'Give Me a Goddamn Break': House Democrat Slams Food Aid Cuts as Pentagon Budget Soars — "I didn't come to Congress to hurt people," said Rep. Jim McGovern. "And when I listen to my Republican friends, what is clear to me is that we don't share the same values."

[u/Picture-unrelated]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/dem-food-aid-cuts-pentagon

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[u/deltadal]

There is zero reason, especially with the subsidies we pay farmers, for people in this country to go hungry. It just isn't even reasonable.

[u/TheGillos → u/deltadal]

Upwards of 40% of food goes to waste. Ask anyone who has worked in a restaurant, grocery store or fast food place how much perfectly good food goes in the garbage. Also, how much food that more well off people waste with spoilage and tossing?

It's fucking sick and I fully support anyone stealing food if someone eats it.

[u/MagikSkyDaddy → u/TheGillos]

"If you see someone stealing food...No, you didn't."

[u/polopolo05 → u/MagikSkyDaddy]

Wait... stop... don't....

I didn't get a good look at them sorry...

[u/MarylandHusker → u/polopolo05]

Officer. I don’t have any comment.

Or pull my chain. Fine. I can tell you they were at least 4 feet tall and not taller than 6’6 and definitely was human, hard to assume gender nowadays

[u/Renegad_Hipster → u/MagikSkyDaddy]

This. Cannot be upvoted enough.

[u/BeerSlayingBeaver → u/Renegad_Hipster]

Someone mentioned in my local sub that it's ridiculous how people are stealing expensive steak and cheese when they are poor and assumed all poor people would want to eat is Bologna and ramen. I explained that if you're going to steal, you're not going to risk it for a box of kraft dinner and some cheese slices, might as well go big.

[u/KrazzeeKane → u/BeerSlayingBeaver]

Make sure the juice is worth the squeeze--like you said no point in risking the biscuit for a 6-pack of ramen

[u/RoninNoJitsu → u/KrazzeeKane]

That and you'll actually feel full from eating the steak. You'll just get bloated from the ramen.

[u/PM_ME_450_WORDS → u/KrazzeeKane]

Lots of states have crimes related to dollar amount of stuff stolen. Some stores have policies behind them, too.

Pretty sure you can just walk out the door with a six-pack of ramen, if you wanted to, in most places.

That said, when I was broke and hungry, I stole all sorts of shit from the grocery store. You just take what you can take.

[u/adeon → u/BeerSlayingBeaver]

"Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb"

[u/tgrantt → u/adeon]

My mother always said this.

[u/UpUpDownDownXO → u/MagikSkyDaddy]

I used to work the deli at safeway the amount of food I'd throw away was depressing especially when you see the eating/lounge area at safeway is always full of homeless, i didn't care I'd tell them to look out back I triple bagged the stuff I was posed to throw out, got to the point I'd put cold price tags on warm food so ppl on food stamps can get warm sandwiches

[u/gallifrey_ → u/UpUpDownDownXO]

i mean this with the utmost sincerity: thank you for your service

[u/throwawaygreenpaq → u/UpUpDownDownXO]

I love that you showed kindness in your own way. Gestures like this count. You kept people alive. Thank you.

[u/Col__Hunter_Gathers → u/UpUpDownDownXO]

I like the cut of your jib

[u/BDMayhem → u/MagikSkyDaddy]

Tell that to the seagull that took my sandwich at the beach.

[u/PayMetoRedditMmkay → u/TheGillos]

Right?! Ever been to a fancy event for the well-to-do? The sheer amount of food available that would be impossible to eat if every guest stuffed their bellies, and most the time they barely graze.

[u/Eringobraugh2021 → u/PayMetoRedditMmkay]

That is one of many things The Hunger Games hit on the head. The absolute gluttony of the rich.

[u/fixer1987 → u/Eringobraugh2021]

Its not even gluttony, they aren't eating a lot of it.

It's vanity. Oh look at us, we go to the parties with the fanciest, best spreads and pay thousands per ticket

[u/machina99 → u/fixer1987]

I used to do some catering for rich people - most ridiculous I ever got was an Oktoberfest party at their house for ~100 guests. Figure brats, pretzels, cheese, etc pretty standard menu. Except the host wanted 1 brat per person, per variety. We had like 3 different types, so this was 300 sausages for 100 people. My staff all went home with so much food

[u/polopolo05 → u/Eringobraugh2021]

I think you mean the waste of the rich

[u/SpiderNeko → u/PayMetoRedditMmkay]

I worked in my cities largest event centre before it closed in the pandemic, but I'll tell you, all that good that didn't get eaten at those extravagant, expensive dinners was picked apart by us staff, all of us living paycheck to paycheck, their left overs being our only real supper other than fast food on the way home.

There was one weekend we held a good service home show, loads of produce was being left by the show runners. Potatoes, citrus, greens that they had left that the company was not taking with them. I got told by my boss that if I took any of it home, I'd be fired for stealing company property. It was going to be thrown out. I essentially said fuck that and stuff my car full of as much as I could at the end of the shift. I didn't care if they fired me, I was disgusted and had food for the next month.

[u/theultimaterage → u/TheGillos]

I used to work at the cafeteria at my college and I used to steal food ALLLLLLL THE TIME!!!! Shiiiit, if they just gon throw it away, I might as well! Me and my roomie were eatin good too! I miss that shit........

[u/DrunkOnSchadenfreude → u/theultimaterage]

It's ridiculous to even consider it stealing if it's food that was gonna be thrown away. At this point, who are you even stealing from? The dumpster? Nobody's hurt by this.

[u/theultimaterage → u/DrunkOnSchadenfreude]

The profit motive ruins everything. Food services throw out so much food because they fear that if they gave it away, they can be sued if someone contracted an illness. We as an American society DESPERATELY need transition out of this hyper-capitalist plutocratic oligarchical kakistocratic kleptocratic gerontological theocratic corporatocracy and FAST!!!

