“Our political system is basically evil versus spineless now,” former Clinton USDA official Joel Berg in 2014.
This quote was in response to yet more food assistance cuts in 2014, when Barack Obama was president and the GOP was in charge of Congress.
The combination of evil versus spineless these days is still there with a lot more evil and doses of spineless.
The draconian cuts to food assistance and school lunches and health care and a lot more are the latest in the war against people who are hungry.
Terrible economy. Job cuts from AI. Job cuts because companies care more about shareholders than potential customers.
The GOP outcry is essentially that poor people need to be punished for being poor. Many working people who put in 40 hours in a week still need food assistance.
They don't care. The mainstream press doesn't care, even when Joe Biden was president and couldn't do much because of the spineless part and GOP controlling Congress. They are too scared to care if they cared in the first place.
Demand for food banks may not be visible but is ever increasing
In Texas, 1 in 5 kids go hungry.
— Rep. Sylvia Garcia (@RepSylviaGarcia) July 1, 2025
Yet Senate Republicans have abandoned all decency and voted for the largest cut to SNAP food assistance in U.S. history.
They are literally taking food from the mouths of children, seniors, and veterans to give tax breaks to billionaires.
We… pic.twitter.com/eMtK61Psu1
We could argue that people should care about the poor and the working poor (Dems need to think about their messaging to these groups).
Let's also point out that others will suffer. American farmers. Usually politicians can agree on American farmers. They sharply disagree on what help looks like. American farmers will suffer locally and nationally because people won't be able to use food assistance to buy local produce. American food companies will suffer because people can't buy as much food at the grocery store.
Restaurants usually qualify as small businesses, which the GOP twists the definition of that term, but theoretically support. Less money to spend at restaurants.
Poor nutrition leads to higher health care costs and overworked medical personnel. Then again, Medicaid cuts and rural and urban hospitals losing major funding won't save those lives.
Expensive seafood on food stamps is latest conservative lie
Senate passes Farm Bill; food stamps cuts don't add up
The poor need help not cruel and unusual punishment, which violates the 8th Amendment, not that we are paying attention to laws, ethics, and standards.
The Democratic Party means well but hasn't done a lot to truly help those struggling with 40 years of poor economic practices. True, the party has only controlled the White House and both Houses for 4 years in the last 44 years.
Yet another moratorium on American food policy advances
BalanceofFood.com school lunch coverage
BalanceofFood.com politics coverage
BalanceofFood.com U.S. food policy coverage
BalanceofFood.com farmers market coverage
Green City Market in Chicago had a segment on a local TV station this spring. The idea was to draw attention to triple matching SNAP funds so people could buy local produce at a farmers market. Stretching the food budget for foods that are more nutritionally dense. A positive and progressive step.
Not even Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Dems serving in Congress in 1933 could quickly fix the damage from this bill and the 40+ years before this bill. Not saying things are worse in 2025 but comparing 2027 to 1933 is closer than it should be.
photo credit: me
Twitter capture: @RepSylviaGarcia