Food stamp benefits cut to funnel money into Michelle Obama's 'Let's Move' campaign

Sunday, November 24, 2013 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: food stamp benefits, Let''s Move, Michelle Obama

(NaturalNews) Major cuts to the federal food stamp program, now known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), came into effect on November 1, which means millions of American families on food assistance will now receive about $29 less per month in benefits. And according to the New York Post, the roughly $5 billion per year in financial trimmings will instead go to fund Michelle Obama's controversial "Let's Move" campaign, which aims to control the types of foods children eat at public schools.

The shocking reason for these cuts might come as a surprise to those who normally assume that any reductions in federal assistance are a result of sinister Republican politics. On the contrary, it is Michelle Obama's pet project to reduce childhood obesity that is the real reason for the cuts. With the 2009 Recovery Act's stimulus funds now exhausted, Obama needed another source of cash flow with which to purge public school cafeterias of "evil" foods like butter and replace them with more "healthy" foods like genetically modified (GM) soy burgers.

"You know everybody's crying how the SNAP program has been cut and they are saying the evil Republicans," stated television and radio personality Glenn Back on his show recently. "It's not the evil Republicans. It's the First Lady. Her Let's Move program is being funded now with the cuts that came from food stamps."

Though $29 a month might not seem like much, it can be devastating for legitimate families in need who are on tight budgets. According to Food Bank for New York City CEO Margarette Purvis, the reductions will result in the loss of some 76 million meals per year, just in New York City. And a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis says that the average family of three on assistance will suffer the loss of about 16 meals per month.

"The fact that they're going to lose what's basically an entire week's worth of food (each month), it's pretty daunting," stated Purvis to Salon. "[Policymakers] are attempting to punish people for being poor."

Another broken promise: Obama swore not to cut food stamps

Chalk it up to another blatant lie from the Obama administration, which promised not to cut food stamp benefits after raiding the food stamp cookie jar, so to speak, back in 2010. Congressional Democrats had promised at the time that they would replace the money they took from the food stamp budget, but never did. Barack Obama also made promises not to cut food stamps, and later reneged on them.

"We were all told that these cuts for November 1 would not happen," added Purvis, just days before November 1 came, resulting in immediate cuts. "We were told, you know, by the president... these cuts will not happen, we won't get rid of the program. Well guess what? November 1 [came], and no one has restored that money."

Purvis and her colleagues are now "begging" Congress, according to Salon, to pass some kind of legislation by December that will provide additional funding to the food stamp program. Though the full effects of the cuts have yet to be realized, she and others are convinced that the worst is yet to come, as millions of Americans on food assistance come to realize that they are even more impoverished than before.

"[T]he mistakes of 2010 are coming home to roost -- again," writes Laura Clawson for Daily Kos. "[A]nd it's going to be people struggling to put food on the table who pay the price -- again."

Sources for this article include:

http://nypost.com

http://www.salon.com

http://www.dailykos.com

http://www.cbpp.org