October 12, 2005

In a perverse twist on Robin Hood, congressional Republicans are taking food from the mouths of children in order to give tax cuts to the rich.

Republicans on the Senate Agriculture Committee proposed $574 million in cuts to food stamps on Oct. 5 as part of an overall mandate by the Bush administration to cut discretionary programs. The cuts are ostensibly in part to pay for Hurricane Katrina, but only because the administration and Republicans refuse to back off their tax giveaways.

The cuts would force an estimated 300,000 families off food stamps, according to Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, on the Agriculture Committee.

"It is unthinkable that in a time when hunger and poverty are on the rise in the United States, Congress is considering trying to balance the budget on the backs of hungry and poor people," said the Rev. David Beckmann, president of the Christian-based anti-hunger group Bread for the World.

More than one in six children in the United States live in households that struggle to put food on the table, according to Bread for the World. This gives the United States the dubious distinction of the highest rate of childhood hunger in the industrialized world.

While food stamps and other programs such as Medicaid for the poor are on the chopping block, Republicans are refusing to consider the most logical and fair way to deal with the country's budget deficit: Rescind the tax breaks for the rich.

Instead, they are increasing these tax breaks. On Jan. 1, 2006, two costly new tax cuts concerning exemptions and deductions that will benefit the rich are due to take effect for the first time.

When these cuts are fully in effect, 54 percent of their benefits will go to households with income of more than $1 million a year, with those households getting an average annual tax cut of $19,200 from these two measures, according to Urban Institute-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

Consider, in contrast, the cost of food stamps: a monthly benefit of about $86 per person and about $200 per household in fiscal year 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the program.

Food stamps are one of the country's most successful anti-poverty initiatives. To qualify, net monthly income cannot be more than $1,306 per month for a household of three -- which, if calculated on an annual basis, comes to less than $16,000 for three people.

Overall, 79 percent of all benefits go to households with children, 16 percent go to households with disabled persons and 7 percent go to households with elderly persons, according to the USDA.

Do we really want to increase the suffering of poor children, poor disabled people and poor elderly to embroider the lifestyles of the rich?

Congress is due to make its budget decisions in the coming weeks, and social service advocates are organizing to protect social programs.

"It is unthinkable that Congress would press ahead with cuts to health care, food and other assistance for low income Americans, including hundreds of thousands of hurricane survivors," said Deborah Weinstein of the Coalition on Human Needs, which includes more than 750 organizations representing groups from every state.

The faith community is also active. A letter this fall from Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders representing 100 million people of faith asked Congress to protect the food stamp program from funding cuts. The letter was a follow-up effort to a meeting this June in Washington at the first interfaith convocation on hunger.

"The budget," the letter argued, "must reflect the best of our nation's moral values: our resolve that poor and vulnerable people not go hungry."

t is rare in both political and personal life to have clear-cut moral choices. This is one of those times.

Barbara Miner is a Milwaukee-based journalist who writes frequently on social issues. She can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.