GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions: The Key To Fixing This Budget Problem? Cut Food Stamps!

[TruthOut10]

While President Obama and the Democrats have talked a lot about protecting the middle class from tax hikes and entitlement cuts in any debt deal that eventually emerges from the fiscal nightmare, it looks increasingly likely that food stamps will come under the knife. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), ranking member of the Senate budget committee, has taken the lead recently in attacking these "gifts" to the poor. Monday night on CNN, Sessions said the food-stamp program—which now serves a record 47 million people—is "out of control" and needs to be cut down to size. But Soledad O'Brien took him to school.

When asked if food stamps should be on the table in fiscal negotiations, Sessions said "absolutely" and pulled a Romney, saying that Congress needs to "identify how we can move people from dependency to independence." He added that there were a lot of people getting benefits who didn't qualify for them.

Soledad O'Brien Slams GOP Senator on Food Stamps | Mother Jones

 

[TruthOut10]

Most families and individuals who meet the program's income guidelines are eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP — formerly the Food Stamp Program.) The size of a family's SNAP benefit is based on its income and certain expenses. This paper provides a short summary of SNAP eligibility and benefit calculation rules.
Determining Eligibility
Under federal rules, to be eligible for benefits a household's[1] income and resources must meet three tests:[2]
Its gross monthly income — that is, its income before any of the program's deductions are applied — generally must be at or below 130 percent of the poverty line. For a family of three, the poverty line in federal fiscal year 2012 is $1,545 a month. Thus, 130 percent of the poverty line for a three-person family is $2,008 a month, or $24,096 a year. The poverty level is higher for bigger families and lower for smaller families.[3]
Its net income, or income after deductions are applied, must be at or below the poverty line.
Its assets must fall below certain limits: households without an elderly or disabled member must have assets of $2,000 or less, and households with an elderly or disabled member must have assets of $3,250 or less.[4]
What counts as income? SNAP counts cash income from all sources, including earned income (before payroll taxes are deducted) and unearned income, such as cash assistance, Social Security, unemployment insurance, and child support.
What counts as an asset? Generally, amounts that could be available to the household to purchase food, such as amounts in bank accounts, count as assets. Items that are not accessible, such as the household's home, personal property, and retirement savings, do not count. Most automobiles do not count. [5] States have the option to relax the asset limits, and many have done so.

A Quick Guide to Food Stamp Eligibility and Benefits — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

 

[Lakhota]

Jeff Sessions is a major retard.

 

[TruthOut10]

Although you might never know it from listening to the pundits, America isn't broke. We have plenty of money to pay for government programs—we've just gradually lost our ability to collect it. Here are 10 ways, most of them long favored by liberal economists, that politicians could avoid the fiscal cliff's $1.2 trillion in trigger cuts. While these ideas alone won't immediately eliminate the budget deficit, they will, combined with expected growth, point the nation towards a sustainable fiscal path.

Stop giving investors a sweetheart deal
Additional revenue: $533 billion over 10 years
Low tax rates on capital gains are the main reason that billionaire investment guru Warren Buffett pays a smaller percentage of his income in taxes than his secretary does. In 2003, Congress capped the rate on capital gains (investment income) at 15 percent—far less than the 35 percent that people pay on their salaries. Tax hawks like to argue that raising the capital gains tax will stifle investment, but that argument isn't supported by the evidence. (Just ask Buffett.) Taxing capital gains as ordinary income—just like the IRS treats the investment gains from your 401(k)—would have the added benefit of undermining "carried interest." That, you may recall, is the ludicrous accounting trick that allows big fund managers (think Mitt Romney) to pass off their management fees as investment income, thereby avoiding the higher tax rates paid by their receptionists and janitors.

Quit subsidizing mansions and vacation homes
Additional revenue: $214.6 billion over 10 years
The popular mortgage interest deduction subsidizes home ownership but it also distorts the real estate market and favors the wealthy. That's because people are allowed to deduct interest paid on mortgage debt up to $1.1 million—which in effect means that taxpayers are helping rich Americans pay for mansions and vacation properties. Eliminating the deduction entirely would likely yield the revenue gains listed above, but also make things tougher on middle-class homeowners. For a more palatable alternative, Congress could lower that $1.1 million cap to, say, half a million bucks and limit the deduction to loans on primary residences.

