POSTED AT 10:00 AM BY ZAID JILANI
The everyday corruption of our government by Big Money has real consequences for Americans, many of whom are struggling to feed their families.
Take the farm bill that Congress spent time working on this week. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced an amendment to restore $4.5 billion in funding for the food stamp program, which assists some of the poorest Americans, by cutting “guaranteed profit for crop insurance companies from 14 to 12 percent and by lowering payments for crop insurers from $1.3 billion to $825 million.”
Her amendment, which would help poor Americans at the expense of corp insurers,was defeated along a 33-66 vote. The cuts to the food stamp will be going ahead in the name of deficit reduction.
But there was a separate effort in the Senate this week to save money that would’ve spared the poorest Americans and taken on corporate welfare instead.
Senators Jean Shaheen (D-NH), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced an amendment that would save up to $3.5 billion every single year by repealing and reforming various subsidies, tariffs, and other price supports that prop up the price of sugar on behalf of the Sugar Lobby.
