LET THEM STARVE

The Compassionate Conservative George W. Bush

Published on June 11, 2006 By COL Gene In Politics

Bush in his 2007 budget has proposed ending a program started in 1968 to distribute Federal Surplus Food to needy seniors. That program CSFP provides boxes of surplus food each month to 420, 000 of the poorest American seniors in 32 states and Washington D.C. The total cost of this program is $107 Million per year and is one of the ways Bush plans to deal with a $600 Billion dollar deficit. Bush claims that this is an overlapping program with food stamps. However when AARP looked at how much many of the people receiving this Surplus Food is receiving from Food Stamps, they found they receive $10 or $20 per month from the Food Stamp Program. How the Hell is this an OVERLAPPING program? The fact is it is supplemental and if an elderly poor person receives the $20 from Food Stamps and the Surplus Food at a value of $55 they receive the GRAND SUM per month of $75. I bet we, as tax payers, spend MORE then $75 per day to feed George W. Bush in the White House!

Bottom line, this Cut is unlikely to survive the GOP in Congress since many are concerned about their own reelection in November 2006. I hope Our Lord Jesus is looking upon his servant George W. Bush to see what Bush is trying to do to the LEAST of his people!

Comments (Page 2)

Dancing in the Rain

on Jun 11, 2006

Unfortunately no matter what you think of the president, HE is the president not YOU. And personally, while I understand your concerns, I don't know that it is necessary to keep bringing "what would Jesus do" into your reasoning. While I can admire your desire to do what He would do, it does make you seem somewhat ignorant. Perhaps, rather than attacking the president, since you aren't it, try to find what you CAN do rather than what you can pick at. When you decide to run for president, and if you're elected, far be it from me then to criticize (sp?) you however, since you are not, I suggest you leave the decision making to him.
Charissa

msladydeath

on Jun 11, 2006

Wow, I take a break from JU and this is what I find, I think Col Gene has a point on this one.

I almost wonder of Col bashing has become a JU sport since all I see on this thread is a bunch of garbled anti Col and nothing remotely to do with the point he was trying to make (there is exeption). If you don't have an argument against it, then just hush and don't give him the points.

Island Dog

on Jun 11, 2006

Lady, we call col out on his lies and misinformation he constantly posts. The only "sport" around here making countless anti-Bush articles on the same subjects over and over.

If you want to stump col, just ask him to prove with documented facts.

Island Dog

on Jun 11, 2006

Col, why don't you respond to this article?

http://bakerstreet.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=9323

COL Gene

on Jun 11, 2006

Try this on about the Poor in America:

UP

37 million poor hidden in the land of plenty

Americans have always believed that hard work will bring rewards, but vast numbers now cannot meet their bills even with two or three jobs. More than one in 10 citizens live below the poverty line, and the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening

Paul Harris in Kentucky
Sunday February 19, 2006
The Observer

The flickering television in Candy Lumpkins's trailer blared out The Bold and the Beautiful. It was a fantasy daytime soap vision of American life with little relevance to the reality of this impoverished corner of Kentucky.

The Lumpkins live at the definition of the back of beyond, in a hollow at the top of a valley at the end of a long and muddy dirt road. It is strewn with litter. Packs of stray dogs prowl around, barking at strangers. There is no telephone and since their pump broke two weeks ago Candy has collected water from nearby springs. Oblivious to it all, her five-year-old daughter Amy runs barefoot on a wooden porch frozen by a midwinter chill.

It is a vision of deep and abiding poverty. Yet the Lumpkins are not alone in their plight. They are just the negative side of the American equation. America does have vast, wealthy suburbs, huge shopping malls and a busy middle class, but it also has vast numbers of poor, struggling to make it in a low-wage economy with minimal government help.

A shocking 37 million Americans live in poverty. That is 12.7 per cent of the population - the highest percentage in the developed world. They are found from the hills of Kentucky to Detroit's streets, from the Deep South of Louisiana to the heartland of Oklahoma. Each year since 2001 their number has grown.

Under President George W Bush an extra 5.4 million have slipped below the poverty line. Yet they are not a story of the unemployed or the destitute. Most have jobs. Many have two. Amos Lumpkins has work and his children go to school. But the economy, stripped of worker benefits like healthcare, is having trouble providing good wages.

Even families with two working parents are often one slice of bad luck - a medical bill or factory closure - away from disaster. The minimum wage of $5.15 (£2.95) an hour has not risen since 1997 and, adjusted for inflation, is at its lowest since 1956. The gap between the haves and the have-nots looms wider than ever. Faced with rising poverty rates, Bush's trillion-dollar federal budget recently raised massive amounts of defence spending for the war in Iraq and slashed billions from welfare programmes.

