The House Agriculture Committee used yesterdays smokescreen on the news to approve a reduction
in aid that would cut of school breakfast and lunch to 40,000 children.  The vote was along party
lines, and I'm sure we know which party voted which way. 

This was part of over $3,000,000,000 in subsidy cuts that were approved.  The vast majority of the cuts involve farm subsidies.

And if I am not mistaken, I thought that the School Lunch program was passed over to state control about 10 years ago.  States are still allowed to provide free lunches to whoever they want.  The Federal Government will just no longer give them money for around 40,000 students.

Considering this is nation wide, I see it as a lot of nothing.

Once again, I am always amazed that the same people who scream "we want the government out of our lives" can get so upset and start to fret when the Government does just that.

what would you rather have, lunches for 40,000 children, or a couple more cruise missiles? look, would we LIKE to feed our kids? sure, but america has to constantly be stuffed to the gills with cruise missiles. we've got to have some priorities.

i think it's pretty funny (not haha funny, sad funny) that all of this budget-cutting frenzy has come from republicans wanting to mollify their base after bush's big-spending orgy in the wake of katrina to fake like he cared about it. so basically, they gave aid to the poor people of katrina by raking the poor people across the rest of the country over the coals.

i think it's pretty funny (not haha funny, sad funny) that all of this budget-cutting frenzy has come from republicans

Huh?  The republicans have been spending like drunken sailors.  It's about time they try and cut something, otherwise future generations will be paying big time.

Huh?  The republicans have been spending like drunken sailors.  It's about time they try and cut something, otherwise future generations will be paying big time.


well, no argument here. i guess the point i'm making is that katrina sorta broke the budget and now the republicans are talking about a frenzy of budget cuts. i think we actually are agreeing on this.

it's funny because the big spending under bush is all this faith-based stuff and "no child left behind" and such so the small-government republicans don't like it, and neither do the liberals who are in favor of social programs but view all the religious stuff and the overreliance on test scores etc. with suspicion. so at the moment, no one's happy.

Huh?  The republicans have been spending like drunken sailors.  It's about time they try and cut something, otherwise future generations will be paying big time.


I have nothing against spending cuts, but this is a gutless, heartless cut.  How about cutting out
the taxpayer subsidized congressional lunch rooms, haircuts, on site doctor.  What about tax-deductable "working lunches" .  I have to say, I am always flabbergasted by adults who sanction the removal of
food from programs geared toward children. I cannot see any rationale beyond a Scrooge mentality.
"Are there not workhouses?"

it's easier to make cuts related to interests who can't afford high-priced washington lobbyists. the repubs are picking the low-hanging fruit here, fer shurr. and yeah, it's pretty brutal politics. but they're counting on people not caring enough to put a stop to it, and so far they've been right.

It's not that Republicans want to see poor school children go hungry, it's that,well, they can't really fight back can they?

Just goes to show how much Dubya and Cheney, two of the worst CLOWNS to ever steal the White House, are putting this country's fixed-income senior citizens and disabled folks, blue-collar working class, and poor people, down the drain!

I don't think our sneaky Prez or his partners in crime Cheney and all the GOP toadies in Congress ever had to worry where their next meal was coming from as little kids...they probably had family SERVANTS who tended to their every whim at mealtimes!

This was part of over $3,000,000,000 in subsidy cuts that were approved.  The vast majority of the cuts involve farm subsidies.

And if I am not mistaken, I thought that the School Lunch program was passed over to state control about 10 years ago.  States are still allowed to provide free lunches to whoever they want.  The Federal Government will just no longer give them money for around 40,000 students.

Considering this is nation wide, I see it as a lot of nothing.

Once again, I am always amazed that the same people who scream "we want the government out of our lives" can get so upset and start to fret when the Government does just that.


Ok, let me get this straight.  Its more imortant to give massive tax cuts to the already rich, and the biggest corporations than to give free lunches to 40,000 poor kids. 

States may control the school lunch programs, but with the cut backs in Fed black grants, where are they going to get the $$$?  In Vermont, all the agencies that provide assistance to the non-eligable (read working) poor are facing 50% reductions in fed funding, which means lots more cold and hungry families this winter.  I guess I'm still looking fo9r the compassion in our current version of conservatism, which revolves, it seems to me, around pandering to the affluent (I guess thats compassion) while shafting the poor - the conservative part.

It's a very despicible, reprehensible, disgraceful situation we're facing. All we can do is help make other wise to it, and vote, and protest, and organise. We can also act upon the spirit of good ctizenship and donate what we can, and feed the hungry ourselves if we must... while the government run by the greedy economic elite continues to squander our tax dollars on violence while ignoring what's plainly best for our country.

A few questions to the hardline conservatives and extreme capitalists...

Tell me again why we haven't seriously undertaken the effort of greatly minimising or even eliminating the need for fossil fuels? Tell me again why our middle class is shrinking and the lower class is ever-growing? Tell me again why it's ok for over 40 million Americans to live their daily lives without health insurance? And please tell me why 40,000 poor children wll have to simply go without lunch from now on... (and there are many more than that who will go hungry).

It's a very despicible, reprehensible, disgraceful situation we're facing. All we can do is help make other wise to it, and vote, and protest, and organise. We can also act upon the spirit of good ctizenship and donate what we can, and feed the hungry ourselves if we must... while the government run by the greedy economic elite continues to squander our tax dollars on violence while ignoring what's plainly best for our country.

A few questions to the hardline conservatives and extreme capitalists...

Tell me again why we haven't seriously undertaken the effort of greatly minimising or even eliminating the need for fossil fuels? Tell me again why our middle class is shrinking and the lower class is ever-growing? Tell me again why it's ok for over 40 million Americans to live their daily lives without health insurance? And please tell me why 40,000 poor children wll have to simply go without lunch from now on... (and there are many more than that who will go hungry).

