. President, this is plutocracy with fat cats getting fatter and the Leon Simmonses and Ingrid Mocks going hungry. Why is it the richest country on earth can’t afford to feed its poor, but can find billions to hand out to military dictatorships, tens of billions to spy on its own citizens and hundreds of billions to pay for illegal and immoral wars? We got our priorities all screwed up here.