For a brief moment last year in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina brought America's poor into the spotlight. Poverty seemed on the government's agenda. That spotlight has now been turned off. 'I had hoped Katrina would have changed things more. It hasn't,' says Cynthia Duncan, a sociology professor at the University of New Hampshire.

Oklahoma is in America's heartland. Tulsa looks like picture-book Middle America. Yet there is hunger here. When it comes to the most malnourished poor in America, Oklahoma is ahead of any other state. It should be impossible to go hungry here. But it is not. Just ask those gathered at a food handout last week. They are a cross section of society: black, white, young couples, pensioners and the middle-aged. A few are out of work or retired, everyone else has jobs.

They are people like Freda Lee, 33, who has two jobs, as a marketer and a cashier. She has come to the nondescript Loaves and Fishes building - flanked ironically by a Burger King and a McDonald's - to collect food for herself and three sons. 'America is meant to be free. What's free?' she laughs. 'All we can do is pay off the basics.'

Or they are people like Tammy Reinbold, 37. She works part-time and her husband works full-time. They have two children yet rely on the food handouts. 'The church is all we have to fall back on,' she says. She is right. When government help is being cut and wages are insufficient, churches often fill the gap. The needy gather to receive food boxes. They listen to a preacher for half an hour on the literal truth of the Bible. Then he asks them if they want to be born again. Three women put up their hands.

But why are some Tulsans hungry?

Many believe it is the changing face of the US economy. Tulsa has been devastated by job losses. Big-name firms like WorldCom, Williams Energy and CitGo have closed or moved, costing the city about 24,000 jobs. Now Wal-Mart embodies the new American job market: low wages, few benefits.

Well-paid work only goes to the university-educated. Many others who just complete high school face a bleak future. In Texas more than a third of students entering public high schools now drop out. These people are entering the fragile world of the working poor, where each day is a mere step away from tragedy. Some of those tragedies in Tulsa end up in the care of Steve Whitaker, a pastor who runs a homeless mission in the shadow of a freeway overpass.

Each day the homeless and the drug addicted gather here, looking for a bed for the night. Some also want a fresh chance. They are men like Mark Schloss whose disaster was being left by his first wife. The former Wal-Mart manager entered a world of drug addiction and alcoholism until he wound up with Whitaker. Now he is back on track, sporting a silver ring that says Faith, Hope, Love. 'Without this place I would be in prison or dead,' he says. But Whitaker equates saving lives with saving souls. Those entering the mission's rehabilitation programme are drilled in Bible studies and Christianity. At 6ft 5in and with a black belt in karate, Whitaker's Christianity is muscular both literally and figuratively. 'People need God in their lives,' he says.

These are mean streets. Tulsa is a city divided like the country. Inside a building run by Whitaker's staff in northern Tulsa a group of 'latch-key kids' are taking Bible classes after school while they wait for parents to pick them up. One of them is Taylor Finley, aged nine. Wearing a T-shirt with an American flag on the front, she dreams of travel. 'I want to have fun in a new place, a new country,' she says. Taylor wants to see the world outside Oklahoma. But at the moment she cannot even see her own neighbourhood. The centre in which she waits for mom was built without windows on its ground floor. It was the only way to keep out bullets from the gangs outside.

During the 2004 election the only politician to address poverty directly was John Edwards, whose campaign theme was 'Two Americas'. He was derided by Republicans for doing down the country and - after John Kerry picked him as his Democratic running mate - the rhetoric softened in the heat of the campaign.

But, in fact, Edwards was right. While 45.8 million Americans lack any health insurance, the top 20 per cent of earners take over half the national income. At the same time the bottom 20 per cent took home just 3.4 per cent. Whitaker put the figures into simple English. 'The poor have got poorer and the rich have got richer,' he said.

Dealing with poverty is not a viable political issue in America. It jars with a cultural sense that the poor bring things upon themselves and that every American is born with the same chances in life. It also runs counter to the strong anti-government current in modern American politics. Yet the problem will not disappear. 'There is a real sense of impending crisis, but political leaders have little motivation to address this growing divide,' Cynthia Duncan says.

There is little doubt which side of America's divide the hills of east Kentucky fall on. Driving through the wooded Appalachian valleys is a lesson in poverty. The mountains have never been rich. Times now are as tough as they have ever been. Trailer homes are the norm. Every so often a lofty mansion looms into view, a sign of prosperity linked to the coal mines or the logging firms that are the only industries in the region. Everyone else lives on the margins, grabbing work where they can. The biggest cash crop is illicitly grown marijuana.

