The Democrats’ opposition to Trump is not based on his imposition of austerity measures, or his vicious assault on immigrants. While they will not mount a serious challenge to a proposal that will literally take food out of the mouths of school children, they were complicit in passing the Republicans’ $1.3 trillion tax cuts in 2017 and the record $738 billion defense budget agreed to earlier this year. At $94.6 million, the cost of one of the US Air Force’s newest and most technologically advanced fighter jets, the F-35A, would cover the $90 annual savings from depriving half a million US schoolchildren of free meals.
A Kmart department store is seen in Springfield, Va., Oct. 23, 2014. (Saul Loeba/AFP/Getty Images)
Kmart, Sears to Close One-Third of Stores, 96 Locations to Now Shutter: Reports
The company that owns Kmart and Sears—retail juggernauts of yesteryear—will now close 96 locations across the United States, representing about one-third of its stores, it was reported.
Transformco, which brought the retailers out of bankruptcy earlier this year, will close down 51 Sears stores and 45 Kmart locations, Sears confirmed to the Chicago Tribune and USA Today on Thursday.
Over the past month or so, there have been reports saying that more than 100 Sears and Kmart locations would close.
The latest round of closures will leave the firm with 182 Sears and Kmarts. Over the past 15 years, Kmart and Sears closed 3,500 stores and cut about 250,000 jobs.
On Thursday, Transformco also said it has $250 million in new financing as it grapples with how to run its remaining stores.
Their previous parent firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October of last year before emerging from it in February 2019. Eddie Lampert, and his hedge fund ESL Investments, arranged a deal at the time to rescue the two chains.
The firm on Thursday acknowledged that it “has faced a difficult retail environment and other challenges” since February.
“We have been working hard to position Transformco for success by focusing on our competitive strengths and pruning operations that have struggled due to increased competition and other factors,” Transformco said.
New liquidation sales will start on Dec. 2 and will end in February 2020, it said.
The Sears Hometown Stores brand will not be affected by the closures, according to USA Today.
“We will endeavor to create and deliver value through a strategic combination of our better-performing retail stores and our service businesses, brands and other assets, and expect to realize a significant return on our extensive portfolio of owned and leased real estate,” Transformco said.
Corporate layoffs were also confirmed over the past several weeks, it said.
Lampert bought 223 Sears stores and 202 Kmart locations in February, along with the Kenmore and DieHard brands for about $5.2 billion under an entity known as Transform Holdco LLC or Transformco.
“Our new real estate term loan provides us with a far more cost effective and flexible capital structure that will allow us to continue to invest in the growth of Sears, Kmart, our leading service offerings and the Shop Your Way rewards program,” said a statement from the hedge fund that owned Sears at the time. “Our ability to secure financing on these terms demonstrates the confidence of our financial partners and helps position us for future success.”
Other Bankruptcies
Several U.S. retailers have filed for bankruptcy over the past two years, including Forever 21 and Toys ‘R’ Us.
Forever 21
The fast-fashion retailer filed late on Sunday to restructure its business and requested approval to close up to 178 U.S. stores. Forever 21 listed both assets and liabilities in the range of $1 billion to $10 billion, according to the court filing.
PaylessShoesource
The U.S. discount retailer in February filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time, along with its North American subsidiaries. The retailer had said it would close about 2,500 stores in North America and wind down its e-commerce operations.
Toys ‘R’ Us
The toy retailer filed for Chapter 11 in September, hoping to restructure some $5 billion in debt, much of which stemmed from a $6.6 billion leveraged buyout by private equity firms in 2005. It liquidated in 2018, a blow to hundreds of toy makers that sold products to the chain, including Barbie maker Mattel Inc and rival Hasbro Inc.
RadioShack
The U.S. electronics chain filed for bankruptcy in March for the second time in a little over two years, faced with a challenging retail environment and an unsatisfying partnership with wireless provider Sprint Corp.
Fred’s Inc.
In September, the pharmacy and discount retailer said it filed for Chapter 11, months after the company began shuttering hundreds of unprofitable stores in the United States.
Gymboree
The children’s clothing retailer filed for bankruptcy protection in January, the second in almost two years, and said it would close more than 800 Gymboree and Crazy 8 stores.
H.H. Gregg, Inc.
