This article is written by Donna Brazile about the House of Representatives recent vote to cut $40 billion to the food stamp program in the next 10 years. Basically, Donna Brazile is saying that the House of Representatives took a shot at the 48 millions Americans on food stamps, and how cruel this decision was to our nation. If you look at least half of Americans live in poverty, and the families net worth's are dropping dramatically. I agree with this article because I feel like the House of Representatives were just making a stubborn decision. If you think about it isn't a real reason to cancel it looking at the facts that food stamps errors are at 3 percent mostly from the government, the average food stamp household has a monthly income of 744 dollars, and net monthly income of $338 after the standard deduction. So why would we take money from the people who actually need it? The middle class is disappearing even more. By the federal reserves to be consider a poor family you have to make less than a $23,550 a year, a person to be consider poor must make less than $11,490. Are you kidding me that is ridiculous a single parent household can hardly survive on 42,000 a year. People are already working 2 or 3 jobs to barely make , so this basically kicking Americans down while they are already on the ground gasping for air. In the article also goes into how the same representatives went on a trip to Ireland were giving a spending salary of 166 dollars a day, the average American family on food stamps spends 4 dollars a day. Was this really a wise decision by our House of Representatives? Is this a harsh mistake? We will see over time.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/23/opinion/brazile-food-stamps/index.html?hpt=po_r1
I agree that the focus on food stamp fraud is highly overplayed by its opponents. So many people focus on the few people that abuse the system. They bring up anecdotes of that one time when a person bought food with food stamps and then left in a new Cadillac or paid for cigarettes right afterwards. In my opinion many people highly overestimate how common occurrences like this truly are. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities over 9 out of 10 recipients of entitlement benefits go to elderly, disabled, or working households (http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3677). Regardless of the rare instances of abuse that occur, I think we as nation need to focus on the people out there that genuinely depend on welfare to make ends meet. I think Jon Stewart summed it up nicely when he said "Why is it that if you take advantage of a corporate tax break you're a smart businessman, but if you take advantage of something so you don't go hungry, you're a moocher?"
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