America feeds the rich

The United States is no longer the land of equal opportunity as the rich get it all, Leo Gerard, a union chair and author, said. The Farm Bill that is expected to pass the US House this week explains income inequality in America. The Republican-sponsored proposal slashes food stamps for poor children and pads farm subsidies for wealthy agro-businessmen. This comes just a week after Senate Republicans refused to protect the poorest students from doubled college loan interest rates because that required closing tax loopholes that benefit big corporations. It comes just weeks after a new study showed the Walmart heirs, among the richest people in the world, pay their workers so little that taxpayers fork over billions to subsidize Walmart's payroll through programs like -- food stamps. This all violates America's cherished ideal of equal opportunity. Americans strive to achieve believing they have the same chance at success as everyone else and, more importantly, that the egalitarian American system will provide their children with a level playing field on which to attain their full potential, Alalam reported. Americans believe their government should maintain that level field. But it does not. Not when poor students are denied access to low-interest college loans while Washington charges Wall Street virtually no interest. Not when the House farm bill feeds the rich and starves the poor. Republican Congressman Stephen Fincher of Frog Jump, Tenn., is the ugly face of the feed-the-rich public policy. He is a seventh generation millionaire agro-businessman. He raked in $3.5mln in federal farm subsidies from 1999 to 2012. That averages out to $269,000 a year in farm welfare. It makes him one of the largest farm welfare recipients in Tennessee history as well as among members of Congress. This politician, who thrived on the government dole, raking in $738 a day in farm welfare over the past 13 years, is among the loudest advocates for increasing subsidies to agribusiness by about $10bln and slashing food stamps by $20bln. That would take food from 2 million poor people. They get an average of $133 a month in food stamps. That's less than $5 a day for the poor -- not the $738 a day that Fincher got. Fincher justified taking food out of the mouths of poor people by quoting the Bible, 2 Thessalonians 3:10, to be specific: "For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat." Citing that verse shows a frightening level of cluelessness. First, Fincher took it out of context. It was intended as an admonishment of those who'd stopped working in anticipation of the Second Coming, not as a castigation of generic non-workers. Second, 49 percent of those receiving food stamps are children. Would Fincher have five-year-olds work for their supper? How about infants? Finally, the food stamp program encourages work, and the number of recipients who do tripled in the first decade of the century. Among the working poor are Walmart employees. Generally, to qualify for food stamps, a family can't earn more than 130 percent of poverty level, which would be $25,000 for a family of three. A typical Walmart worker earning $8.81 an hour, slightly more than minimum wage, receives $15,576 a year. An analysis by the Democratic staff of the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce found that such low wages harm families and burden taxpayers. Government benefit programs -- such as food stamps -- enable Walmart's low wage workers to barely scrape by, the report said.