End the "step up" giveaway on inherited stocks
Additional revenue: $764 billion over 10 years
Suppose your Aunt Mildred bought stock in Acme Widgets back in 1940 for $10 a share and has watched it appreciate to $100 a share. If she sells it now, she'll pay capital gains taxes on her $90-per-share profit. But if Mildred wills you the stock, you'll miraculously forego taxes on her gains. To put it in accounting terms, Mildred's $10-per-share "cost basis" will instantly "step up" to the stock price on the day you inherit it. So if she dies today, and you later sell your inherited Acme stock at $105, you only pay taxes on $5 per share. But eliminating this massive loophole would throw a wrench in the estate planning of lots of rich and powerful families, so don't get your hopes up.

Revitalize the "death tax"
Additional revenue: $432 billion over 10 years
If you're old and rich and had the choice, this would be a pretty good year to die. That's because, unless Congress extends its Bush-era cuts to the federal estate tax (foes call it the "death tax"), the levy on inheritances will to revert to its old top rate of 55 percent and the exempt, nontaxable portion will go back to $1 million per individual beneficiary, down from about $5.1 million now. Even so, thanks to special breaks for family farms, businesses, and all but the largest holdings, the estate tax has never affected many households. In 2003, before cuts to the tax began taking effect, only 1.3 percent of deaths resulted in any federal estate-tax liability.

10 Ways to Avoid the Fiscal Cliff | Mother Jones

 

[bigrebnc1775]

While President Obama and the Democrats have talked a lot about protecting the middle class from tax hikes and entitlement cuts in any debt deal that eventually emerges from the fiscal nightmare, it looks increasingly likely that food stamps will come under the knife. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), ranking member of the Senate budget committee, has taken the lead recently in attacking these "gifts" to the poor. Monday night on CNN, Sessions said the food-stamp program—which now serves a record 47 million people—is "out of control" and needs to be cut down to size. But Soledad O'Brien took him to school.

When asked if food stamps should be on the table in fiscal negotiations, Sessions said "absolutely" and pulled a Romney, saying that Congress needs to "identify how we can move people from dependency to independence." He added that there were a lot of people getting benefits who didn't qualify for them.

Soledad O'Brien Slams GOP Senator on Food Stamps | Mother Jones

Food stamps were meant to be a safety net not a hammock.

 

[SniperFire]

When you read the retarded dependency pimps in threads such as this, you start to realize that nothing is going to change in America until hyper-inflation stops our ability to print money and pass it off to people - under the pretense it actually still has value.

 

[uscitizen]

Feed em or bomb em. Lets see which would be the christian thing to do?

 

[TruthOut10]

For years now, whenever I've been invited to lecture students on how our tax system works, I have asked a simple question: What is the purpose of the United States of America? The most common answer, be it at prestigious universities, elite prep schools, rural community colleges, or crowded urban high schools, is this: To make people rich.

This should come as no great surprise. For anyone born after, say, 1970, the world has been shaped by Ronald Reagan's remaking of government's relationship with private interests—a vision of lower taxes, less regulation, and maximum economic leeway for those at the top. In this view, the pursuit of wealth is the warp and weft of America; everything else will follow.

By contrast, the preamble to the Constitution tells us the nation's reason for being in 52 words that can be reduced to six principles: society, justice, peace, security, commonwealth, and freedom. Individual riches don't make the list. They are a product of American society, not its guiding purpose. Progress, then, must begin with a return to the best of the values that created this Second American Republic—one born, it's worth remembering, from the failure of the Articles of Confederation, whose principles (weak government, unfettered capitalism) found their resurrection in the economic policies of the past three decades.

Fiscal Therapy | Mother Jones

 

[SniperFire]

For years now, whenever I've been invited to lecture students on how our tax system works, I have asked a simple question: What is the purpose of the United States of America? The most common answer, be it at prestigious universities, elite prep schools, rural community colleges, or crowded urban high schools, is this: To make people rich.

This should come as no great surprise. For anyone born after, say, 1970, the world has been shaped by Ronald Reagan's remaking of government's relationship with private interests—a vision of lower taxes, less regulation, and maximum economic leeway for those at the top. In this view, the pursuit of wealth is the warp and weft of America; everything else will follow.

By contrast, the preamble to the Constitution tells us the nation's reason for being in 52 words that can be reduced to six principles: society, justice, peace, security, commonwealth, and freedom. Individual riches don't make the list. They are a product of American society, not its guiding purpose. Progress, then, must begin with a return to the best of the values that created this Second American Republic—one born, it's worth remembering, from the failure of the Articles of Confederation, whose principles (weak government, unfettered capitalism) found their resurrection in the economic policies of the past three decades.

Fiscal Therapy | Mother Jones

What a crock of libtard nonsense.