Memo to Nancy: Food Stamps and Unemployment benefits should be non-negotiable

[hfojvt]

So I read about this compromise

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080124/ap_on_go_co/economy_stimulus;_ylt=AhKMVRbGwZy65KFQM6gI692s0NUE

"House Democratic and Republican leaders are looking for imminent agreement with the White House on an emergency package to jolt the economy out of its slump after negotiators on all sides made significant concessions at a late-night bargaining session.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to drop increases in food stamp and unemployment benefits during the Wednesday meeting in exchange for gaining a rebates of at least $300 for each person earning a paycheck, including low-income earners who make too little to pay income taxes."

What the hell kind of an agreement is that? It's kinda nice that low income people will get rebate checks too, but was it necessary to sacrifice extended unemployment benefits to get that?

Meanwhile, they continue to work on tax breaks for corporations

"Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, had yet to reach agreement on a package of tax breaks for businesses after estimates showed a tentative business tax agreement could exceed $70 billion, far more than had been expected, the aide and a Democratic lobbyist said."

Finally

"Pelosi's decision to drop expanding unemployment payments and more money for food stamps — which many lawmakers had assumed would be included in the package — could prove very controversial with Democratic constituencies such as unions, who were already stung by a decision to deny states more money for their Medicaid programs."

But hey, who cares about them? It's not like a Congressional majority of Democrats should do anything for them, when they can be bipartisan and help corporations instead?

I was expecting our leaders to cave and make some kind of odious compromise, but I did not think it would happen quite so fast or quite so pitifully.

[99th_Monkey]

1. So this is the "important business" Nancy must be refering to, that trumps impeachment hearings

...cutting Unempl. & Food Stamps, plus more tax cuts for the uber-rich ... ya Nancy .. real "important" alright, but to whom?

nice informative post .. and gladly recommended.

[hfojvt]

2. Why should Democrats get behind a trickle down stimulus?

So rebate checks goto people who still have jobs in the hopes that they will spend money and create jobs. Meanwhile people who cannot find jobs after 26 weeks will lose their unemployment benefits and also not be able to get food stamps.

That money would have been more of a stimulus AND would have helped people in need. My $300 is just gonna go in my savings account.

[99th_Monkey]

3. why Democrats should be doing ANYthing besides upholding the constitution

which has been rendered all but moot under Bush's 7 years of thievery, lies and high crimes is beyond me.

did you see this post? About a recent "off the record" meeting of Congressional Dems on the subject ...
or more accurately .. dancing around the subject ... but the post is brilliant & informative ....
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2753494
It's one of the most compelling cases for impeachment i've seen on the subject in some time .. and believe me,
i read pretty much all the impeachment stuff..

[kdmorris]

4. Exactly what I was thinking

I'm not going to spend more because they send me a check. Send it to someone struggling, barely getting by, and they WILL spend it immediately.

[hfojvt]

5. they could have passed something he would veto

and then the press would bash them for being partisan. But at least it would be on record that Republicans threw the unemployed and hungry under the bus. Now it's on record that Nancy did.

[RC]

8. You're dreaming. If the Dems did that and bu$h vetoed it, the media

would accuse the Dems of trying to bankrupt the country and steal money from our troops.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

6. OK, fine.

Let's just have the $800 bullshit then. Or do you have a better alternative?

[hfojvt]

12. Those are the only alternatives?

I though Democrats had a majority in Congress. How about insisting on Food stamps and unemployment extension as a condition for the business tax breaks? As it is now, moderately wealthy people like my brother and sister are gonna get $1200 while I, at 1/8th their income or so, will get $300. So it still seems designed to give more money to the upper middle class than it does to the poor or lower middle class.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

16. We don't have a veto-proof majority.

Bush still has to sign the goddamn thing, and it's been repeatedly demonstrated that he has no qualms about vetoing anything he doesn't like, regardless of what the general public thinks of it.

[LeftCoast]

7. One might say Food Stamps and Unemployment benefits should be 'off the table'?

:)

[GreenPartyVoter]

17. One just might, indeed

[Tyler Durden]

9. Pelosi needs a 30 day stay in a 5th floor walkup with no heat, no job, and 5 hungry kids.

The members of Congress are so far removed from the public and the REAL PROBLEMS affecting them that they make Marie Antoinette look socially responsible.

[Divine Discontent]

14. HEAR HEAR!

dammit... what a complete SLAP in the face to what DEMOCRATS are supposed to stand for. So, the handicapped or injured who rely on what little food stamps they already get, won't see the typical increase, despite food prices SOARING???



NICE JOB, NANCY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[Vinca]

10. The poor and hungry need to incorporate. nt

[unc70]

11. One of first actions by Reagan was cut Food Stamps (Helms pushed this)

Jesse Helms pushed through a significant cut in Food Stamps as one of the first actions of the Reagan Administration in 1980. Was reminded of this recently watching "Senator No" on PBS.

[Hart2008]

13. Why rebates and not simple exemptions or deductions?

Since these people need the money, why do they need to ask the government nicely to get it?

Why should they have to wait for the government bureaucrats to give them what should be their money?

[Hidden Stillness]

15. It is Not "Bi-Partisan Compromise" When all They do is Wait for Repubs to Tell Them What to Do

This is the problem with the highest level "Democrats," who no longer understand the lives and circumstances of the non-rich, who make up almost the entire country. Giving people who are about to be evicted, who have not been to a dentist in 10-15+ years, who do not take their medications because they can't afford them at all anymore, a "tax cut" when they probably do not pay taxes at all because they are so poor, and who just need a program that will help them because they HAVE NOTHING, or giving them a check for a couple of hundred dollars (and then cut what program because there is now no funding for it?)--is so fucking clueless, so outrageously strange, that it makes you feel, more than most other things, the now complete and total gap between these people--"D"LC/lobbyist hacks--and the people. With all their (endless, ad nauseum) talk about "bringing the country together" and their self-praise for a miserly minimum wage increase over several years (God, they were impressed with themselves over that one!), you realize this Washington corporate club would rather RIP THE COUNTRY APART than threaten their own little club and its status. Why do they have no ordinary compassion for the poor and destitute who HAVE NOTHING, anymore?