You liberals just want the government to take care of you!  Bring your own lunch, kid.  Better yet, start your own private cafeteria, that's the American entrepeneurial spirit.  I'm so sick of this whining sh*t!
:D

You liberals just want the government to take care of you!  Bring your own lunch, kid.  Better yet, start your own private cafeteria, that's the American entrepeneurial spirit.  I'm so sick of this whining sh*t!
:D
Bush and his toady Cheney sound a lot like Herbert Hoover..and everyone KNOWS the economic crisis Hoover helped get America into..Both Bush the Second and Hoover sucked up to the rich folks!

What else could one expect from the BIG BROTHER government of Der Bushfuhrer and Comrade Cheney!!


Sorry if I offend,but the way I see it, this country is going towards a  George Orwell '1984' Government!

What else could one expect from the BIG BROTHER government of Der Bushfuhrer and Comrade Cheney!!


Sorry if I offend,but the way I see it, this country is going towards a  George Orwell '1984' Government!


I have been reading a lot about life in the GDR (East Germany) lately, and of course making comparisons. The Stasi (GDR secret police) had a network of nearly 300,000 un-paid informants in their service. After the fall of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, the ruling party, and their government in 1990, every former GDR citizen's Stasi file was made available to him/her. Each file listed those who had ratted on them to the Stasi, and most included numbers of relatives, friends, teachers, and servicepeople. People were shocked to find out who had reported them, and the Stasi was all but confirmed as the most efficient and organised secret police in history. More than the Gestapo, more than the KGB.

The Patriot Act encourages people to report suspicious behaviour to the US authorities. Thankfully, most of us still have all the rights and freedoms as normal, because most of us are not Middle Eastern and/or Muslim. There are hundereds if not thousands of such people in this country right now who are being held indefinitely, without due process, without having been charged, without visitation rights, or the right to an attorney... thanks to the Patriot Act. Most of these people are not guilty of any serious crimes, and even if they were, we wouldn;t be able to know because they are not given a trial... they just sit in detention. These are the Bush Administration's equivalents to the GDR's "calss enemies." Like in the US, most people in the GDR, although under constant surveillence, were able to live normal lives and find security and happiness in their country, which was the most stable and successful country in the Communist Bloc. Political dissidence, however, was brutally repressed. People dissappeared, were deported, and imprisoned.

In the US today, most of us live lives unhindered by such repression, and that's because the administration does not see most of us, even the more radical citizens, as a threat. Those they do view as such, like those being held in what would normally be illegal detention if not for the PA, or like the unfortunate Valerie Plame whose career was ruined because her husband's political dissidence, are indeed repressed. They will never again lead normal lives.

The same happened in the 50's with McCarthyism. SO many lifes were ruined for political gain in that era. Even knowing what we know now, most Americans are still in denial, insisting that this country is immune to such political and social nightmares, and it drives me crazy. When I look back in fear at the GDR, it makes me glad I was born in WEST Germany; but, when I look back at the McCarthy Era, the awful things that happened to demonstrators and "subversives" in the 60's, and what is going on with the Patriot Act today, it makes me scared to know I am directly subject to this government. If more people realised this fear, things would be changing.

this country stopped having a right to call itself "free" when this government started indulging in secret detentions and "torture-lite." there are other things that were similar -- slavery, of course, and the interment of japanese americans in wwii -- but this country has more or less repudiated these practices. maybe it will become free again when/if america ever repudiates these sickening practices -- the USA! "disappearing" people! i never thought i'd live to see that day -- but until then, america is right up there with china and east germany, just another oppressive regime. sorry. :-X

they have a stasi museum in leipzig, where i went when i went to germany. very interesting. surprising factoid -- a bunch of the people i was with were actually NOSTALGIC for the old east german days (!). you know, i think they were little kids back then and everyone is nostalgic for their childhood. (i'm sure no one on this site is guilty of that!  ;) -- but i think a lot of it too is that reunification has been a lot bumpier than everyone was expecting. anyway, when we went to the stasi museum this one woman i was with was all, oh, well, whatever, why should we even think about that, it's water under the bridge. the east german days weren't as bad as they're making it seem. kinda shocking to me, that was.

they have a stasi museum in leipzig, where i went when i went to germany. very interesting. surprising factoid -- a bunch of the people i was with were actually NOSTALGIC for the old east german days (!). you know, i think they were little kids back then and everyone is nostalgic for their childhood. (i'm sure no one on this site is guilty of that!  ;) -- but i think a lot of it too is that reunification has been a lot bumpier than everyone was expecting. anyway, when we went to the stasi museum this one woman i was with was all, oh, well, whatever, why should we even think about that, it's water under the bridge. the east german days weren't as bad as they're making it seem. kinda shocking to me, that was.


Yes. It's an interesting phenomenon called "Ostalgie" , and it's even being marketed upon with the return of a lot of East German products (Mocha Fixx Gold, Vita-Cola, Nudossi which is GDR Nutella). There are even talks of a GDR theme park to give people an authentic taste of what life in the GDR was really like.

Reunification did not live up to what most Ossies expected. There are stilll vast differences between the West and the former GDR, and it all boils down to finances. There's a high unemployment rate in that part of the country (and if you are familiar with Germans, unemployment for them is much more than possible financial difficulty, it causes great low self-esteem). People are nostalgic for the old days because there was no unemployment and almost zero crime (but at such a price!). A lot of Ossies still feel a difference between themselves and West Germans and vice-versa, though this is less common among those who were very young when the wall came down.