Democrats vow to block 'immoral' cuts to food stamps for poor Americans

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Democrats vow to block 'immoral' cuts to food stamps for poor Americans

Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 July 2012 19.05 BST

Republican attempts to cut billions of dollars in food assistance to poor American families have been denounced as an "abomination" and "immoral" by Democrats who have vowed to block the measure in Congress.

The cuts, part of a five-year farm bill under debate in the House of Representatives agricultural committee on Wednesday, slash $16bn from the food stamp programme over the next decade.

The move appears intended in part to highlight Republican disparagement of Barack Obama as the "food stamp president" because record numbers of Americans now claim the benefit, doubling the cost of the programme since 2008 to $80bn a year.

More than 46 million Americans receive food stamps, nearly half of them children.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/11/food-stamp-cuts-battle-congress

[freshwest]

1. Only in Britain would a paper say the Democrats helped the poor. Maybe we should move there, haha.