The appliances and electronics retailer and its Gregg Appliances Inc unit filed for bankruptcy protection in March, as they continue struggling with declining sales for about the past four years.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Josh
Hawley: GOP Must Defend Middle Class Americans Against ‘Concentrated Corporate
Power,’ Tech Billionaires
The Republican Party must defend America’s working and middle
class against “concentrated corporate power” and the monopolization of entire
sectors of the United States’ economy, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) says.
While multinational corporations monopolize industries, Hawley said the GOP must defend working and middle class Americans and that big business interests should not come before the needs of American communities:
Enough Is Enough’: Josh Hawley Calls for Sanctions on Mexican
Cartels
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said Wednesday that “enough is enough” and
called on the U.S. government to sanction Mexican officials and cartel members
complicit in trafficking meth and killing Americans.
The wealthiest
Americans are paying a lower tax rate than all other Americans, groundbreaking
analysis from a pair of economists reveals.
Census Says U.S.
Income Inequality Grew ‘Significantly’ in 2018
The
wealthiest Americans are paying a lower tax rate than all other Americans,
groundbreaking analysis from a pair of economists reveals.
Census Says U.S. Income Inequality Grew ‘Significantly’ in 2018
The
Democrats’ opposition to Trump is not based on his imposition of austerity
measures, or his vicious assault on immigrants. While they will not mount a
serious challenge to a proposal that will literally take food out of the mouths
of school children, they were complicit in passing the Republicans’ $1.3
trillion tax cuts in 2017 and the record $738 billion defense budget agreed to
earlier this year.
Trump
proposal denies free school meals to half a million children
Children
receive a free lunch at the Phoenix Day Central Park Youth Program in downtown
Phoenix. (AP Photo Matt York)
Josh
Hawley: GOP Must Defend Middle Class Americans Against ‘Concentrated Corporate
Power,’ Tech Billionaires
3 Nov 2019184
4:31
The Republican Party must defend America’s working and middle
class against “concentrated corporate power” and the monopolization of entire
sectors of the United States’ economy, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) says.
In
an interview on The Realignment podcast,
Hawley said that “long gone are the days where” American workers can depend on
big business to look out for their needs and the needs of their communities.
Instead, Hawley explained
that increasing “concentrated corporate power” of whole sectors of the American
economy — specifically among Silicon Valley’s giant tech conglomerates — is at
the expense of working and middle class Americans.
“One of the things Republicans
need to recover today is a defense of an open, free-market, of a fair healthy
competing market and the length between that and Democratic citizenship,”
Hawley said, and continued:
At the end of the day, we are
trying to support and sustain here a great democracy. We’re not trying to make
a select group of people rich. They’ve already done that. The tech billionaires
are already billionaires, they don’t need any more help from government. I’m
not interested in trying to help them further. I’m interested in trying to help
sustain the great middle of this country that makes our democracy run and
that’s the most important challenge of this day.
“You have these businesses
who for years now have said ‘Well, we’re based in the United States, but we’re
not actually an American company, we’re a global company,'” Hawley said. “And
you know, what has driven profits for some of our biggest multinational
corporations? It’s been … moving jobs overseas where it’s cheaper … moving your
profits out of this country so you don’t have to pay any taxes.”
“I think that we have here at
the same time that our economy has become more concentrated, we have bigger and
bigger corporations that control more and more of our key sectors, those same
corporations see themselves as less and less American and frankly they are less
committed to American workers and American communities,” Hawley continued.
“That’s turned out to be a problem which is one of the reasons we need to
restore good, healthy, robust competition in this country that’s going to push
up wages, that’s going to bring jobs back to the middle parts of this country,
and most importantly, to the middle and working class of this country.”
While multinational corporations monopolize industries, Hawley said the GOP must defend working and middle class Americans and that big business interests should not come before the needs of American communities:
A free market is one where you can enter it, where there are new
ideas, and also by the way, where people can start a small family business, you
shouldn’t have to be gigantic in order to succeed in this country. Most people don’t want to
start a tech company. [Americans]
maybe want to work in their family’s business, which may be some corner shop in
a small town … they want to be able to make a living and
then give that to their kids or give their kids an option to do that. [Emphasis
added]
The problem with corporate concentration is that it tends to
kill all of that. The worst thing about corporate concentration is that it inevitably
believes to a partnership with big government. Big business and big government always get
together, always. And that is exactly what has happened now with the tech
sector, for instance, and arguably many other sectors where you
have this alliance between big government and big business … whatever you call
it, it’s a problem and it’s something we need to address. [Emphasis added]
Hawley blasted the free
trade-at-all-costs doctrine that has dominated the Republican and Democrat
Party establishments for decades, crediting the globalist economic model with
hollowing “out entire industries, entire supply chains” and sending them to
China, among other countries.