[u/Dual_Sport_Dork → u/theultimaterage]

[Removed due to continuing enshittification of reddit.] -- mass edited with redact.dev

[u/cerylidae1552 → u/theultimaterage]

It’s actually not because of the fear of litigation, though that is a commonly given excuse. The real reason is that the companies are afraid if employees know food can/will be donated or taken home, they will be less likely to try to sell it so they can take it for themselves. It’s super fucking stupid. I HATE lazy people but my mom raised me to give food to the hungry, not throw food away.

[u/Pixel_Knight → u/theultimaterage]

People don’t realize how utterly dystopian the current capitalist system we live in is. They are just so used to it, and so many of the ugliest parts of it are well hidden enough that the people can forget about them so easily. I don’t think anything will be changing without some sort of massive societal shift.

[u/FrankTheFurnaceGuy → u/DrunkOnSchadenfreude]

This.

Worked at a hotel with lavish banquets and I was the clean-up guy.

I would bring down full 6' carts of trays of food that was not permitted to eat.

I once offered some to an engineer and he said it wasn't allowed and one could get fired for it, especially as we were on camera in an elevator.

I enjoyed hearing that and continued to stuff my face with as much decadent meeting food as I could before the elevator ride ended and I went to the dish pit to throw it all away.

It wasn't just bagels and coffee either. A plethora of fresh items were being thrown out daily.

[u/This-Association-431 → u/DrunkOnSchadenfreude]

I used to work for a place that had pre-packaged fancy sandwiches. At the end of the night all the sandwiches the closing team didn't want were given to a homeless shelter one of the managers passed on their way home.

Someone complained and the food safety people said they would fine us if we attempted to give the sandwiches away as there were no food safety measures at the shelter or during transport (keeping them cold or warming them up).

Manager asked what would happen if they just put the sandwiches in the garbage - nothing, so long as measures were taken to keep people from wanting to eat the sandwiches. Because just throwing them in the garbage gave a risk of making people sick.

I have mixed feelings about that. Sure, we need measures in place to avoid food poisoning, but we also have a shit ton of hungry people and a shit ton of wasted food on the possiblity of getting sick.

[u/nos-is-lame → u/theultimaterage]

I worked at the bakery at a Super Target when I was younger. I'd get half the staff visiting right before close because they knew I didn't give a shit if food went missing from my cart of "expired" product that had to be thrown away.

The bakery also had a sort of unofficial rule that all of us should know what all the different products tasted like so we could properly recommend items. This meant that we were technically allowed to grab something from the floor and write it off as a trial product. So every night I worked alone I'd grab some cookies or cupcakes or something and have it set out for employees to stop by and grab.

[u/snerp → u/theultimaterage]

When I worked for the uni cafeteria, I got caught cooking an extra burger at the end of my shift for myself. Manager's boss was like "HEY YOU CAN'T DO THAT", I was so sick of it I was just like "pay me decently then or find someone else who can cook a decent pizza" and just left for the night. Next day, manager was chill about it because he was a pretty chill dude I was the only good pizza cook but the boss boss was super pissed and made this huge deal about how I need to be in uniform 10 minutes before my shift and blah blah blah, to which I replied that I wasn't gonna let wage theft happen to me and speaking of - I wasn't on the clock at the time so I just left again. Never got scheduled for another hour lol

[u/Roook36 → u/TheGillos]

My roommate used to work at Kroger in the deli section. I had to tell him to stop bringing cheese home. It was all perfectly good cheese about to be thrown out because it hit the expiration date. Our freezer was full of it.

Didn't need to buy cheese for awhile though.

[u/cs_katalyst → u/Roook36]

That's why you give it to freinds! i have a buddy who works a big food distributor. When they do samples and open a case, they cant legally sell it anymore. So a few of their freinds always get cheese, bacon, etc. from that company just in generic packaging.. it's fantastic

[u/Eruptflail → u/TheGillos]

That's not even where the majority of food is wasted.

[u/TheGillos → u/Eruptflail]

Sure, but that's the "complete" food waste example I could think of. Milk is dumped, meat is left to rot, ugly fruits and veggies are disposed of, the examples are endless, feel free to add your own.

[u/tiajuanat → u/TheGillos]

When I was living in the states, my local Panera would donate a 55 gallon (~220L) trash bag of baked goods to the local food shelter every night. Most places just throw their extras though.

[u/phulton → u/tiajuanat]

The grocery store I used to work for would donate all spoiled fruits and veg to a local pig farm. It didn’t feed a person but at least it didn’t just rot in the ground I guess.

[u/TricksterPriestJace → u/phulton]

There are pig farms in Nevada that feed almost entirely from Vegas buffet waste.

[u/tenclubber → u/TricksterPriestJace]

Not when I'm out there.

[u/PunkRockTeacher → u/TheGillos]

Wife works in childcare. If there is surplus food, it gets binned. Not even admins fault. It's all in government regulations.

Sure, doing so makes sure that little Timmy doesn't eat 2 month old yogurt from the back of the fridge accidentally, but it also means she has to throw out a week's worth of food in proportion to our family's diet. We are talking fruit, vegetables, grains, meat, you name it.

An easy alternative would be... Idunno... Reading the fucking label or mandating by law that they're easier to read than trying to figure out the difference between BB, MD, EB, EX? Sure, I know it means Best Before (i.e: might still be good/may have lost flavor), Manufacture Date (i.e.: foods that are virtually imperishable), Eat Before (will go bad that day), and Expiry, but most people just want to know "Can I eat this still?"

[u/IsThatBlueSoup → u/PunkRockTeacher]

In college I was working on a packaging that would turn a different color as food spoiled. I don't know why I stopped when the class ended. I should try to figure something out again.

