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babylonsister

(171,070 posts) Fri Mar 1, 2013, 08:04 AM Mar 2013

Washington’s Hunger Games: Sequester’s Cuts to Food Assistance Programs

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/01/washington-s-hunger-games-sequester-s-cuts-to-food-assistance-programs.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Fpolitics+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Politics%29

Washington’s Hunger Games: Sequester’s Cuts to Food Assistance Programs
by Joel Berg Mar 1, 2013 4:45 AM EST
Shame on the lawmakers trying to slash nutrition programs when they are needed most—and pretending the increased use of programs is the result of fraud, says Joel Berg of the sequester’s most heartless cuts.

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All Americans would be harmed by the mindless, across-the-board budget slashing of the sequester, cutting food safety inspections, air traffic control, the FBI, and health research. Yet the cuts would do even greater harm to the tens of millions of Americans already suffering from poverty, hunger, and food insecurity.

According to the White House, 70,000 low-income children would be kicked off Head Start, the early childhood education program. Another 125,000 struggling families would lose rental assistance, placing them at risk of losing permanent housing. And 100,000 formerly homeless people, including veterans, would be removed from programs to prevent them from returning to the streets.

Even without new cuts, because of the continued weakness in the U.S. economy, an astounding 50 million Americans, including nearly 17 million children, already live in households defined by the federal government as “food insecure,” which means they either go hungry or struggle to ration food. It should be no surprise, then, that more Americans now need federal nutrition assistance.

If the nation faced an extended drought and then subsequently suffered from more wildfires, even the most conservative members of Congress would surely support more federal funds for fighting fires, especially if the fires threatened their own districts. Likewise, given that an extended economic downturn has increased hunger, Congress should support increased federal aid to fight hunger, especially as the problem persists in every congressional district.

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Not only will tens of millions of Americans suffer from the reductions, but the cuts will imperil the country’s overall economy and national security. No superpower in the history of the world has remained a superpower if it has failed to feed its own people. The time is long overdue for all Americans to have access to nutritious, affordable food.

The stakes are too high for continued political grandstanding. The hunger games must stop now.