“The thing is in this country
is that not only do we not make very much stuff anymore, we don’t even make the
machines that make the stuff,” Hawley said. “The entire supply chain up and
down has gone overseas, and a lot of it to China, and this is a result of
policies over some decades now.”
As
Breitbart News reported, Hawley detailed in the interview how
Republicans like former President George H.W. Bush’s ‘New World Order’ agenda
and Democrats have helped to create a corporatist economy that
disproportionately benefits the nation’s richest executives and donor class.
The
billionaire class, the top 0.01 percent of earners, has enjoyed more than 15 times as much
wage growth as the bottom 90 percent since 1979. That economy has been
reinforced with federal rules that largely benefits the wealthiest of wealthiest
earners. A study released last month revealed
that the richest Americans are, in fact, paying a lower tax rate than all other
Americans.
Enough Is Enough’: Josh Hawley Calls for Sanctions on Mexican
Cartels
6 Nov 2019220
3:30
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said Wednesday that “enough is enough” and
called on the U.S. government to sanction Mexican officials and cartel members
complicit in trafficking meth and killing Americans.
Hawley called for
harsh retribution against the Mexican cartels complicit in ambushing and
murdering nine American women and children near the New Mexico border.
In
the wake of the attack on Americans, as well as the Mexican cartels’ complicity
in Missouri’s meth crisis, the Missouri conservative called for the U.S.
government to sanction the cartel members who are “openly slaughtering American
citizens.”
“With
Mexico, enough is enough. US government should impose sanctions on Mexican
officials, including freezing assets, who won’t confront cartels,” Hawley
tweeted Wednesday. “Cartels are flooding MO [Missouri] w/ meth, trafficking
children, & openly slaughtering American citizens. And Mexico looks the
other way.”
Hawley
said that just over the last 14 days, there had been over 40 drug overdoses
coming from drugs across America’s southern border.
Hawley
continued, “In SW Mo last two weeks alone, over 40 drug overdoses &
multiple deaths from drugs coming across [the] southern border. Story is the
same all over the state. Cartels increasingly call the shots in Mexico, and for
our own security, we cannot allow this to continue.”
With Mexico, enough is enough. US
government should impose sanctions on Mexican officials, including freezing
assets, who won’t confront cartels. Cartels are flooding MO w/ meth, trafficking
children, & openly slaughtering American citizens. And Mexico looks the
other way
In SW Mo last two weeks alone, over 40 drug overdoses
& multiple deaths from drugs coming across southern border. Story is the
same all over the state. Cartels increasingly call the shots in Mexico, and for
our own security, we cannot allow this to continue
Hawley spent
much of his August recess traveling across rural Missouri, learning what
matters to the average Missourian.
This AM I had the great privilege of
meeting Brittany Tune, a nurse, a mother of two, a follower of God, and a
remarkable woman. Born & raised in rural Shannon Co., she has raised two
kids on her own while putting herself through nursing school & dedicating
her life to others
Brittany says meth is hammering this community. She has
many friends & family members who have been touched by this epidemic. She
worries about what it means for her own kids, ages 15 & 10. It’s much worse
now than when she was growing up, she says
In
an interview with Breitbart News in September, Hawley said that
meth coming from Mexico is destroying local Missouri communities.
“Come
with me to any town, any town in the state of Missouri of any size, and I will
show you communities that are drowning in meth, drowning in it. It is literally
killing people; it is destroying families it is destroying schools and whole
communities,” he said.
“Missouri
is a border state,” Hawley said, adding that “we have to got to secure the
border to stop the meth” and “stop the flow of illegal immigration.”
Hawley’s
remarks about the Mexican cartel attack on Americans mirrors that of President
Donald Trump, who said Tuesday that
the United States was ready for war against the drug cartels.
“This
is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the
drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth,” the president tweeted.
Trump
has campaigned on cracking down on violence on the southern border as well as
handling the drug cartels.
During
an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Trump said he is “very seriously”
thinking of designating the drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations
(FTOs).
“It’s
psychological, but it’s also economic,” Trump told Breitbart News in March. “As
terrorists — as terrorist organizations, the answer is yes. They are.”
Sen.