[u/December_Flame → u/PunkRockTeacher]

There's not even any federal regulations regarding best-by dates, they are largely fictional numbers guessed by corporations who's profit incentives are to give the most conservative number possible.

[u/__M-E-O-W__ → u/TheGillos]

Yeah, I used to work in a restaurant and our owner was good about not wasting food. He would just give the leftover food for us to take home that night for free, if it wasn't something that could be refrigerated and saved for tomorrow. But the food that the people ate, how many people didn't order a to-go box and just left like a mountain of food on their plates. I learned some people would just find a restaurant for the sake of chatting, as if over a cup of coffee, except they'd actually order a full meal and then leave it.

[u/MarrusAstarte → u/deltadal]

There is zero reason, especially with the subsidies we pay farmers, for people in this country to go hungry. It just isn't even reasonable.

Unfortunately, it's actually very reasonable, if your motive is making a profit by exploiting cheap labor.

Hungry children make poor parents more willing to work for a low wages.

Remember when they opposed free school lunches, because they didn't want kids getting "spoiled"?

[u/Murdercorn → u/MarrusAstarte]

Remember when? You mean today?

[u/MarrusAstarte → u/Murdercorn]

I was thinking of this incident, but you're correct. It's all too common for Republicans to be against feeding hungry children.

[u/wrtcdevrydy → u/MarrusAstarte]

The worst part is the Republicans have forgotten why the free lunches started... because recruits were too skinny for WW2 from bad nutrition, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_meal_programs_in_the_United_States#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20Congress%20passed,had%20helped%207.1%20million%20children.)) Feeding our children is literally part of National Security in case we ever need a draft.

[u/CallMeParagon → u/deltadal]

Everything is a zero sum game to conservatives, including food, shelter, and water.

[u/LuckyandBrownie → u/CallMeParagon]

Not quite. Power is the zero sum game they are playing. They use the other stuff to leverage power. They don't really care about any of the other stuff.

[u/CallMeParagon → u/LuckyandBrownie]

Politicians yes, but the average conservative is absolutely infected with zero sum thoughts and feelings. I would say they are even addicted to it. That’s why they love attacking, for example, social benefits for the poor - they think it will make them individually richer or better off. They literally don’t understand that if the whole country is doing well, that means they would be, too.

[u/Flashy_Night9268 → u/deltadal]

Farmers are the biggest welfare recipients in the world. They hire illegal immigrants en masse. And, almost without exception, are bible thumping republican voters who think noone wants to work and unemployment benefits are evil.

[u/Cadmium_Aloy → u/deltadal]

The way we distribute food in this country (world) MUST change.

Millions of children are hungry, malnourished and without resources. To then use power to say that lgbt people are hurting these kids is some bullshit insanity.

[u/FindingMoi → u/[deleted]]

I’m on a program called Medical Assistance for Workers with Disabilities. I have medical assistance, but I pay for it. I regularly have to do a LOT of paperwork to maintain it. The actual certification process is once a year, but they often just send random paperwork I need to take care of and send back or lose my insurance. Luckily I had a break from that due to the pandemic and pregnancy, but it’s still a lot of work to maintain.

I imagine this will be similar. There’s really no room for error or forgetting about things— stuff that people in difficult situations are bound to do. And paperwork that feels endless can be overwhelming as fuck. I don’t see this ending well for people who need it.

[u/PowerandSignal → u/FindingMoi]

Aaaand... That's the point.

[u/mre16 → u/PowerandSignal]

Cruelty is the point

[u/HauntedCemetery → u/mre16]

And desperation. Desperate people work for cheap, and don't complain about abuse from their boss.

[u/[deleted] → u/mre16]

[removed] — view removed comment

[u/Phlink75 → u/[deleted]]

Or speak about them on reddit

[u/[deleted] → u/Phlink75]

[removed] — view removed comment

[u/fellatio_warrior69 → u/[deleted]]

Google West Virginia coal strikes to find things that you shouldn't advocate for

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

[removed] — view removed comment

[u/CapnTreee → u/mre16]

I REALLY want to argue… but the data..

[u/mre16 → u/CapnTreee]

I spent the last 15 minutes looking for the study, like a proper peer reviewed thing with proper examination and everything, but my google-fu is failing me.

Basically, those in power will tend towards the most cruel available option unless another choice is overwhelming better for them. Think of massive strikes to end 16 hour 6 day a week workdays when it doesn't affect their bottom dollar. They sicced the damn national guard US ARMY on coal miners for christs sake.

Edit: US army, not the national guard

[u/TricksterPriestJace → u/mre16]

Not national guard. The fucking army.

[u/TheAskewOne → u/PowerandSignal]

It is. I'm disabled and have been denied SSDI twice even though I have cerebral palsy. I've stopped asking though because I don't want to be treated like I'm a lazy leach even though I'm in pain most of the time. I work and my body is giving up on me so I don't really know what I'm going to do. But at least no one is coming after me because I dared taking a few hours at a side job to make an extra $200 one year, and I don't have to justify that my disability didn't cure itself overnight.

[u/FunyunCreme → u/TheAskewOne]

My friend, I was turned down for SSDI for 2 years. I finally appealed with an atty. I was finally accepted at the 3 year mark. Through the years I often wondered why the government would think my amputated leg would grow back. That never happens (unless you are Deadpool). Lol! Get a lawer and appeal. Good luck to you and don't give in to the bastards. You deserve the little you get.

[u/dustatron → u/FunyunCreme]

My mother had a similar experience. 90% of people who apply are denied. The fastest you can expect to get approved is about a year.

The only people who get approved right away are people diagnosed as blind.

Fastest way to get your approval is to get a lawyer. There are lawyers that that specialize in this. You will get back pay in a lump sum from the date you first applied. The lawyers will often take their payment from that payment.

[u/iam0r0r0 → u/TheAskewOne]

My sister has CP and had to hire an attorney after being denied twice. She did receive back pay of her benefits and now has SSDI.

