The latest government report (Sept. 2010) on hunger tells us that 17.2 million U.S. households were “food insecure” in 2010, affecting 48.8 million Americans, or 1 in 7 Americans. This is the highest level on record for hunger in the U.S..
The definition of “food insecurity”, via WorldHunger.org, emphasis mine:
The median [a type of average] food-secure household spent 27 percent more on food than the median food-insecure household of the same size and household composition (Coleman-Jensen 2011, p. vi)..
Background: The United States changed the name of its definitions in 2006 that eliminated references to hunger, keeping various categories of food insecurity. This did not represent a change in what was measured. Very low food insecurity (described as food insecurity with hunger prior to 2006) means that, at times during the year, the food intake of household members was reduced and their normal eating patterns were disrupted because the household lacked money and other resources for food. This means that people were hungry ( in the sense of "the uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of food" [Oxford English Dictionary 1971] for days each year (Nord 2009 p. iii-iv.).
“Today, for the first time in history, one in five Americans living in poverty are children. One in five children live in the most abject, dangerous, hopeless, backbreaking, gut wrenching, poverty, one in five, and they're children. If fidelity to freedom and democracy is the code of our civic religion then surely, the code of our humanity is faithful service to that unwritten commandment that says 'We shall give our children better than we ourselves had.' I voted against the bill 'cause I didn't want it to be hard for people to buy milk. I stopped some money from flowing into your pocket. If that angers you, if you resent me, I completely respect that. But if you expect anything different from the President of the United States, I suggest you vote for somebody else.”
- Quote from "President" Josiah (Jed) Bartlet of the television series 'West Wing'. Watch the video:
Bill Maher to the Teabaggers re the Founding Fathers
Now I want you Teabaggers out there to understand one thing. While you idolize the Founding Fathers, and dress up like them and smell like them, I think it's pretty clear that the Founding Fathers would have hated your guts. And what's more, you would have hated them. They were everything you despise. They studied science, read Plato, hung out in Paris, and thought the Bible was mostly bullshit.
Tea Party Nation president, Judson Phillips, hosting a conservative radio show, discussing the changes he feels should be made to voting rights.
The Founding Fathers originally said, they put certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote. It wasn’t you were just a citizen and you got to vote. Some of the restrictions, you know, you obviously would not think about today. But one of those was you had to be a property owner.And that makes a lot of sense, because if you’re a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community. If you’re not a property owner, you know, I’m sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners.
Phillips is advocating a policy of voter disenfranchisement that has its roots in the 18th century. When the United States was first founded, ownership of property was one of the requirements to vote in most elections. Many of these restrictions were phased out by the 1820s and replaced with requirements that the voter pays taxes. By 1850, these requirements, too, were phased out. Nashville Scene blogger Betsy Phillips calls the Tea Party Nation president’s idea a “frivolous proposal designed to stoke intergenerational antagonism — as if the people who are older and can afford a home are somehow better citizens than the 18-year-olds who are going off to war to die for our country.”
Unfortunately, numerous major conservatives have advocated for rolling back the voting rights of Americans. Supreme Court justice Anthony Scalia, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), and Sen.-elect Mike Lee (R-UT) have all advocated for repealing the 17th Amendment, which would end direct election of U.S. Senators and return Senate elections to the purview of state legislatures. (H/T: Tea Party Nationalism)
In an excellent piece about the Conservative hatred of the welfare state, Ben Cohen cites some disturbing facts that the right wing would rather you not know [emphasis is mine]:
The Right believe[s] poor people will lift themselves out of poverty if they work harder and stop leaching off the system. They neglect to acknowledge that the US and UK are essentially feudal socities with little to no social mobility. According to the OECD 'Going for Growth' report, the US and UK are at the bottom of all developed countries in terms of social mobility. Essentially, if you are born poor in the US or UK, you stay poor. The welfare state is crucial to the poor's survival because without it, they would literally starve, yet conservatives want to cut off the line of support in order to restore 'fiscal stability' to government. To put it in perspective, in the UK, welfare costs the tax payer 1 billion pounds a year, whereas middle class tax evasion costs around 42 billion. And what do conservatives preach for the middle classes? You guessed it, more tax cuts.
Ben goes on to say that Conservatives know that they’re conning us when they say that if only the poor would work harder, stop being so lazy, they would be able to work themselves out of poverty. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
And he’s right. Conservatives know full well the lie and the reason behind it. The lack of conscience, and seemingly of shame, is an ugly thing to behold.
Last night in Kentucky, Rand Paul talked to Wolf Blitzer [video below]about the Bush tax cuts and why he wants to shield the ultra-wealthy and the mega corporations. Think Progress:
Speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Paul announced his intention to do anything it takes to shield the privileged rich and corporate America. Asked if he would end the $830 billion, unpaid-for Bush tax cuts to the rich and return tax rates for the wealthiest bracket to Clinton-era levels, Paul snapped and said such a move would cause a “second great depression” and declared that “anybody who proposes such a policy really is, I think, unfit to be making decisions.”
Paul then clarified his delusional worldview by telling Blitzer that “there are no rich” and “there are no poor.” In Paul’s mind, even taxing yachts would somehow punish the working poor in Kentucky. “We all either work for rich people or we sell stuff to rich people,” concluded Rand:
PAUL:I would say that they must be in favor of a second American depression, because if you raise taxes to that consequence, that’s what will happen in this country. Raising taxes in the midst of a recession would be a disaster for our economy. And anybody who proposes such a policy really is, I think, unfit to be making decisions.
BLITZER: What if they just raised taxes on the richest, those making more than 250,000 dollars a year?
PAUL:Well, the thing is, we’re all interconnected. There are no rich. There are no middle class. There are no poor. We all are interconnected in the economy. You remember a few years ago, when they tried to tax the yachts, that didn’t work. You know who lost their jobs? The people making the boats, the guys making 50,000 and 60,000 dollars a year lost their jobs. We all either work for rich people or we sell stuff to rich people. So just punishing rich people is as bad for the economy as punishing anyone. Let’s not punish anyone. Let’s keep taxes low and let’s cut spending.
Former Senator Rick Santorum [R] defending Newt Gingrich’s intentionally stupid obsession with food stamps on Fox News, with a ridiculous lie about poverty during the George W. Bush administration:
Yeah, remember, under the Bush administration, welfare — I mean, excuse me, poverty among African Americans and among single unmarried women, poverty was at the lowest rate ever in the history of this country. So Obama’s policies are not working, Bush polices worked! For long a time as a matter of fact.
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