Trillion-Dollar Farm Bill is Really a Food Stamp Bill

Senators fight over cuts along usual partisan lines

The Senate's farm bill mostly isn't about farms - it's about food stamps. Nearly four fifths of its almost $969 billion spending go to food aid. And it's probably going to pass, but not before a lot of political grandstanding.

The bill has swollen to 1000+ pages, since there's nothing Senators like more than to slap a simple bill with thousands of irrelevant amendments. Some of the more apt amendments, aimed at food stamp spending, will be hotly debated today.

The farm bill as-is would cut $4 billion from the food stamp program. Dems are resisting amendments cutting another $250 million, which they say would mean half a million families lose $90 per month. Republicans want to deepen the cuts by more strictly enforcing laws that deny food stamps to families with savings of over $2,000, and ending other workarounds used by states.

The Senate has already said no to a dramatic amendment from Rand Paul, R-Ky., which would have repealed the entire food stamp program.

Do you support these cuts to the food stamp program?

[Bobolinsky]

Newspeak.

How in the world can this be logical? This is how our government works. It's amazing that it works at all. That fact is due to free people being free to pursue their dreams.

What does that mean?

Free from what? Think about it. We fought a war against tyranny. That tyranny was the national government of the colonies (UK, George III)

The idea is that we are supposed to be free from tyranny by our own government. What we are experiencing now is "soft tyranny". That means they nudge, cajole, persuade and deceive. They get huge handouts for "gimme gimme voters" just in time for the election, by calling it a "farm bill".

Farm bills are good
Food stamp bills.... eeeehhhhh, not so much.

That's what they figure out in their focus groups.

Which words you like and which words you don't. Use the former, avoid the latter.

The result is a jumbled jargon that is almost as difficult to understand as Goebel's theories.

I was up all night. I "ought" to get a nap.

[IMAQT]

It makes us feel good to help others. But the reality is that the war on poverty that we have spent trillions on has resulted in more poverty.

[CanadianIndy]

We have really got to end the farm subsidies... billions and billions of dollars to, make no mistake, rich farmers. Including Batshit Bachmann and her closeted husband.

[Bobolinsky]

I was so close to voting you up Indy. Then you pulled out the Crazy Lady Card.
.
Your Misogyny is showing.

[CanadianIndy]

Hah. So it's racism to call an African-American black, as well? I'm not saying all women are nuts (though jokingly, every guy believes this when he's dating one), I'm just saying Bachmann is. She's a loon. Debatably worse than Palin.

To be fair though, it's not just women. George Bush II,(up in Canada) Kevin Falcon (the finance minister that called the voters "stupid"), Glenn Beck (who has Nazi Tourettes), Grover Nornquist (who wishes to abolish most taxes), Rush Limbaugh (who called a woman "a slut" for using contraception), the judge in Canada who set a rapist free because "(the defendant) was asking for (rape) due to the clothes she was wearing," and many many more.

But hey. Jokes are jokes. And anything can be funny in a certain light. Just not funny to everyone...

[ir0nw0lfe]

Why do you say Bachman is nuts? Please give examples.

[CanadianIndy]

"Well what I want them to know is just like, John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That's the kind of spirit that I have, too." - During her interview after launching her Presidential campaign in Waterloo, Iowa, she mixed up her John Waynes. The film icon was born in Winterset, Iowa, hours away. The John Wayne that was born in Waterloo was John Wayne Gacy, the notorious serial killer.
"I will tell you that I had a mother last night come up to me here in Tampa, Florida, after the debate. She told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter." - In reference to the HPV vaccine in a Fox interview.
"I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out: Are they pro-America or anti-America?" - This was way back in '08. Essentially she's calling for neo-McCarthyism.
"I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out under another, then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence." - Referring to the 1976 outbreak which happened under Ford's administration. Ford was a Republican.
"Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn't even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas." - Seriously?
"Before we get started, let's all say 'Happy Birthday' to Elvis Presley today." - This was on August 16...the anniversary of his death. His birth was January 8.
"But we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States.... I think it is high time that we recognize the contribution of our forbearers who worked tirelessly -- men like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished in the country." - First of all, John Adams was not a founding father. Nor did the founding fathers work to end slavery. And this, this was during a speech in Iowa over tax reform.
I could go on...but it's just become ridiculous. I'm all for anyone running for President or any other office. And if they get voted in, they get voted in. But to call me out for calling someone nuts, stupid, dumb, crazy, etc, when they /actually are/ any of the above as being mean, misogynist, racist, sexist, ageist or any other -ist is ignorant. Speaking the truth about whether someone is bright or not should never be shunned. But whatever, let's even things out, shall we?
Bill Maher - hugely full of himself and narcissistic.
Glenn Beck - plainly delusional. Even compared the Peace Corp. to the Nazi Youth.
Sarah Palin - completely unknowledgable. Maybe not stupid, but just doesn't know too many things.
Bill O'Reilly - a bully to any guest who doesn't speak, literally, the party line.
Michael Moore - Brilliant film maker, conspiracy theorist.
Jesse Ventura - Hugely successful, conspiracy driven, bull-headed.
Jon Stewart - Comedian who uses his comedy to, maybe not influence politics, but to royally piss off pundits and politicians alike.
Barack Obama - Lame duck President, not even black but merely half-black, way too compromising.
Mitt Romney - Flip-flopping chameleon who is too much a pandering business man to ever do anything but fill big business' pockets if he were voted to office, bigoted, believing in a religion that was conceived by, literally, a con artist on the run from the law.

That better?

[ir0nw0lfe]

A couple I could explain but the rest are priceless. Typical politician. Love,the Fact mix up and that final rant. Funny!

[thatGuy]

Yes. Stop the food stamps ..

[ir0nw0lfe]

I don't mind ending farm subsidies but that should be at the end of the list. After food stamp reform and after the last congressional earmarked is strippeded from every bill.

[marine1]

Just maybe we ought to elect all women, lets think about it, they couldn't do a whole lot worse????????

[ir0nw0lfe]

Shhh, don't give them any ideas...... They're crazy.

[marine1]

You might be right but what a we gots to loose.

[Truthinesss]

Yea, I'm with Rand on this one.

[Just_Lisa]

There is a LOT of food stamp fraud going on. I think a lot of recipients need investigated, when recipients can sell there food stamps for a fraction of what they are given, for ANY means, then yes. They are receiving way too much. The welfair system needs more investigators! It would be a win win thing by creating a lot more jobs. The savings found could probably pay the investigators salary.