[u/Luminaireflare → u/TheAskewOne]

Hello! I know you weren't asking for advice and help but if you reach out to your state's Vocational Rehabilitation Services, although their goal is to help individuals into competitive and integrated employment, if they also feel that you're in to severe of pain to return to work, they may be able to write a letter that can help push you towards SSI/SSDI acceptance. Or perhaps a letter from your primary care physician. The services are free and if they feel work might not be a good fit due to your safety/pain level, it might help your case.

[u/Geawiel → u/TheAskewOne]

I applied for SSDI. Was denied twice and had to hire a lawyer before getting it. I had already been deemed unemployable by the VA 4 years before that. That rating didn't even include the severe neuropathy I was including on the SSDI filing.

[u/I_am_Cheeseburger → u/FindingMoi]

Ironically, the cost of administrating all that paperwork on the government side is eating a large portion of the little money in the program. In other words, if we removed most of the paperwork, there’d be more money to distribute and each person would get more, even if a few undeserving fraudsters sneak in too.

[u/relevantusername2020 → u/FindingMoi]

I regularly have to do A LOT of paperwork

laughs cries in ADHD

UBI > every other solution

every other solution is just kicking the can

(the can is poor people)

[u/zorinlynx → u/relevantusername2020]

I have my doubts that UBI will work. Believe me, I'm all for it. But I have this fear that if we get UBI of for example, $1000 a month, cost of living will magically go up to meet it, because of the free market.

So the UBI will end up only enriching landlords and corporations as they immediately start to extract that additional cashflow from the people.

If we do UBI, we need a lot more regulation to prevent cost of living from going up. Otherwise it'll be "easy come, easy go".

[u/HotGarbage → u/[deleted]]

Rent Seeking (basically, charging us for something that was always free with no contributions back into the economy) doesn't get talked about enough and it's a major problem with Capitalism. Companies that charge you to submit your taxes is just one tiny example. Motherfuckers will figure out a way to charge us for breathing air pretty soon.

[u/relevantusername2020 → u/zorinlynx]

we need a lot of regulation

say no more fam

[u/iltopop → u/FindingMoi]

One of my best friends has to take a few grand out of her account twice a year, she's in a masters program and gets paid for her research work....but it's paid in 6 month blocks, so at the start of the 6 months she gets a little under 3 grand. Despite the money being well under the medicaid limit for 6 months of work, it puts her over the amount of money she's allowed to have in her bank account to keep medicaid. Doesn't matter that it's for 6 months of work, having too much in your bank account means you can obviously afford medical care.

[u/mattyoclock → u/[deleted]]

And we just ended a fucking war. You want to know what’s a massive budget increase? Not having deployed troops.

In any other country the budget would go down, significantly. Here we don’t even briefly discuss the possibility of it.

[u/[deleted] → u/mattyoclock]

You want to know what’s a massive budget increase? Not having deployed troops.

This assumes any of that money was going to the actual troops in the field.

[u/mattyoclock → u/[deleted]]

Even without it, that's more ordinance burned, more gas, replacing vehicles, etc.

[u/[deleted] → u/mattyoclock]

Which is precisely why we're supplying Ukraine (and a dozen other places,) with all those things now. The machine doesn't slow down. It can never slow down. Infinite growth must continue at all costs. The line must ALWAYS go up.

[u/CaneVandas → u/[deleted]]

From my time in DoD it's a joke. Honestly don't see any of that money as a service member or really as a federal employee. But they have created a accountability black hole with a big sticker on it named "National Defense" Trillions of dollars get dumped into obscure government contracts, most of which is either over inflated or is some R&D fund that never will actually produce a real product that sees use. So many people in Washington have their hands in that pie and it's a scary level of taxpayer grift. And the best part is they have essentially made it all legal!

[u/azflatlander → u/CaneVandas]

Whenever they talk budgets, defense is always an annual number yet social programs are always 10 year numbers. Guess we do not want to hear $7trillion.

[u/xvx_k1r1t0_xvxkillme → u/azflatlander]

Part of that is that the constitution forbids funding the military for more than two years at a time, so there technically is no 10 year number. That's still not a reasonable excuse. There's nothing preventing either referring to everything at an annual rate, or extrapolating the two year budget over 10 years.

[u/AprilTron → u/CaneVandas]

I worked at a company that had product approved by the military for use, no competition. The ceo openly said that since it takes so long for companies to get approved/so many hoops, we can raise the price 7% every year no question, regardless of reason, and they will never look for a competitive product. The procurement in any armed forces group has no incentive to save on price or do economies of scale like every other business.

[u/RanniSimp → u/[deleted]]

There are things we can do. We just aren't legally allowed to advocate for them.

[u/Alis451 → u/RanniSimp]

You actually can, it is called the Four Boxes method! Tell as many people as you can about them, in fact that is the First of the Four Boxes, the Soap Box.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Only 52% of eligible voters voted in 2022. Right thars the problem.

[u/SentientCrisis]

I went through a really rough patch and very suddenly became a single mom of an infant with no job and no car and no family. I qualified for TANF but in order to get it, I had to prove that I was job-hunting.

I had a computer and internet access at home where my baby could be safe and comfortable in familiar surroundings. But the state didn’t trust that I would actually job hunt from home. Instead they wanted to pay for my public transportation to a subsidized childcare facility that smelled like piss before taking public transit to their buildings where I could sit at one of their old, slow computers and do the exact same thing that I could do from home.

I was irate. Being pathetically poor is punishment enough. Don’t make me jump through extra hoops just to give other people a job managing hoop-jumpers.

I’m deeply grateful for TANF. It saw me through a scary chapter. Society needs safety nets and they shouldn’t come with punishments. Needing the safety net is punishment enough.

