Cruel and Unusual

The Republicans in the House of Representatives have voted to significantly reduce, and otherwise make it nearly impossible, to get SNAP benefits for children who otherwise will go unfed or underfed as the result. Many of the adults who qualify for benefits are recently unemployed and use the benefits for an average of months to help feed their families. However, by far the majority of the people who benefit from SNAP are children who live in poverty. These are children under the age of 12 years old, who are not drug addicts, felons or otherwise the lazy and shiftless Americans that Republicans want you to believe they are.

Of course the GOP calls it “entitlement reform”, which means that they want to spend millions of additional tax dollars to ensure that people do not get benefits rather than how to get the benefits to the children who need it most. Children who are impoverished and hungry through no fault of their own are now, virtually, on their own. The same as the unemployed, the under-water mortgage holders and the homeless and veterans, thanks to GOP cruelty.

In an age we used to consider intolerant and rooted in ignorance and superstition, the poor used to be considered morally degenerate, lazy, sinful… a whole range of stigma that took generations to overcome. Slave America was such a society, but until the advent of the Tea Party, our society had progressed to a far more intelligent and compassionate understanding of the roots of poverty.

As we approach the next crisis manufactured by Tea Party extremists, I am hopeful that Americans will begin to realize the cruel and unusual society they want to create.