ramus
07-06 06:21 PM
I think doesn't matter how many times I asked members to do some research and see if thread already exist and if they just add it there, it doesn't matter.. they will create one for every single thing they see..
Go ahead .... create new threads and get confused yourself.
Go ahead .... create new threads and get confused yourself.
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Macaca
12-07 10:30 AM
Holding the Hungry Hostage (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/opinion/07fri2.html) NY Editorial, December 7, 2007
It is a travesty that the fates of some 35 million Americans who need food aid are tied to the farm bill, which comes up every five years. The House passed an inadequate version last summer, and the Senate has failed to advance its own. It is time to ask why feeding the hungry must include a trough for multibillion-dollar agribusiness.
As it has pressed to keep its subsidies, about $26 billion in the current bill, agribusiness has contributed $415 million to federal political campaigns since 1990, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The hungry don’t have much of a lobby. But those who cannot consistently put food on the table need the help promised in the bill, including more than $4 billion in improvements in the food stamp program and for emergency assistance. If the aid remains in the farm bill, and if it remains in a logjam, aid would continue at current, inadequate levels.
Food stamps regularly help 26 million people get something to eat. But the previous farm bill did not peg benefits to inflation, so as food prices have skyrocketed, families who were just barely getting by are now in a much worse place. Some 800,000 food stamp recipients — disproportionately elderly or disabled — are being told to make due on a minimum benefit of $10 per month. That amount has remained unchanged in 30 years.
As The Times recently reported, food banks and soup kitchens across the nation are being depleted by demand so overwhelming that the needy are being turned away, or given help so minimal, it is hardly worth the energy expended to get it.
Washington needs to do better. The Senate could start by rallying around the sensible legislation sponsored by Senators Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, and Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana. It would replace crop supports with an insurance program to cover actual losses, and put the savings, potentially billions of dollars, to better use, including for food aid.
Or the Congress could make a bold statement and begin to restructure funding. It could get money to food banks faster if it came out of any bill but the farm bill.
The Bush administration has correctly opposed the excesses of the farm subsidies program, but it could do more. It could finance additional and immediate food assistance by dipping deeper into money culled from customs receipts to support farm and nutrition programs.
Since their beginnings, hunger relief and nutrition programs have been inextricably tied to helping farmers. That may have made sense once. But as recent maneuvers on the farm bill have shown, it no longer works.
Republicans — by far the biggest beneficiaries of agribusiness largess — are using the advantage of being a bare minority to try to attach a flurry of amendments on immigration, taxes and any other issue but the desperate one at hand. Farm state senators look the other way so a bill, warts and all, can get done.
They need to put America’s hungry first.
Senators Reach Tentative Farm Deal (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/06/AR2007120602408.html) By MARY CLARE JALONICK | Associated Press, December 6, 2007
Senate ends farm bill impasse, may pass in days (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/06/AR2007120602662.html) By Charles Abbott | Reuters, December 6, 2007
It is a travesty that the fates of some 35 million Americans who need food aid are tied to the farm bill, which comes up every five years. The House passed an inadequate version last summer, and the Senate has failed to advance its own. It is time to ask why feeding the hungry must include a trough for multibillion-dollar agribusiness.
As it has pressed to keep its subsidies, about $26 billion in the current bill, agribusiness has contributed $415 million to federal political campaigns since 1990, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The hungry don’t have much of a lobby. But those who cannot consistently put food on the table need the help promised in the bill, including more than $4 billion in improvements in the food stamp program and for emergency assistance. If the aid remains in the farm bill, and if it remains in a logjam, aid would continue at current, inadequate levels.
Food stamps regularly help 26 million people get something to eat. But the previous farm bill did not peg benefits to inflation, so as food prices have skyrocketed, families who were just barely getting by are now in a much worse place. Some 800,000 food stamp recipients — disproportionately elderly or disabled — are being told to make due on a minimum benefit of $10 per month. That amount has remained unchanged in 30 years.
As The Times recently reported, food banks and soup kitchens across the nation are being depleted by demand so overwhelming that the needy are being turned away, or given help so minimal, it is hardly worth the energy expended to get it.
Washington needs to do better. The Senate could start by rallying around the sensible legislation sponsored by Senators Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, and Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana. It would replace crop supports with an insurance program to cover actual losses, and put the savings, potentially billions of dollars, to better use, including for food aid.
Or the Congress could make a bold statement and begin to restructure funding. It could get money to food banks faster if it came out of any bill but the farm bill.
The Bush administration has correctly opposed the excesses of the farm subsidies program, but it could do more. It could finance additional and immediate food assistance by dipping deeper into money culled from customs receipts to support farm and nutrition programs.
Since their beginnings, hunger relief and nutrition programs have been inextricably tied to helping farmers. That may have made sense once. But as recent maneuvers on the farm bill have shown, it no longer works.
Republicans — by far the biggest beneficiaries of agribusiness largess — are using the advantage of being a bare minority to try to attach a flurry of amendments on immigration, taxes and any other issue but the desperate one at hand. Farm state senators look the other way so a bill, warts and all, can get done.
They need to put America’s hungry first.
Senators Reach Tentative Farm Deal (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/06/AR2007120602408.html) By MARY CLARE JALONICK | Associated Press, December 6, 2007
Senate ends farm bill impasse, may pass in days (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/06/AR2007120602662.html) By Charles Abbott | Reuters, December 6, 2007
ragz4u
05-01 10:26 AM
Please treat this as urgent. Send an email to shrey@immigrationvoice.org
Thanks
shrey
Thanks
shrey
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jasonpark
August 18th, 2005, 11:52 AM
I agree with Henrik. Great color. Where'd you take this?
Thanks - I took this walking along a railroad bed that is no longer in use. I must have chased 10 of these things around before I finally got this one that would hold still long enough to get a descent shot.
Thanks - I took this walking along a railroad bed that is no longer in use. I must have chased 10 of these things around before I finally got this one that would hold still long enough to get a descent shot.