Nutrition Cuts, Yet U.S. Households Struggle to buy Food:

[amborin]

"WASHINGTON — President Obama will call for a three-year freeze in spending on many domestic programs, and for increases no greater than inflation after that, an initiative intended to signal his seriousness about cutting the budget deficit, administration officials said Monday.

snip

The freeze would cover the agencies and programs for which Congress allocates specific budgets each year, including air traffic control, farm subsidies, education, nutrition and national parks.

snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/us/politics/26budget.html?ref=todayspaper

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US Households Struggle to Afford Food: Survey

"WASHINGTON - Nearly one in five U.S. households ran out of money to buy enough food at least once during 2009, said an antihunger group on Tuesday, urging more federal action to help Americans get enough to eat.

"There are no hunger-free areas of America," said Jim Weill of the Food Research and Action Center. Weill said he hoped President Barack Obama would exempt public nutrition programs from a proposed three-year freeze on domestic spending.

Obama has a goal to end childhood hunger by 2015. He backed a $1 billion a year increase in school lunch and other child nutrition programs a year ago.

Nationwide polling found 18.2 percent of households reported "food hardship" -- lacking money to buy enough food -- in 2009, according to the group. That is higher than the government's "food insecurity" rating of 14.6 percent of households, or 49 million people, for 2008.

Households with children had a "food hardship" rate of 24.1 percent for 2009 compared with 14.9 percent among households without children. Twenty states had rates of 20 percent or higher. Seven Southern states led the list.

The figures were based on responses to the question, "Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy the food that you or your family needed?" The question is similar to one asked by the Census Bureau in collecting data for the annual food-insecurity report.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/01/26-12


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Obama Scoffed at McCain's Spending Freeze Proposal During Campaign

by Sam Stein

It didn't take long for the critics to come out in force -- and on YouTube -- against the Obama administration's just-leaked plan to propose a three-year freeze in discretionary, "non-security" spending as part of the upcoming budget.

Some Democrats scoffed at the idea, calling it the wrong approach during a time of deep economic recession. Republicans depicted it as a political gambit destined to be shot down by a non-compliant Congress.

One particularly tough attack, however, was delivered in Obama's own words -- in the form of a video compilation showing the president scoffing at just such a proposal in three successive presidential campaign debates. The video was posted quickly on YouTube.

"The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel. There are some programs that are very important that are underfunded," Obama says in his first debate against Republican candidate John McCain, who was pushing a spending freeze.

"That is an example of an unfair burden sharing," Obama says of McCain's proposal in the second debate. "That's using a hatchet to cut the federal budget. I want to use a scalpel so that people who need help are getting help and those of us like myself and Senator McCain who don't need help aren't getting it. That is how we make sure that everybody is willing to make a few sacrifices."

"It sounds good," Obama says of the proposal during the third debate. "It is proposed periodically. It doesn't happen. And in fact an across-the-board spending freeze is a hatchet and we do need a scalpel because there are some programs that don't work at all. There are some programs that are underfunded and I want to make sure that we are focused on those programs that work."

[cali]

1. that isn't the title of the piece and there's nothing in it about cuts for

nutrition programs. nor has there been any proposal to cut such programs.

unrecced for dishonesty.

[amborin]

2. it's in today's nytimes and HERE, in this article:

"Executive director of the National Priorities Project, Comerford said today: "President Obama's plan to freeze 'non-security' discretionary spending could spell disaster for a broad range of federal programs. ... The proposed 'freeze' is actually a cut. The proposal caps non-security spending at $447 billion for each of the next three fiscal years.

During that time, inflation will erode the purchasing power of that total, requiring additional cuts in services in each successive year. While meaningless in reducing the deficit, these cuts could be devastating to non-security discretionary programs such as nutrition, education, energy and transportation. These types of programs account for only 17 percent of total federal spending, yet they will absorb all of the proposed cuts. ...

Military spending, which in the current fiscal year represents roughly 55 percent of discretionary spending, will be spared the budget knife. And all indications are that military spending will go up next year. In fact, based on the Office of Management and Budget's projections as part of the FY 2010 budget request released last year, we will spend an additional $522 billion on the military over the next decade."

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/01/26-14