[u/WellSpreadMustard → u/[deleted]]

"Do not help the poor. Make them as miserable as possible, for their poverty is a symbol of their moral failing and the low speculative market value of their lives. Blessed are the rich." - Jesus

[u/uptownjuggler → u/[deleted]]

They want the peasants to know there place.

[u/Mistamage → u/[deleted]]

To rich asshole Republicans

Not even just rich, and you already said asshole.

[u/essdoubleU → u/SentientCrisis]

Needing the safety net is punishment enough

A lot of people don't understand this. They really think people are just lazy and "take advantage of the system" How the fuck can you get them to understand that poverty is not a choice??

[u/essdoubleU → u/[deleted]]

Right? I've always hated that term too. "Welfare Queen" implying they are living some lavish life on the tax payers dime. Such a disgusting and disingenuous representation of poverty.

[u/tentboyz → u/SentientCrisis]

The rich don’t understand the cost of being poor. It is so much more expensive to be poor. You need to be rich to be poor in America. Let it burn.

[u/[deleted] → u/SentientCrisis]

The cruelty is the point.

[u/DocMemory → u/SentientCrisis]

I really wish I had awards to give. The last sentence is perfect.

[u/ihohjlknk → u/SentientCrisis]

When you are forced to go to the benefits office for an appointment and wait 4 hours because they consolidated the other offices due to budget cuts, and sit with the most miserable people on the planet, well that's just the state showing how much it cares.

[u/QuestionMarkyMark]

Related reading from April 2023

ND Lawmakers: ‘nay’ to free school lunches for students, ‘yea’ to more in meal reimbursements for legislators

[u/TabascohFiascoh → u/QuestionMarkyMark]

Lol love seeing my state reps getting some attention. They are real piece of shits.

[u/CaptAsshat_Savvy]

Fun fact is we are still way way past wartime spending / budget as if we were actively at war.

Veterans? Who cares. Kids getting shot to hell in schools? Who cares. Predatory healthcare system? Who cares. A fair and unbalanced justice system? Yea no. If you make enough you can get away with anything.

Welcome to America. Don't grow old. Don't be young. Just fuck off.

[u/gofundyourself007 → u/CaptAsshat_Savvy]

I think Ben Franklin advocated a revolution every 10 years.

[u/CaptAsshat_Savvy → u/gofundyourself007]

I think if Ben was alive today, he would be ashamed at what we've become. Selfish immoral greedy corrupt

[u/kayvman → u/CaptAsshat_Savvy]

This is the argument I always make. This country has become so immoral that we are just ok with people starving while we throw thousands of tons of perfectly good food away into dumpsters. Food prices are made up. Food scarcity is made up. Money and its value is made up. Everything we are dealing with in this country is made up by people who stand to make obscene amounts of money from all the misery being inflicted on people who don’t have the resources or energy to fight back. I’m not one for violence but I fear that is the road we’re headed down. There has to be a breaking point where the system changes or it has to be changed by force to serve the needs of its citizens that participate in good faith. It seems we’re headed toward the latter. The saddest part is every time I think we’re about to hit bottom, we just keep digging. It’s madness. It’s not sustainable.

[u/CaptAsshat_Savvy → u/kayvman]

You should see it in healthcare. You have these nursing homes that are charging residents $5,000 a month to live in squalor. And when you can't pay anymore they just kick you out. Or they take your home, sell it for profit and then kick you up . 80 y old can't work kicked out cuz retirement used up.

You got hospice that will kick people out who are not dying fast enough because the insurance won't cover it.

The bloat and corruption is everywhere. It's all around our society. And the military is no different. It's just one gigantic money pit and there's no accountability at all

[u/AstronautGuy42]

What’s crazy is $200 is absolutely not enough for food for a month in todays world.

I’m a budget conscious shopper and it’s just me and my girlfriend. $200 is barely enough for a month for food.

Factor in a whole family and there’s just no way if you’re in MCOL/HCOL area.

EDIT: to clarify, $200 is not enough for us for monthly food budget, unless we intentionally eat very unhealthy or become lentil farmers. We generally spend $350 a month, but we also shop healthy and are very budget conscious. $350 is also only reasonable if you’re willing to cook 5+ days a week.

[u/ifcknhateme → u/AstronautGuy42]

Two people for 200/month? How? That's incredible

[u/AstronautGuy42 → u/ifcknhateme]

Realistically it’s more like $350, roughly $70-85 a week. But we also buy healthier options where we can and that jacks up the price. And republicans would use that as ammo for “you’re not budgeting hard enough!”

We could do $200 a month but it’s not practical if you’re trying to not consume garbage or lentils every day.

We’re also in NY, which is HCOL relative to most of the nation.

[u/AstronautGuy42 → u/[deleted]]

Idk what to tell you man. We cook 5-6 days a week, plan our meals and buy food for them. Budget is a factor when we shop. We basically never buy prepared food.

We shop at target since it’s cheaper than most grocery stores around us, like stop and shop for example. Also use target red card linked to debit card for global 5% discount.

We still buy healthy options as we’re both health conscious people, and fresh or frozen vegetables where we can. $80 a week is our normal grocery bill.

Ideally $450-500 would be the monthly bill since it’d allow us to buy a bunch of stuff we want but choose not to because of cost. We have our routine and are very disciplined when actually food shopping. Planning meals, creating a list, buying only what’s on the list.

[u/schattmultz → u/AstronautGuy42]

Funny enough, even with the higher prices and associated fees, my fiancé and I noticed we spend less when we Instacart groceries because even with a list we always deviate and just grab crap we don’t need. Wish I had the discipline you guys have, and could actually go to the grocery store without buying cosmic brownies

[u/UsernameStress → u/schattmultz]

Hey sometimes you gotta treat yourself to some cosmic brownies

[u/Straightwad → u/AstronautGuy42]

For real, I live in California with my gf and 200 dollars is nothing these days when it comes to grocery shopping. Food prices are up and and I honestly feel for anyone struggling and being chastised for getting food stamps when it’s barely even a handout at this point.