Steve Daines (R-MT) told Breitbart
News in May that he would back Trump’s potential designation of the Mexican
cartels as FTOs and that seizing cartel leader El Chapo’s assets would build
the wall and make the cartels pay for it. In a similar manner to Missouri,
Daines told Breitbart News about how Montana has been ravaged by meth from
Mexican cartels.
Daines said that by seizing “billions” of El Chapo’s assets, it
“would absolutely fulfill President Trump’s promise to build the wall and make
Mexico pay for it. In this case, it would be a Mexican cartel paying for it
would be an excellent idea.”
Economists: America’s Elite Pay Lower Tax Rate Than All Other
Americans
The wealthiest
Americans are paying a lower tax rate than all other Americans, groundbreaking
analysis from a pair of economists reveals.
For the
first time on record, the wealthiest 400 Americans in 2018 paid a lower tax
rate than all of the income groups in the United States, research highlighted by the New York Times from
University of California, Berkeley, economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel
Zucman finds.
The
analysis concludes that the country’s top economic elite are paying lower
federal, state, and local tax rates than the nation’s working and middle class.
Overall, these top 400 wealthy Americans paid just a 23 percent tax rate, which
the Times‘ op-ed columnist David Leonhardt notes is a
combined tax payment of “less than one-quarter of their total income.”
This 23
percent tax rate for the rich means their rate has been slashed by 47
percentage points since 1950 when their tax rate was 70 percent.
(Screenshot
via the New York Times)
The
analysis finds that the 23 percent tax rate for the wealthiest Americans is
less than every other income group in the U.S. — including those earning
working and middle-class incomes, as a Times graphic shows.
Leonhardt
writes:
For
middle-class and poor families, the picture is different. Federal
income taxes have also declined modestly for these families, but they haven’t
benefited much if at all from the decline in the corporate tax or estate tax. And
they now pay more in payroll taxes (which finance Medicare and Social
Security) than in the past. Over all, their taxes have remained fairly flat.
[Emphasis added]
The
report comes as Americans increasingly see a growing divide between the rich
and working class, as the Pew Research Center has found.
Sen. Josh
Hawley (R-MO), the leading economic nationalist in the Senate, has warned
against the Left-Right coalition’s consensus on open trade, open markets, and
open borders, a plan that he has called an economy that works solely for the
elite.
“The same
consensus says that we need to pursue and embrace economic globalization and
economic integration at all costs — open markets, open borders, open trade,
open everything no matter whether it’s actually good for American national
security or for American workers or for American families or for American
principles … this is the elite consensus that has governed our politics
for too long and what it has produced is a politics of elite ambition,”
Hawley said in an August speech in the
Senate.
That
increasing worry of rapid income inequality is only further justified by economic
research showing a rise in servant-class jobs,
strong economic recovery for elite zip codes but not for working-class
regions, and skyrocketing wage growth for the billionaire class at 15 times
the rate of other Americans.
Census Says U.S.
Income Inequality Grew ‘Significantly’ in 2018
(Bloomberg) -- Income
inequality in America widened “significantly” last year, according to a U.S.
Census Bureau report published Thursday.
A measure of inequality
known as the Gini index rose to 0.485 from 0.482 in 2017, according to the
bureau’s survey of household finances. The measure compares incomes at the top
and bottom of the distribution, and a score of 0 is perfect equality.
The 2018 reading is the
first to incorporate
the impact of President Donald Trump’s end-
2017 tax bill, which was reckoned by many
economists to be skewed in favor of the
wealthy.
the impact of President Donald Trump’s end-
2017 tax bill, which was reckoned by many
economists to be skewed in favor of the
wealthy.
But the distribution of
income and wealth in the U.S. has been worsening for decades, making America
the most unequal country in the developed world. The trend, which has persisted
through recessions and recoveries, and under administrations of both parties,
has put inequality at the center of U.S. politics.
Leading candidates for
the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, including senators Elizabeth
Warren and Bernie Sanders, are promising to rectify the tilt toward the rich
with measures such as taxes on wealth or financial transactions.
Just five states --
California, Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana and New York, plus the District of
Columbia and Puerto Rico -- had Gini indexes higher than the national level,
while the reading was lower in 36 states.
Economists:
America’s Elite Pay Lower Tax Rate Than All Other Americans
Getty Images
8 Oct
201918
2:46
The
wealthiest Americans are paying a lower tax rate than all other Americans,
groundbreaking analysis from a pair of economists reveals.
