The Cat Food Generation . . . Coming soon to a family member near you!:
WASHINGTON -- Next month food stamp benefits will automatically shrink for all 47 million Americans enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Pamela Gwynn of Crawfordsville, Ind., heard about the cut in a letter from the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration. The letter explained that a federal law called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known as the "stimulus package," had given food stamp recipients a temporary boost in 2009.
"The increased benefits provided by this law are expected to expire on November 1, 2013," the letter said. "Most families will see their benefits decrease in November due to the end of the extra benefits provided by the 2009 law."
Gwynn, 63, said a series of brain surgeries in the late 1990s left her partially deaf and reliant on $731 per month in disability benefits from the Social Security Administration. Her monthly food stamp benefit will go down from $91 to $80. Gwynn did some arithmetic and figured that would leave her 88 cents per meal.
"Eighty-eight cents won't buy anything except a cup of ramen noodles," she said. "They just keep cutting and cutting. Eighty-eight cents -- you cannot even buy a can of tuna for 88 cents."http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/25/food-stamps_n_4158690.html
"You cannot even buy a can of tuna for 88 cents."
The Gadfly can already hear the snickering of the Teabaggers in response to the doomed Ms. Gwynn's plight -- "Learn to manage your money better you socialist loving moocher! And be sure to check out the plain label tuna cat food at the .99 cents stores - you can usually get a good bargain on those! Hehe..."
It has been observed by many a famous historical actor, in one form or another, that "the true measure of a moral and honorable society can be known by how it treats it's weakest and most vulnerable members."
The Gadfly is not shy to state that based on the sum total of wealth in this country, the manner in which we coddle and undeservedly reward the super wealthy, how we waste it on endless wars and military-industrial-complex tomfoolery, and ultimately by the manner in which we are treating our weakest and most vulnerable citizens, at this point in our history this country has no right whatsoever to lay claim to any mantle of superior honor or morals, braggadocio be damned.
And The Gadfly swears -- the first putz that regurgitates the insipid talking point that America "needs to cut entitlements like Social Security and Medicare and food stamps because we'll go broke if we don't," --just save The Gadfly the vexation of such a futile debate and trot your dumb monkey ass to the nearest bathroom, stick your head in the toilet and pull the flush lever - for that truly is the only proper response to such uninformed inanity.
Click on the highlighted links in the preceding paragraph to find out the reality-based truth about each of those programs and how they have saved and still do save America money while simultaneously enhancing the quality of life of our society's weakest and most vulnerable.
In summation, if giving a damn about those less fortunate and vulnerable in addition to believing we should expect the super wealthy to give back a bit more to the society and country that they have used as a vehicle to attain that wealth makes The Gadfly a dirty, hippie socialist -- then so be it -- The Gadfly accepts the epithet with pride and honor, and more so considering the source of such invective.
“Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves.”
― Horace Mann
----TFG
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