Would Feed Needy Families for a Year.

I don't like being labeled as demo or cons, but I am at odds with people who don't pull their weight. And yes, I don't just talk the talk, I have donated over a grand this year. People who have it, needn't be so stingy with it. After all, you can't take it with you.


This week the House will debate a GOP proposal to cut $101 million from food assistance for low-income seniors and local food banks. The bill slashes $38 million (a 22 percent cut) from the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, or CSFP, which provides nutritious food packages to more than 600,000 low-income families every month (96 percent of whom are seniors). The bill also cuts $63 million from The Emergency Food Assistance Program, or TEFAP, which provides our nation’s emergency food bank network with food commodities and storage and distribution support. These cuts come at a time when food prices are rising and food banks are already struggling to serve their existing caseload.

Conservatives claim these cuts on the backs of our nation’s most vulnerable families are necessary to bring our fiscal house in order. But here’s the rub: One day’s worth of Bush tax cuts for millionaires would more than offset these cuts to seniors and food banks. Here’s the math:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/06/millionairetaxcutsinfographic.html

What’s more, conservatives often claim that private charities will simply pick up the slack. Yet this bill cuts support to the very private charities that conservatives claim will step up to fill the gap. TEFAP funds supply about 25 percent of the food provided by local food banks, soup kitchens, churches, synagogues, mosques, and other emergency feeding institutions.

Cuts to the program would be particularly devastating as food banks face a projected 50 percent decline in USDA bonus commodities and grapple with a trend of falling charitable donations. Similarly, the CSFP is generally distributed through local public and nonprofit community organizations like food pantries and hospitals.

In short, these cuts will inflict enormous suffering on some of our nation’s most vulnerable populations while undermining the ability of private charities to meet rising need. And yet today our Treasury will lose more money in tax cuts for millionaires than it would take to avert these cuts.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/06/millionairetaxcutsinfographic.html

No one really wants to see cuts in these programs.

This article uses 2 pieces of a much larger program.

These fall under the food and nutrition service.

Well over $100 Billion dollars per year are spent on FNS programs.

I'll provide you the link to the programs financial report.

http://www.fns.usda.gov/fns/key_data/march-2011.pdf


The very first table is the total costs of FNS..

No disrespect to your stance of being non partisen however if the republicans get their wish list you can expect many other cuts.

on the chopping block.

"House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s plan relies on spending cuts to reduce the red ink, slicing more than $6 trillion over the next decade out of Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and scores of other programs. At the same time, his proposal calls for cutting taxes, with the top corporate and individual tax rates set at 25 percent.

“We believe that we have the moral responsibility to step in and provide the leadership that the president has not been providing,” Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, told reporters today in Washington. “He punted on debt reduction. We’re not going to do that.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-05/house-republicans-unveil-budget-plan-with-6-trillion-of-cuts-over-decade.html
Friends dont let friends vote republican

I think its funny how people act like rich people don't pay any taxes. They are in the highest tax bracket already. They pay the highest percentages.

Let's look at our nations defense which makes up 20% of the budget. Defending the country benefits everyone right? But it benefits the rich more, because they have more to defend.

It's the same principle as insurance, if you have a bigger house or a fancier car, you pay more to insure it. If guy A has two or three billion in the bank, why should a family that has $5000 in there pay as much for protection as guy A?

Also, the wealthier you are, it seems the more loop-holes you can find advantageously pertaining to you.

On that note, if you count tax breaks and expenditures, corporations and the rich rack up a little over $400 billion a year -- compare that to the $116 odd billion spent on programs for the poor.

That's not really true in any meaningful way. A look at the numbers shows that the curve for taxes paid versus income across all the income brackets is very slightly progressive. As well it should be. In fact I think the curve should be much more progressive.

50% of all taxes are paid by the top 1% of earners. 50% of Americans pay no payroll taxes. Your facts are about as screwed up as they can be.

Can you show me where in the Constitution that Congress was given the authority to create those programs?

I guess Jesus never saw a rich man he didn't love and admire, so it's a national sin to tax the top 1% at all.

Of course, the vast middle class spending accounts for 70% of the economy, so if you tax them more to give the Big Guys their just tax breaks, the economy is going to hurt even more. 'Trickle Down' never did work because of this small fact.

But why should the rich and their apologists care about that? At least for now, they got theirs, right?

Henry Ford had the right idea-- once you pay the working people a decent wage and give them some dignity, it's a tide that raises all boats. They'll be able to actually buy the products your company makes.

Of course they could also get a little too uppity and demand to have their say in how things are run...


-Kerry O.