Save The Children works here. Though the charity is usually associated with earthquakes in Pakistan or famine in Africa, it runs an extensive programme in east Kentucky. It includes a novel scheme enlisting teams of 'foster grandparents' to tackle the shocking child illiteracy rates and thus eventually hit poverty itself.

The problem is acute. At Jone's Fork school, a team of indomitable grannies arrive each day to read with the children. The scheme has two benefits: it helps the children struggle out of poverty and pays the pensioners a small wage. 'This has been a lifesaver for me and I feel as if the children would just fall through the cracks without us,' says Erma Owens. It has offered dramatic help to some. One group of children are doing so well in the scheme that their teacher, Loretta Shepherd, has postponed retirement in order to stand by them. 'It renewed me to have these kids,' she said.

Certainly Renae Sturgill sees the changes in her children. She too lives in deep poverty. Though she attends college and her husband has a job, the Sturgill trailer sits amid a clutter of abandoned cars. Money is scarce. But now her kids are in the reading scheme and she has seen how they have changed. Especially eight-year-old Zach. He's hard to control at times, but he has come to love school. 'Zach likes reading now. I know it's going to be real important for him,' Renae says. Zach is shy and won't speak much about his achievements. But Genny Waddell, who co-ordinates family welfare at Jone's Fork, is immensely proud. 'Now Zach reads because he wants to. He really fought to get where he is,' she says.

In America, to be poor is a stigma. In a country which celebrates individuality and the goal of giving everyone an equal opportunity to make it big, those in poverty are often blamed for their own situation. Experience on the ground does little to bear that out. When people are working two jobs at a time and still failing to earn enough to feed their families, it seems impossible to call them lazy or selfish. There seems to be a failure in the system, not the poor themselves.

It is an impression backed up by many of those mired in poverty in Oklahoma and Kentucky. Few asked for handouts. Many asked for decent wages. 'It is unfair. I am working all the time and so what have I done wrong?' says Freda Lee. But the economy does not seem to be allowing people to make a decent living. It condemns the poor to stay put, fighting against seemingly impossible odds or to pull up sticks and try somewhere else.

In Tulsa, Tammy Reinbold and her family are moving to Texas as soon as they save the money for enough petrol. It could take several months. 'I've been in Tulsa 12 years and I just gotta try somewhere else,' she says.

Savethechildren.org

From Tom Joad to Roseanne

In a country that prides itself on a culture of rugged individualism, hard work and self-sufficiency, it is no surprise that poverty and the poor do not have a central place in America's cultural psyche.

But in art, films and books American poverty has sometimes been portrayed with searing honesty. John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath, which was made into a John Ford movie, is the most famous example. It was an unflinching account of the travails of a poor Oklahoma family forced to flee the Dust Bowl during the 1930s Depression. Its portrait of Tom Joad and his family's life on the road as they sought work was a nod to wider issues of social justice in America.

Another ground-breaking work of that time was James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a non-fiction book about time spent among poor white farmers in the Deep South. It practically disappeared upon its first publication in 1940 but in the Sixties was hailed as a masterpiece. In mainstream American culture, poverty often lurks in the background. Or it is portrayed - as in Sergio Leone's crime epic Once Upon A Time In America - as the basis for a tale of rags to riches.

One notable, yet often overlooked, exception was the great success of the sitcom Roseanne. The show depicted the realities of working-class Middle American life with a grit and humour that is a world away from the usual sitcom settings in a sunlit suburbia, most often in New York or California. The biggest sitcoms of the past decade - Friends, Frasier or Will and Grace - all deal with aspirational middle-class foibles that have little relevance to America's millions of working poor.

An America divided

· There are 37 million Americans living below the poverty line. That figure has increased by five million since President George W. Bush came to power.

· The United States has 269 billionaires, the highest number in the world.

· Almost a quarter of all black Americans live below the poverty line; 22 per cent of Hispanics fall below it. But for whites the figure is just 8.6 per cent.

· There are 46 million Americans without health insurance.

· There are 82,000 homeless people in Los Angeles alone.

· In 2004 the poorest community in America was Pine Ridge Indian reservation. Unemployment is over 80 per cent, 69 per cent of people live in poverty and male life expectancy is 57 years. In the Western hemisphere only Haiti has a lower number.

· The richest town in America is Rancho Santa Fe in California. Average incomes are more than $100,000 a year; the average house price is $1.7m.

Island Dog

on Jun 11, 2006

Do you know how to separate posts?

bakerstreet

on Jun 11, 2006

LOL...

