Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has no problem wasting taxpayer money to bailout corporations, but he is refusing to approve desperately needed funding for food aid programs even as millions of Americans find themselves unemployed.
Nearly 30 million Americans have filed unemployment claims in just the last few weeks as the pandemic forced many to apply for government aid such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the hope that they can get food stamps to help their families get by until things return to normal.
SNAP already benefits millions of families every year, and the program would be one of the fastest ways to get relief to people who need it the most. Plus, it’s just a fraction of the budget anyway, so it’s not like it would drive the deficit much higher. After all, Trump and the Republicans have already given trillions to the wealthy. A few billion to help the American people is the least they could do.
But that’s apparently not going to happen even as food banks start to run out of supplies and more Americans are struggling to put food on the table.
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You see, rather than help Americans by adding emergency funding to SNAP, McConnell told President Donald Trump that the new stimulus bill will not include any such funding.
According to Politico:
On a conference call with President Donald Trump and Republican senators on Sunday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Republicans that the only portion of the package not agreed to focused on coronavirus testing, according to a person briefed on the call. McConnell and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also said the money for state and local government funding, as well as food stamp aid requested by Democrats, would not be included in the deal.”
Millions of Americans will suffer because of this decision, no doubt about it. Meanwhile, it’s likely that a new round of funding for the Paycheck Protection Program will likely just mostly end up once again in the pockets of corporate executives and companies that don’t actually need it, depriving small businesses that do. Just ask Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow and his wife.
If Trump and Republicans really wanted to help the American people, they would include food aid funding in this bill. The fact that they are not speaks volumes.
Featured image via screen capture
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