For the first time on record, the
wealthiest 400 Americans in 2018 paid a lower tax rate than all of the income
groups in the United States, research highlighted by the New York Times from
University of California, Berkeley, economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel
Zucman finds.
The analysis concludes that the country’s
top economic elite are paying lower federal, state, and local tax rates than
the nation’s working and middle class. Overall, these top 400 wealthy Americans
paid just a 23 percent tax rate, which the Times‘ op-ed columnist David Leonhardt notes
is a combined tax payment of “less than one-quarter of their total income.”
This 23 percent tax rate for the
rich means their rate has been slashed by 47 percentage points since 1950 when
their tax rate was 70 percent.
(Screenshot via the New York Times)
The analysis finds that the 23
percent tax rate for the wealthiest Americans is less than every other income
group in the U.S. — including those earning working and middle-class incomes,
as a Times graphic
shows.
Leonhardt writes:
For middle-class and poor families,
the picture is different. Federal income taxes have also declined
modestly for these families, but they haven’t benefited much if at all from the
decline in the corporate tax or estate tax. And they now pay more
in payroll taxes (which finance Medicare and Social Security) than in
the past. Over all, their taxes have remained fairly flat. [Emphasis added]
The report comes as Americans
increasingly see a growing divide between the rich and working class, as the
Pew Research Center has found.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), the leading
economic nationalist in the Senate, has warned against the Left-Right
coalition’s consensus on open trade, open markets, and open borders, a plan
that he has called an economy that works solely for the elite.
“The same consensus says that we
need to pursue and embrace economic globalization and economic integration at
all costs — open markets, open borders, open trade, open everything no matter
whether it’s actually good for American national security or for American
workers or for American families or for American principles … this is the
elite consensus that has governed our politics for too long and what it has
produced is a politics of elite ambition,” Hawley said in an August speech in
the Senate.
That increasing worry of rapid
income inequality is only further justified by economic research showing a rise in servant-class
jobs, strong economic recovery for elite zip codes but not for
working-class regions, and skyrocketing wage growth for the billionaire class
at 15 times the rate of other Americans.
Census Says U.S. Income Inequality Grew ‘Significantly’ in 2018
(Bloomberg) -- Income inequality in America widened
“significantly” last year, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report published
Thursday.
A measure of inequality known as the Gini index rose to 0.485
from 0.482 in 2017, according to the bureau’s survey of household finances. The
measure compares incomes at the top and bottom of the distribution, and a score
of 0 is perfect equality.
The 2018 reading is the first to incorporate the impact of
President Donald Trump’s end-2017 tax bill, which was reckoned by many
economists to be skewed in favor of the wealthy.
But the distribution of income and wealth in the U.S. has been
worsening for decades, making America the most unequal country in the developed
world. The trend, which has persisted through recessions and recoveries, and
under administrations of both parties, has put inequality at the center of U.S.
politics.
Leading candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential
nomination, including senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, are
promising to rectify the tilt toward the rich with measures such as taxes on
wealth or financial transactions.
Just five states -- California, Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana
and New York, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico -- had Gini indexes
higher than the national level, while the reading was lower in 36 states.
The
Democrats’ opposition to Trump is not based on his imposition of austerity
measures, or his vicious assault on immigrants. While they will not mount a
serious challenge to a proposal that will literally take food out of the mouths
of school children, they were complicit in passing the Republicans’ $1.3
trillion tax cuts in 2017 and the record $738 billion defense budget agreed to
earlier this year.
Trump
proposal denies free school meals to half a million children
The Trump
administration has provided a new analysis of how proposed changes to
eligibility for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly
known as food stamps, will impact children who participate in the National
School Lunch and School Breakfast programs. By the White House’s own admission,
these changes mean that about a half-million children would become ineligible
for free school meals.
Secretary of
Agriculture Sonny Perdue has described the changes as a tightening up of
“loopholes” in the SNAP system. But those affected by the changes are not corporate
crooks or billionaires, but hundreds of thousands of children who stand to lose
access to free meals. For many American children, free school breakfasts and
lunches make up the bulk of their nutritional intake, and they stand to suffer
permanent physical and psychological damage as a result of the cuts.
The sheer
vindictiveness of the proposed rule change is shown by the minimal savings that
would result—about $90 million a year beginning in fiscal year 2021, or a mere
0.012 percent of the estimated $74 billion annual SNAP budget. Put another way,
the savings would amount to two-thousandths of a percent of the $4.4 trillion
federal budget. But while this $90 million might appear as small change to the
oligarchs running and supporting the government, it will be directly felt as
hunger in the bellies of America’s poorest children.