Don't start that crap from the Observer with me. I saw that back when they first published it and it is the same crock of junk you see on that charity infomercial late night on cable. What they fail to tell you is that those same people have lived like that, probably a mile away from $100k houses, and have for generations. They were right there under Carter, too. Wanna blame him now?

Stick to what you know, Col. At least you can fool people into believing you with the military stuff, but I've spend a lot more time in little houses like the one you describe than you've spent in Iraq. If you look at poverty statistics you'll find that we have the wealthiest poor in the world:

Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.
Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.

The Lumpkins's plight doesn't have a damn thing to do with Bush or the economy. It has a lot more to do with the fact that the government pays people like that to stay in poverty. I KNOW people like that, Col. I can take you to their houses. Every single one draws some sort of check, most draw SSI, and a healthy percent have drug and alcohol problems.

You are defeating your own argument. Government welfare created the situation described in your article, it isn't the solution for it.

EmperorofIceCream

on Jun 11, 2006

I know a 42 year old with Type I diabetes who weights about 90 lbs at 5'10" with one leg

You do?? Where can I get one?!? Access is so much easier when they only have one leg... Boxing Helena, anyone?

bakerstreet

on Jun 11, 2006

'You do?? Where can I get one?!? Access is so much easier when they only have one leg... Boxing Helena, anyone?'

OMG... I'm laghing and slightly ill at the same time. Moreso because I assumed he was talking about a guy...

I had purposely not commented on that line, though I had a couple of doosies pop into my head. I'll see his diminuative, one leggeed diabetic and raise him a morbidly obese, cross-eyed, bisexual schitzophrenic with a fetish for old ladies, small children, and drinking rubbing alcohol.

(..and yes, that's a real person that I know, and who had a terrible habit of getting people to drive him to my house in TN to visit, with no ride home...)

-----

on Jun 11, 2006

You need to OPEN your EYES and see what Bush is doing to our country! The issues just keep comming Day after Day!

You know what the BIGGER problem is? APATHY! CONGRESS! There is a quote that I feel is appropriate her, "Why should I trade one tyrant 3,000 miles away, for 3,000 tyrants one mile away? An elected legislature can trample a man's rights as easily as a king could." (From "The Patriot") You see? You, and others worry about what *Bush* does. You harp on him without, or rarely dishing it out on the rest of them. Congress.

~L

dharmagrl

on Jun 11, 2006

You do?? Where can I get one?!? Access is so much easier when they only have one leg

OMFG, I laughed so loud when I read that that I woke up the dogs and got bitched at by my dear husband for being too loud. Fucking hilarious, your Empness.

EmperorofIceCream

on Jun 11, 2006

Moreso because I assumed he was talking about a guy...

So had I.

EmperorofIceCream

on Jun 11, 2006

Thank you, thank you and thank you.

COL Gene

on Jun 12, 2006

Bakestreet

I bet many of the 500,000 home owners in New Orleans that lost their homes are in the POOR category. They may have owned there little home and now have NOTHING. The Insurance will not pay even if they had homeowners Insurance and many have very little and to rebuild even with a low interest loan. Look at the 9th Ward 10 months AFTER the storm. The majority of the homes are STILL PILES of Rubble.

When Bush made his speech 10 days after Katrina he acknowledged what you still will not admit-- There are a large number of Americans living in POVERTY. Bush quickly forgot this and returned to his Conservative Values-- Take care of the RICH! Some have been critical at me relating to Jesus. The ONLY reason I raise that issue is because Bush continually tells us about his religious beliefs. His policies toward the poor and elderly sure do not demonstrate ANY compassion for their needs.

I will give George one thumbs UP- Per his tax returns; he does give about 10% to charity for which I applaud him. Cheney does not file the Schedules A and B so you do not know what he does about giving to charities. I believe charities are helping but I also know the NEED is FAR greater then the charities can provide and that is government deeds to fill in the gap!

Island Dog

on Jun 12, 2006

When Bush made his speech 10 days after Katrina he acknowledged what you still will not admit-- There are a large number of Americans living in POVERTY. Bush quickly forgot this and returned to his Conservative Values-- Take care of the RICH! Some have been critical at me relating to Jesus. The ONLY reason I raise that issue is because Bush continually tells us about his religious beliefs. His policies toward the poor and elderly sure do not demonstrate ANY compassion for their needs

I notice you can't refute his post. You just go back to blaming Bush for Katrina.

I believe charities are helping but I also know the NEED is FAR greater then the charities can provide and that is government deeds to fill in the gap!

You mean welfare state.

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