Farm bill deal would cut food stamps by 1 percent

A House plan to make major cuts to food stamps would be scaled back under a bipartisan agreement on a massive farm bill, a near end to a more than two-year fight that has threatened to hurt rural lawmakers in an election year.

The measure announced Monday by the House and Senate Agriculture committees preserves food stamp benefits for most Americans who receive them and continues generous subsidies for farmers. The House was expected to vote on the bill Wednesday, with the Senate following shortly after.

The compromise was expected to cut food stamps by about $800 million a year, or around 1 percent. The House in September passed legislation cutting 5 percent from the $80 billion-a-year program. The House bill also would have allowed states to implement broad new work requirements for food stamp recipients. That has been scaled back to a test program in 10 states. …

No, that’s not true at all. It’s the regulations, taxation, borrowing and (welfare and other pork) spending that create the “wage differential” by pushing down the value of the US dollar; the money printing is a symptom of all that as well as a contributing cause the higher the debt rises. Without getting rid of those (which are all leftist causes anyhow), all that raising tariffs will do is create a trade war in which the USA is already critically hobbled; nobody will reinvest in the USA, and nobody can make anyone do it.

"It’s the regulations, taxation, borrowing and (welfare and other pork) spending that create the “wage differential” by pushing down the value of the US dollar;

That doesn't make sense. Our regulations don't create a wage differential relative to another country. And if the regulations did have an impact, it would be to lower our wages relative to another country, not increase them. If the value of the U.S. dollar is "being pushed down" by regulations, then fixing the regulations would cause the dollar to rise and the wage differential would increase even more. Which would result in even more off-shoring.

the money printing is a symptom of all that as well as a contributing cause the higher the debt rises.

No the money printing didn't really start until 2008 with the banking crisis. Before that the FED didn't own much treasuries. The money printing is in response to the high unemployment. By law the FED is to focus on full employment, a stable dollar and low interest rates.

"all that raising tariffs will do is create a trade war in which the USA is already critically hobbled;"

What do you mean we are hobbled? We export 1/4 of the trade goods we import. A trade war is going to hurt China a lot more than it's going to hurt the U.S. And in case you haven't noticed, we are already in a trade war. We just aren't fighting back.

"nobody will reinvest in the USA, and nobody can make anyone do it."

You have it backwards. Nobody wants to invest here now, because it's only a matter of time before a competitor off-shores and drives the American business out of business. We have the largest consumer market. If we raise the import tariffs, so that American businesses have an advantage or at least an equal footing, then American businesses will be a great investment.

We have the largest consumer market now. But if we don't act to protect the industries that made us wealthy in the first place, we won't have one much longer. 24% of Americans are unemployed and aren't consuming much any more, no matter how cheap the imports are. That number will rise, until we are all out of funds, and the great American consumer market will be a thing of the past.

How can we have “the largest consumer market” when the consumerism is driven by borrowing and a sizable chunk of the consumers are unemployed or on welfare (or both)? How can the money used to buy all that “stuff” really be worth anything?

What, pray tell, will induce businesses to reinvest in the USA with the (leftist) regulations, taxation and welfare state intact after tariffs go up? And did you understand what I meant by “hobbled”?

Like you pointed out, we are in a cold trade war with Red China. Making it heat up will not hurt China one iota (they have plenty of alternate markets, including themselves), because we are too dependent on their manufacturing base and nobody will magically make our manufacturing base reappear upon said trade war heating up—because of the conditions that made the manufacturing flee in the first place remaining in place.

The right way to cut food stamps is to raise the import tariffs and put Americans back to work.

Cutting it by reducing the appropriation in a bill, just gives the democrats the opportunity to say the GOP is against the poor

If we had tariffs we would not need the farm bill. The ChiComs would not be able to dump ag products in the US at a price lower than what it costs US farmers to produce.

Seems the more we get away from tariffs...the more we have in subsidies

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