Agricultural Subsidies Safe, Everything Else on the Chopping Block

With Americans still struggling to emerge from the recession that forced millions to apply for food assistance programs, the committee slashed $2 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

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Agricultural Subsidies are Safe, Everything Else is on the Chopping Block, according to the Environmental Working Group:

Who Really Needs a Haircut?

The House Appropriations Committee is set to vote today on a spending bill that makes deep cuts to a broad range of food assistance programs that provide vital nutritional support for the poor, including pregnant women and children.

What it doesn’t do, despite the chorus of frenzied calls to cut federal spending, is make even the smallest trims in the lavish federal subsidies to industrial grain producers and absentee land owners or to the government’s heavily subsidized crop and revenue insurance programs.

Last week (May 25), the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture took the first step when it approved the spending bill, which also takes aim at funding for energy, conservation, research and rural development programs.

With Americans still struggling to emerge from the recession that forced millions to apply for food assistance programs, the committee slashed $2 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) and $832 million – or 11 percent – from a food program for poor pregnant women and young children. That comes on top of a similar cut just a few weeks ago.

And at a time when food insecurity is a growing global crisis , the House panel voted to cut international hunger programs by $457 million, or 23 percent….

Read more: https://www.ewg.org/agmag/2011/05/who-really-needs-a-haircut/