Thom Hartmann: If you're hungry, are you free?

If you're hungry, are you free? According to Republicans, over 17 million more Americans are free because of 30 years of Reaganomics. You need to know this: The US Department of Agriculture is reporting that 17.4 million households in the country had trouble finding enough food to eat last year. In fact - in one out of every eight homes - someone went hungry at some point throughout the year. Children in single parent households were most affected by a food shortage - along with African Americans and Hispanics. All in all - 14% of the households in our country - the richest nation in the world - suffered from what economists call food insecurity and the rest of us call hunger. And these numbers could have been much higher. The Department of Agriculture reports that though the number of hungry families spiked much higher in 2007 when the recession began - it has held steady since - thanks in large part to federal assistance like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and free and reduced school lunches. On top of that - economists have proven that federal food assistance programs actually have a stimulative effect on the economy - with every dollar given out in food stamps producing $1.73 in economic activity as it circulates from the hungry person to the retail store to the wholesaler to the farmer. Unfortunately Republicans - didn't get that memo. They still insist a 3% tax cut for millionaires and billionaires so they can put more money in Swiss banks is a better stimulus for America, and they're willing to cut federal food assistance programs to pay for it. There you have it - the Republican Party is literally taking food off the table of hungry Americans - so fat cat banksters can get a million dollar tax-giveaway bonus, borrowed from China and handed to billionaires courtesy of Uncle Sam.
-Thom
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