SNAP provided benefits
to roughly 40 million Americans in 2018 and is the largest nutrition program of
the 15 administered by the federal Food and Nutrition Service. Along with
programs such as the Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children and
school breakfast and lunch programs, SNAP has been a major factor in making a
dent in the hunger of working-class families. But despite these programs’
successes, the Trump administration is seeking to claw them back, with the
ultimate aim of doing away with them altogether.
The US Department of
Agriculture (USDA), which administers the food stamp and school meal programs,
says that the new analysis presented last week is a more precise estimate of
the impact of rule changes in SNAP the USDA first announced in July. The main
component of the rule change is an end to “broad-based categorical eligibility”
for the food stamp program. Food stamps are cut off for households whose
incomes exceed 130 percent of the federal poverty line, or $33,475 per year for
a family of four, calculated after exemptions for certain expenses.
Under “broad-based
categorical eligibility,” which is currently used by over 40 states, households
can be eligible for food stamps based on their receiving assistance from other
anti-poverty programs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Under
this rule, which has been in effect for about 20 years, states are allowed to
raise income eligibility and asset limits to promote SNAP eligibility. This
prevents many households from falling over the “benefit cliff,” which happens
when a small increase in income results in a complete cutoff of benefits,
leaving a family worse off than before the rise in income.
According to the USDA,
the rule change on broad-based eligibility would throw more than 680,000
households with children off SNAP. About 80 percent of these households have
school-age children, amounting to about 982,000 children. Of those, 55 percent,
or about 540,000, would no longer be eligible for free school meals, although
most would be eligible for reduced-price meals. About 40,000 would be required
to pay the full meal rate.
However, this does not
paint the full picture. Households thrown off SNAP would be required to apply
separately for access to free or reduced-price school meals. The USDA admits
that its cost estimates “do not account for potential state and local
administrative costs incurred due to collecting and processing household
applications … and also do not account for any increased responsibility placed
on the households to complete and submit a school meals application.”
While the Trump
administration claims that the proposed changes to SNAP eligibility are aimed
at closing up “loopholes” and stopping people from claiming benefits they’re
not entitled to, the reality is that there is no evidence that broad-based
eligibility has allowed significant numbers of people to supposedly “game the
system.” A 2012 Government Accountability Office investigation found that only
473,000 recipients, or just 2.6 percent of beneficiaries, received benefits
they would not have received without the broad-based eligibility offered by
many states.
There is consistent
evidence that SNAP contributes to a decrease in food insecurity, a condition
defined by the USDA as limited or uncertain access to adequate food. By one
estimate, SNAP benefits reduce the likelihood of food insecurity by about 30
percent and the likelihood of being very food insecure by 20 percent. Census
data has shown that SNAP also plays a critical role in reducing poverty, with
about 3.6 million Americans, including 1.5 million children, being lifted out
of poverty in 2016 as a result of the program.
The EconoFact Network
reports that SNAP has improved birth outcomes and infant health. When an
expectant mother has access to SNAP during pregnancy, particularly in the third
trimester, it decreases the likelihood that her baby will be born with low
birth weight. There is also evidence that the benefits of nutrition support can
persist well into adulthood when access to SNAP is provided before birth and
during early childhood. This can have a long-term impact on an individual’s
earnings, health and life expectancy. Conversely, food insecurity in childhood
correlates with greater risk of developing high blood pressure, diabetes,
obesity and cardiovascular disease later in life.
The proposed threat to
school lunches for half a million children has elicited little response from
Democrats in Congress, who are obsessively focused on the Trump impeachment
inquiry. Critical issues such as the health and nutrition of school children
are of little consequence to the Democratic Party, which instead gives voice to
those sections of the military intelligence apparatus that sees Trump’s
actions, particularly his sudden pullout from Syria, as endangering the global
interests of American imperialism.
The Democrats’
opposition to Trump is not based on his imposition of austerity measures, or
his vicious assault on immigrants. While they will not mount a serious
challenge to a proposal that will literally take food out of the mouths of
school children, they were complicit in passing the Republicans’ $1.3 trillion
tax cuts in 2017 and the record $738 billion defense budget agreed to earlier
this year. At $94.6 million, the cost of one of the US Air Force’s newest
and most technologically advanced fighter jets, the F-35A, would cover the $90
annual savings from depriving half a million US schoolchildren of free meals.
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