[u/AstronautGuy42 → u/Straightwad]

Completely agree. I make a decent salary in NY and am very conscious about how much our weekly grocery bill is.

All I can think is, how the actual fuck does a family of 4+ do this?

[u/Vitalstatistix → u/Straightwad]

Yeah in CA too and anytime I get out under $200/week now I feel like I’m winning.

[u/lostharbor → u/AstronautGuy42]

It's enough for the bare minimum but I agree not enough for a balanced diet.

It's just going go be a lot of rice and lacking fruits.

[u/AstronautGuy42 → u/lostharbor]

Absolutely. $200 is literally the floor for monthly food for two. Only buying things on sale, in bulk, never going out, never buying healthy options with a premium.

[u/VividImagery69 → u/AstronautGuy42]

For extra reference, when I was teen my dad and I living in a 1 bedroom apartment got around 800 a month. That was less than a decade ago. Every year it sounds like these numbers shrink even more.

[u/[deleted]]

Before anyone says:

This actually results in more people getting it

CBO said there will be a 0.2% increase in people who receive it spending by 2030

But they also project the population will increase 0.5% in the same time.

The total amount of people receiving it will go up, but that's because the amount of Americans is going up even more.

We're still taking benefits from people who need it. And since most people won't just sit down and peacefully starve, this is going to cause crime to go up and a whole bunch of other dominoes to fall.

It's just so aggravating watching people pretend this is a positive to hype up Biden.

Especially now that even Republicans are admitting this is terrible.

[u/-CJF- → u/[deleted]]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, no democrats should support safety net cuts, especially when they were extorted in exchange for allowing the country to pay its debt.

[u/[deleted] → u/-CJF-]

The way to decrease the cost of the safety net is to lift people out of poverty so they don't need it...

We do that by passing progressive legislation like raising the minimum wage and shifting the tax burden back to the wealthy.

But moderates don't want to do that. And now they're taking away the safety net anyways.

We need to run our country while thinking more than a year or two ahead of time. We're essentially running America "paycheck to paycheck" which is the opposite of efficient

[u/33superryan33 → u/[deleted]]

That's the capitalist mindset: short term gain is the only thing that matters to them

[u/Equivalent_Yak8215 → u/33superryan33]

Meanwhile, what was it Zac said?

"Hungry people don't stay hungry for long".

These short sighted assholes are going to drive people to do terrible things to survive.

[u/jwhittin → u/Equivalent_Yak8215]

And then throw them in jail. Free labor and no more voting. The system works as designed.

[u/Branamp13 → u/-CJF-]

especially when they were extorted in exchange for allowing the country to pay its debt.

Yep. It's like going to a restaurant, enjoying a nice meal, and then refusing to pay the bill at all unless they serve you dessert for free.

And for some fucking reason, the GOP's "dessert" is forcing even more poor people to starve and we're all just supposed to pretend that's reasonable.

I say "even more" because Congress already cut SNAP benefits once this year, back in March, for millions of Americans.

[u/slowpoke2018 → u/-CJF-]

And allowing defense spending to increase and continue to roll along unfettered in parallel

[u/SameOldiesSong → u/-CJF-]

One of the many crazy parts of this is if McCarthy still can’t deliver his caucus. You would then have more Dems than Republicans voting for a bill to cut food aide, push through the West Virginia pipeline, and freeze domestic spending, all without raising a single cent of taxes on the rich.

I understand McGovern’s frustration because Dem voters sure as shit didn’t send people like him to Washington to do that.

[u/NightwingDragon → u/[deleted]]

Especially now that even Republicans are admitting this is terrible.

This implies that they think it's terrible because even they don't want to be that cruel. This is not the case.

They think it's terrible because it's not cruel enough.

[u/Tavernknight → u/[deleted]]

The only thing that Republicans don't like about it is that they couldn't cut social spending more.

[u/Long_Before_Sunrise → u/Tavernknight]

They're also unhappy that they didn't reduce the number of employees at the IRS. One GOP Representative disingenuously called the IRS expansion 'big pay raises.'

[u/ShadowAssassinQueef]

Republicans have never cared about poor people. This isn’t a surprise.

[u/casualreader22 → u/ShadowAssassinQueef]

They've cared about duping the racist ones into voting for them...

[u/belly_bell]

Based on military requirements Biden's budget called for a 4% increase. The pentagon got an 8% increase.

I'm sure they'll use the money, but they didn't request it and we could pay for a lot of social programs that actually help people with that.

[u/vicvonqueso → u/belly_bell]

They'll use it by spending frivolously

[u/[deleted] → u/vicvonqueso]

Meanwhile, soldiers will continue to live in mold-infested FEMA trailers from the 60s on American soil.

[u/versusgorilla → u/vicvonqueso]

Or just "lose" it, chalk it up to a budgeting error, and some contractors will get as rich as can be off shoddy work and direct theft.

Meanwhile, throw a single mother in jail for a decade for stealing baby formula.

[u/--Flight-- → u/[deleted]]

Trillion. You mean the few TRILLION they still can't account for.

[u/ColoTexas90 → u/belly_bell]

Oh yeah, they’ll use the money to give more contracts to their donors.

[u/SameOldiesSong → u/belly_bell]

The same people saying that we can’t support Ukraine because we need to spend that money at home are working to cut food stamps and freeze social spending so they can increase money we spend on war.

That is some crazy shit right there.

[u/tmntnyc]

Food benefits are like 80-200 a month which is barely enough money to get 1 week's amount of food when you have children. It's also an extremely small pie slice of the budget. Also the biggest demographic aren't illegals or urban blacks using it, it's actually white families in rural communities in red states.

[u/rividz → u/tmntnyc]

I don't know where you live but since inflation $80 is what I spend in one week on groceries now for one person.