Jesus did say that stealing is wrong and he encouraged rich people to be charitable. Societies don't exist so that the politicians can screw the rich, they are supposed to be a compact of mutual defense between individuals. Keep overtaxing the rich and they can leave the country and take their money with them. Is that what you want? To kill the goose that laid the golden egg?

And it's really sad that you think you know what or how I think. You have a stereotype that you just slap onto people so that you can feel morally superior. Maybe you are or maybe you aren't, but you assume far more than the facts will allow. Let me tell you something KerryO, anytime you think you know how I think or feel about something and I haven't EXPLICITLY taken that position, then you are probably 100% wrong.

Thats' simply not true. It is so far from true that I can't help but demand some documentation.

http://www.bargaineering.com/articles/federal-income-irs-tax-brackets.html

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/top-1-paid-more-in-federal-income-taxes-than-bottom-95-in-07/

http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html

With the internet, it's so easy to be informed. It makes one wonder why the world is still full of misinformed people. Oh right, the Democrat party...

I didn't have to even open your links to see that they are the same bogus sources that we have seen so much of. the URLs say it all.

Here is the source that you want to be looking at.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/04/do_the_poor_really_pay_no_taxe.html

You will notice that the bar graph at the bottom shows the relationship between people in the various income brackets in what they make and what they pay in taxes. The slightly progressive bias is obvious.

Here are the tables from which the numbers for that chart are derived.

http://www.ctj.org/pdf/taxday2009.pdf

Please pay special attention to the first note. It is very important in understanding why your source is completely bogus and misleading.

Yeah, the NY Times is well know for being a far right wing newspaper.

You are such a joke. You ask for links, reject them out of hand and expect me to follow your links. You links lead to far left wing organizations that believe in "Tax Justice", which means "Let's screw the rich and give their money to the poor and we'll just keep some to line the pockets of politicians and their friends"

What does the NY Times have to do with it?

I gave you an opportunity to learn something. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. I've done my part.

If you had followed my links, you would have seen that one lead to the NY Times. But you are so blinded by your rich hating ideology, that you can't be bothered to even follow the links you requested. It was just hallow speech, I suppose. You never had any interest in following any links, you just wanted to put on a bit of internet bravado. Sad really. Well, stick with your far leftist, soak the rich sites. Hey! If your guy Obama wins again, we can have $10 gas and all the rich people will flee the country (taking jobs and money with them), that's got to cheer you up.

People can argue over taxes all they want. Truth is, a flat rate income tax is the best way to solve all problems. Problem is, no one wants to lose the loopholes. Not the wealthy. Not the accountants. Not the lawyers.

According to the 2010 census, there are 308.7 million people living in the U.S.

According to the CIA Fact Book, the IMF, and the World Bank, the average Per Capita income in the U.S. is $46,791.

Therefore, a 15% flat rate income tax should generate $2,166,657,255,000 in tax revenue for the Federal Treasury. That is only slight less than last year's total tax revenues. A 20% rate would yield almost $2.9 trillion. A 25% rate? $3.6 trillion, slightly more than total Federal expenditures for 2010.

Why would the wealthy fight this if they are really shouldering the majority of taxes? Loopholes! Because they don't actually pay the full percentage....and likely because they already pay less than 15%. Flat rate taxes would actually allow smaller businesses to thrive as they felt the burden of taxes decrease. That would stimulate job growth which would likely offset job losses in other sectors.

Another problem is that the total expenditures for last year alone were an additional 75% above the tax revenues received. This difference is due to discretionary spending, of which the military budget is a part. By contrast, the interest paid on the Federal debt was only 1/4 the amount spent by the military which in turn was by far the largest expenditure of the discretionary budget (about 8 times the size of the second largest).

Simplify the tax code, make it fair, and bring back tariffs. Then let's see exactly where we stand. It will make the deficit a much easier topic to wrestle with

Boom, nailed it.

And equating taxing the rich to give the poor a minimal existence with stealing ISN'T making a moral judgement? A not just a little bit 'superior' on your part?

It's so easy to pull off your mask. Just like the rest of the Far Right, you're an authoritarian who can't STAND to be disagreed with, so you invoke these phony morality arguments to rescue your flawed premises every time.

Personally, I think it would be a godsend if the Wall St. bankers and speculators got pissed off and left the country. I know what Jesus through about the moneychangers-- do you?

-Kerry O.

Look at it this way;

At even a fifty percent tax rate, a guy making twelve-thousand a year is left with six-thousand to live on, A guy making one-million a year is left with a mere five-hundred-thousand to live on.

So pity the rich, and screw the poor, right?