For several years, one of my unvarnished joys is reading Paul Krugman's columns twice a week. As his fans are well aware, Krugman pulls no punches, and unlike so many of the pundit class, isn't afraid to call B.S. for what it is, B.S. Professor Krugman is angry about the cuts to the Food Stamp program both on the grounds of morality and on the grounds of being poor economic policy in both the short term and the long term. If you haven't already, take a little time from your busy day and read today's column.
Now longtime observers of the American political scene know that the truly idiotic and destructive ideas of the crackpot conservative GOP would never get enacted without help from the corporate wing of the Democratic party. That's where my congresswoman, Cheri Bustos (and the former babysitter of Senator Dick Durbin), enters the story. She represents the northwestern corner of the state of Illinois, sits on the House Agriculture Committee, and, yes she voted to cut the food stamp program.
In today's column, Paul Krugman notes the immorality of cutting recipients from the food stamp program since they weren't at fault for melting down the economy.
First, as millions of workers lost their jobs through no fault of their own, many families turned to food stamps to help them get by — and while food aid is no substitute for a good job, it did significantly mitigate their misery.
I guess Cheri Bustos has decided that it is okay for the families of Sensata workers to go hungry. Bain Capital shipped their jobs overseas and forced them to train their own replacements. The story of Sensata was a major theme of your campaign against Tea Party Republican Bobby Schilling. You earned lots of free media including appearances on national cable TV shows like
The Ed Show. I guess if Dot Turner's family goes without dinner tonight, they can at least bask in the glow of knowing that she got to
attend the State of the Union speech as your guest. They and the rest of the Sensata families have served their purpose as props for Cheri's 2012 campaign. Well the election is over so I guess you can throw them on the trash heap and cozy up to the
campaign donors that Steve Israel and the DCCC provide to you as a "Frontline" member.
In another section of his column, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman gives a short economics lesson in the interconnectedness of the economy and why austerity measures such as these cuts to the food stamp program are a self policy than only leads to a drag on economic growth.
But there’s more. Why is our economy depressed? Because many players in the economy slashed spending at the same time, while relatively few players were willing to spend more. And because the economy is not like an individual household — your spending is my income, my spending is your income — the result was a general fall in incomes and plunge in employment. We desperately needed (and still need) public policies to promote higher spending on a temporary basis — and the expansion of food stamps, which helps families living on the edge and let them spend more on other necessities, is just such a policy.
Compare the prescriptions of Paul Krugman with Cheri Bustos'. This is how she begins a
piece written for the supposedly non-partisan "No Labels" group.
Like many people across our great country, I learned at a young age that balancing the family budget and living within our means is a question of values.
That is why as a freshman member of Congress, I am disappointed with the recent lack of bipartisanship when it came to putting forth a serious budget that reduces the deficit in a balanced way while protecting the middle class.
To whom should we listen, a Nobel prize winning economist or a "No Labels Congressional Problem Solver" with ties to Steve Israel and the DCCC who can't help but
"sell out" and provide "bipartisan" cover to destructive GOP ideas.
Krugman talks about the mentality used to justify the austerity measures pushed by conservatives and so called moderates.
Look, I understand the supposed rationale: We’re becoming a nation of takers, and doing stuff like feeding poor children and giving them adequate health care are just creating a culture of dependency — and that culture of dependency, not runaway bankers, somehow caused our economic crisis.
Does she agree with Iowa firebrand
Steve King that food stamps are stimulative and are nothing more than a plot to expand the "dependency class"?
How does Cheri Bustos describe the process in which the Ag Committee cut food stamps? Does she agreee with Steve King of Iowa that the cuts won't be noticeable? Does she mention the acrimonious arguments within the committee, or how members were hurling quotes of scripture to buttress their positions?
Basically the members of "No Labels" are united against the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party," and they can agree that it is okay to let people starve in an underperforming economy with millions of long tern unemployed. Her votes to cut food stamps and her vote to approve of Keystone XL along with having the gall to beg for money from the grassroots that same week has this congresswoman of 100 days feeling the heat from local and even national blogs such as Howie Klein's DownWithTyranny!
I'll end this piece with part of Howie Klein's great analysis. You should read the entire piece.
It doesn't look like anyone is going to primary her, but what I expect will happen in 2014 is that Democratic base voters will just stay home-- the way they did in 2010-- and she'll lose the seat. Then the DCCC can start the whole process all over again-- recruiting a garden variety Democrat with no ideas and no strongly-held values (at least not on economic justice issues), persuading them that to raise money they have to sell out to Wall Street and that to win reelection, they have to vote with the Republicans.
To bad Bustos does believe in Democratic beliefs strong enough to act upon them. If you feel strongly enough give her a call. Her D.C. office phone is 202-225-5905
If you live in her district, her Peoria office phone is (309) 966-1813. Her Rock Island office phone is (309) 786-3406. The Rockford office phone is (815) 968-8011.