[u/tmntnyc → u/rividz]

Food stamps are meant to lighten the burden not fully support you. That's why it boggles my mind when Republicans think people getting government assistance like SNAP benefits or food stamps are living in the lap or luxury. It's such a nominal amount of money. And as for welfare goes, the wait list is years long and the burden of proof to qualify is extremely, ECTREMELY high.

[u/Globalpigeon → u/tmntnyc]

They think there are welfare queens driving brand new cars, new phones and live rent free with all that welfare. Anyone who had to deal with any welfare system knows that’s all bullshit. It’s very little, hard to get and you are actively punished for attempting to crawl out of poverty.

[u/InclementImmigrant]

The champions of a "Christian Nation". The hypocritical party that claims to worship a guy who fed done thousand poor people with five loaves of bread, two fish and healed the sick.

These shitty Christians keep wanting to take the food out of the mouths of the poor and deny them healthcare at every fucking turn.

[u/cmdim → u/InclementImmigrant]

Is it really shocking that members of a religion that heavily leans on controlling the wel-funded charities and community resources to proselytize and convert people wants secular government alternatives that don't do those things to be defunded and/or dismantled?

[u/Long_Before_Sunrise → u/InclementImmigrant]

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised to learn a Republican regularly takes thier kids to have a dessert and candy picnic at a spot in full view of a low-income daycare playground at recess. So the little ones can line up at the fence to watch them indulge.

[u/Aggressive-Bat-4000]

The Nazis targeted the immigrants, the gays and the disabled...

Republicans always oppress which groups?

[u/BenjiMalone → u/Aggressive-Bat-4000]

Don't forget about religious minorities, political opponents, trade unionists, and anyone with dark skin

[u/ZellZoy → u/Aggressive-Bat-4000]

The Martin Niemöller poem reads exactly like the Republicans hit list. They hate the exact same people the nazis do

[u/[deleted]]

I guess the poor will turn to begging and prostitution.

[u/cybervseas → u/[deleted]]

Also violent crime

[u/VividImagery69 → u/cybervseas]

Wouldn't surprise me if this is the goal. Private Prison Profits ftw.

[u/forthewatch39 → u/[deleted]]

They do, it’s called gofundme and onlyfans.

[u/[deleted]]

No one's going to give a fuck until we take a page out of the French playbook.

---

If you don't understand what I meant please refer the conversation with the person below. I'm not going to argue with y'all. I'm just going to block and move on. Have a nice day.

[u/Flashy_Night9268 → u/[deleted]]

Yea wake me up when heads roll

[u/Sanctimonius]

The right has very successfully labelled any kind of social welfare programs and handouts and entitlements. Only the lazy use those things, why would we prop them up on the backs of our hard work?

Thing is, they are entitlements. We're all entitled to that money, it's ours. I'm goddamned tired of our taxes being spent on ridiculous PPE loans and corporate welfare and another fucking Zumwalt cruiser. Children are starving in the richest country in the world. People are choosing between rent (certianly not mortgages) and food or medication. We pay the most in healthcare costs in the world. We pay insane prices for prescription medication that is pennies in other countries. We have shitty infrastructure built out of patchwork from decades ago, we have food deserts and underemployment and minimum wages that are unchained for decades as inflation continues to rise.

You're goddamned right we're entitled to that money. Spend it on us for a change. Imagine if we spent a fraction of the military budget, we could have healthcare cheaper and better run, childcare so we can have those kids the right is always screeching about, benefits so we can afford to spend our time raising those kids, better pay so we can be good little consumers. Spend that money on the people who gave it to you in the first place and rebuild the middle class. The right keeps harkening back to a golden age that only ever existed in the Andy Griffith show, so let's get back to upper tax rates of over 80% and a middle class with protection and disposable income.

[u/Lilsammywinchester13]

During covid, they expanded SNAP and my family NEVER worried about food

We ate healthier, lost weight, and in general, it felt NICE

Sure we could never go to restaurants, but we had veggies, a side, and a meat!! It was living the high life!

Now….we get 200-300 a month….so back to one meal a day, mostly just a meat since our bag of frozen veggies can’t last the whole month….

It’s not like I don’t have a degree or don’t work, I’m a special education teacher. Childcare costs as much as our rent so my husband watches the kids.

It’s funny how people’s advice is for my husband to just NOT SLEEP and work nights

I’ve worked two jobs here and there….it’s hard ☹️

[u/EspressoBooksCats → u/Lilsammywinchester13]

People just don't seem to understand how poor you have to be to get SNAP, and how their requirements are impossible for many to meet.

[u/OcarinaBigBoiLink → u/EspressoBooksCats]

THIS. My sister works minimum wage, full time. They told her NOPE sorry, you make too much. But my homeless bum ass got accepted. Its frustrating as hell.

[u/werd5 → u/OcarinaBigBoiLink]

I've always wondered if part of this is by design to cause more division among the population. Poor working people being angry that all those "lazy jobless people" (a quote I've heard many times) get all the federal aid. In the conversations I've had, I always say "instead of asking 'why do they get it!? They don't do anything!' try asking 'why don't I also get it?'"

It's a common thing I've heard so so many times. And a good testament as to why means-tested aid is just a bad idea, especially such poorly implemented means-tested aid.

[u/fuck_reddit_dot_calm → u/werd5]

It is by design. Keep people poor and dumb with fighting between each other. Then they won't notice they guy at the top robbing everyone. There is no reason the welfare system isn't a sliding progress scale to enable people to get out of poverty. It keeps people in poverty by having hard and low cut-offs.

[u/Lilsammywinchester13 → u/[deleted]]

It’s shame I have a heart, RIP

[u/SpockShotFirst]

Meanwhile, the Reddit Republicans hide in their safe spaces and refuse to acknowledge the mountains of evidence that their party is flat out evil.

As long as they can hurt women, LGBTQ, immigrants and minorities, they just don't care.

