America Feeds the Rich

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/06/17-2



The Farm Bill that is expected to pass the U.S. House this week explains income inequality in America.

The Republican-sponsored proposal slashes food stamps for poor children and pads farm subsidies for wealthy agri-businessmen.

This comes just a week after Senate Republicans refused to protect the poorest students from doubled college loan interest rates because that required closing tax loopholes that benefit big corporations. It comes just weeks after a new study showed the Walmart heirs, among the richest people in the world, pay their workers so little that taxpayers fork over billions to subsidize Walmart's payroll through programs like -- food stamps.

This all violates America's cherished ideal of equal opportunity. Americans strive to achieve believing they have the same chance at success as everyone else and, more importantly, that the egalitarian American system will provide their children with a level playing field on which to attain their full potential. Americans believe their government should maintain that level field. But it does not. Not when poor students are denied access to low-interest college loans while Washington charges Wall Street virtually no interest. Not when the House farm bill feeds the rich and starves the poor.

[LisaLynne]

1. And a kick. nt

[Octafish]

2. Can't afford four more years of trickle down.

Didn't work for the previous 32, yet that's the only game in town. Besides war.

[xchrom]

3. +1

[bluedeathray]

4. Let them die, and decrease the surplus population.

I never thought Dickens would become reality...

[suffragette]

5. And not when increasingly large amounts are spent on surveillance and security theater

Food, shelter, healthcare and education provide genuine security for more people. Prioritizing that funding would make our nation more secure.

[geardaddy]

6. +1 million

[L0oniX]

7. Democracy is just an illusion.

[grilled onions]

8. Once They Are Born They Are Ignored,Scorned and Abused By The System

The system supports only those at the 'higher end" of the population. The group" with already far too many advantages from being born into money or manage to live in a well enough household that offers them private education and or a job as soon as they want one. The advantages keep rolling on. Meanwhile the poor struggle from day one with hunger, poor schools and little direction or incentive to try and get somewhere. Jobs to them are on the bottom rung--minimum wage which offers no way up and out of their plight of being poor and staying poor. They are looked down upon like everything that is against them they caused themselves. The rich become the victors of spoils and the poor are just dragging the rich down to their level, some seem to think. There is no sharing. There is no understanding. There are no solutions because to the wealthy your lack of decent education,lack of a job that does not have CEO pay is all your fault. They gloat their way through life and blame the rest for trying to take advantage of them are their millions. This country was not built that way but it's turning out that way more every year,every spoiled generation.

[mountain grammy]

9. It's our legacy.. separate and unequal!

[midnight]

10. Farm bill feeds the rich and starves the poor... What a waste..

[Initech]

11. Normally I'm against censorship but...

I honestly would not have a problem if we rounded up every copy of Atlas Shrugged and threw them in a massive bonfire. Really fuck Ayn Rand and the philosophy of screwing the poor.

[reusrename]

12. When you raise a poor person's pay they become lazy,

but when you raise a rich person's pay they become motivated.

It's just one of those things about life that we all have to get used to.

[Initech]

13. We have to get used to this Fox News / Heritage Foundation bullshit being passed as fact?

[reusrename]

14. yep, get used to it

not

[Initech]

15. All I have to say is fuck the Heritage Foundation.

They're an organization founded on the principles of benefiting the uber rich at the expense of the poor, and they're backed by the uber-greedy Koch brothers.

[CrispyQ]

16. And this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023031600

Sacramento District Ignores Report Suggesting Closing Schools for Affluent White Kids, Instead Shutters Seven Schools Filled with Poor and Minority Kids.

The Sacramento city school district is poised to close seven elementary schools, disproportionately hurting students in low-income and predominantly minority neighborhoods. In response, twelve students and their parents filed a civil rights lawsuit, asking a federal court to block the closures. The suit claims that the Sacramento City Unified District's decision was motivated by an intent to discriminate against the minority populations and will result in "disastrous discriminatory effect on the poor, disadvantaged population which is served by these neighborhood schools slated for closure."

The complaint also notes that in choosing the schools it did for closure, Unified District ignored a report by a closure committee recommending the shuttering of four different schools in older, affluent neighborhoods, each with a 'white' student body in excess of 40 percent of the enrolled students.

Predatory capitalism, it's Shock Doctrine, institution by institution, state by state.

[sulphurdunn]

18. Pharoah

would have recognized a pyramid similar to this.

[gilpo]

17. I'd like to feed the rich....

to a pride of lions