Still hungry

If you receive food stamps, your benefits got reduced by about 5 percent today. Good riddance, guy in California who practically volunteered to be conservatives’ poster child for living large on the dole. Sorry things just got even harder, struggling families who make up the vast majority of food stamps recipients.

No, legislators didn’t Come Together Across the Aisle to Deal With Our Deficit Crisis. Congress is still dysfunctional, and there still isn’t a deficit crisis. This is not a new decrease but the end of a temporary increase: food stamps got a bump as part of the 2009 Recovery Act. This bump was intended as temporary fiscal stimulus, not a permanent program change, so they gave it an expiration date.

Small comfort if your tight grocery budget just got tighter. Our economic recovery remains slow and mostly jobless. The economy still needs stimulus, and people still need help buying food. Food stamps are exceptionally well suited for both tasks.