[u/[deleted] → u/SpockShotFirst]

I hate them so god damn much. They are liars and hypocrites and above all else fucking stupid as shit

[u/OperativePiGuy → u/[deleted]]

It's sad but they have taught many of us how to hate. And we'll at least be using that hate to make the world a better place in the long run instead of making it worse the way they do.

[u/SpockShotFirst → u/OperativePiGuy]

So true. Decades of them screaming at us while we convinced ourselves that it was just a few fringe elements. Then they finally revealed that it wasn't just the fringe.

[u/Life__Lover → u/SpockShotFirst]

It's all culture war bullshit and personal attacks in their sub. Rarely a God damn thing about what's actually happening in the country or world.

[u/tvaughan → u/SpockShotFirst]

“He’s not hurting the people he needs to be”: a Trump voter says the quiet part out loud

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/8/18173678/trump-shutdown-voter-florida

[u/l_one → u/SpockShotFirst]

As long as they can hurt women, LGBTQ, immigrants and minorities, they just don't care.

An important point to keep in mind is that, at the top, they very likely don't even give a shit one way or the other about any of these groups of people. They are just the target de jour to point at for the masses, giving their followers a group of 'different, others, not-you, not-your-values' people to focus all their discontent at in a classic divide and conquer (or perhaps more like rule by division to prevent the people uniting against you).

'Those people are not you, they are not Good Americans, they are not Good Christians, they are a threat to your way of life and according to us they want to force how they live onto you. Give us power and we will deal with the problem for you.'

It's never about group X or people Y, they are just the convenient target of the day. It used to be Muslims or anyone with brown skin / from the middle-east. Mexicans and various peoples from Central America are a recurring target. African Americans, obviously, have been the public target of this for centuries, so much so that Americans of Color are left with deeply ingrained systemic abuses at every turn.

Classic pre-WWII Nazi Germany playbook right there. It is, at the core, just a means to power. Stir up fear and hate, promote yourself as the leader who will deal with the target of that fear and hate you have inflamed, be voted into power.

Edit: from my understanding, DeSantis over in Florida is doing this right now. I'm not a mind reader, so I can't know for sure if he actually, personally, holds any of these prejudices, but he's following the the same playbook to pursue the same prize.

[u/MIDNIGHTZOMBIE]

The US budget is like a family of four, mom, dad, and the kids all working jobs to survive, barely affording the necessities, and also the dad opens new credit cards and spends ten thousand dollars every day expanding his gun collection.

[u/ZellZoy → u/MIDNIGHTZOMBIE]

And then suggest not paying credit card bills as a solution to the budget shortfall

[u/swenty]

Republican government is always a disaster.

Republican government is always a disaster.

Republican government is always a disaster.

[u/jaguarr]

Those Republicans aren't your friends, Jim. They aren't anyone's friends.

[u/[deleted]]

The basic test for GOP: are we transferring wealth to rich people by making poor people suffer?

[u/niners94]

This country is angry but it’s directed towards the wrong people. It’s not that single mother with snap benefits that’s the issue. It’s that corrupt billionaire that won’t pay his worker enough to eat and pay rent.

[u/MikeAK79]

The GOP today are not our parents GOP. They are crazy lunatics and I have no idea why real hard working people continue to vote for them. They are not for the people. They are for themselves and whoever has the highest bid.

[u/RedesignLooksAwful]

Remember, the reason things haven't improved in the USA for working class people in the last 30 years isn't because of corruption, because it's lobbying!

*Only industrial country on Earth to not mandate a single paid day off. Every country that's contributed to Ukraine's war efforts guarantees ALL of their workers at LEAST 3 weeks paid time off every year.

[u/jambags]

“They got money for war but can’t feed the poor”- Tupac

[u/Upset_Researcher_143]

I'm reading about all these Republicans who are pissed about the deal. How are you pissed? When the debt ceiling came up during the Trump era, Democrats didn't get shit for passing the debt ceiling increases. But now that Biden is president, Republicans threaten default and actually get a bunch of stuff?

[u/millos15]

Remind me, why so many poor people vote red ?

[u/MarkXIX]

Retired Army Reservist and former Army civilian employee of 15 years and I cannot fathom why our military is STILL getting the same level of funding or more than while we were fighting two wars. It is infuriating to me.

Then when I consider that they’re not even making recruiting targets and their personnel numbers are lower, it’s even MORE frustrating.

Cut military funding, period.

[u/ooouroboros]

I don't think I will ever get over the fact that there are so many Americans who voted for virtual TRAITORS (people who have either condoned the terrorist attack on the Capital or failed to condemn it with their silence) and allowing them to TAKE OVER THE HOUSE.

There is nothing to blame Democrats for in this case, they are forced into having to make COMPROMISES WITH TRAITORS who have so much power over spending.

[u/TorrentsMightengale]

"And when I listen to my Republican friends, what is clear to me is that we don't share the same values."

This is the important part of the quote that everyone needs to internalize.

We are not the same here any more. We are not arguing about the method to achieve roughly the same goals. We are arguing about who is a person, who gets to eat, who will be the underclass and who won't.

That's the divide here. One side wants as many people to succeed as possible. The other wants to be in the tiny group that is allowed to succeed.

It's not 'both sides'. It's 'good vs. evil'. And the evil side is willing to have you eliminated.

[u/essdoubleU]

"Republican friends" this kind of rhetoric needs to stop. Fight these God damn fascists. Stop pretending we're in a democracy.

[u/silentjay01]

He is wrong; Republicans didn't come to Congress to hurt people either. They came to congress to enrich themselves and their big donors. The fact they can get to pass legislation that hurts the lower classes & minorities is just a bonus for them.

[u/rawmixs]

Oh, Jimmy, how can you call them your friends when they're holding you hostage?

[u/cylordcenturion]

Why does he have Republicans as friends?