NYT: Callous Choices in the House [View all]

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For months, House Republicans have been trying to wriggle out of the agreement they made in August that will force deep cuts in military spending. Now we know how they propose to do it: They will take tens of billions out of programs for the poorest Americans, particularly food stamps, along with health care for the middle class.

The House Agriculture Committee voted on Wednesday to cut $33 billion over the next decade out of food stamps. That would immediately end benefits for two million people, and reduce benefits for the remaining 44 million people who use the program. A family of four would find their benefits lowered by $57 a month beginning in September, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The committee trimmed job training for food-stamp recipients by 72 percent; 280,000 students would no longer be eligible for free meals.

To understand how callous this vote was, consider the choices the committee and the full House could have made. The budget deal reached last August — the one Republicans triggered with their disastrous debt-ceiling crisis — calls for a painful sequester of $600 billion to both military and domestic spending over a decade. The Republicans could have accepted the military cuts they had agreed to or they could have joined with Democrats in reducing the cuts by raising taxes on the rich.

Instead, the 2013 budget, written by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, put all the cuts on the domestic side. Representative Mike Conaway, a Texas Republican, explained that the Constitution requires Congress to pay for defense but that food stamps and other domestic programs were lower priorities.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/24/opinion/callous-choices-in-the-house.html?src=recg