Tag: mean-spirited

Republicans want to stop 500,000 schoolkids from having a free lunch

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Ellen O’Nan/AP

❝ The Trump administration recently proposed changes to the food stamp program, but omitted the fact they would make half a million children ineligible for free school meals…

The Department of Agriculture outlined an overhaul of the food stamp program that would reduce the number of Americans that are eligible for those benefits…

❝ Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor, notes the proposal neglects to note the USDA estimates more than 500,000 children would lose their eligibility for free school meals. Currently, families receiving food stamps are automatically entered into a program that provides children with free breakfast and lunch at school.

❝ “…However, when the rule was published in the Federal Register, the Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) did not include discussion of the rule’s impact on free school meal eligibility.”

The whole truth and nothing but the truth doesn’t mean diddly-squat to the corrupt Republican Party afraid to challenge their Führer.

Who’s happy, who’s not!

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❝ If you want to go to your happy place, you need more than cash. A winter coat helps — and a sense of community.

A new report shows Norway is the happiest country on Earth, Americans are getting sadder, and it takes more than just money to be happy.

❝ Norway vaulted to the top slot in the World Happiness Report despite the plummeting price of oil, a key part of its economy. Income in the United States has gone up over the past decade, but happiness is declining.

The United States was 14th in the latest ranking, down from No. 13 last year, and over the years Americans steadily have been rating themselves less happy.

“It’s the human things that matter. If the riches make it harder to have frequent and trustworthy relationship between people, is it worth it?” asked John Helliwell, the lead author of the report and an economist at the University of British Columbia in Canada — ranked No. 7…

❝ Norway moved from No. 4 to the top spot in the report’s rankings, which combine economic, health and polling data compiled by economists that are averaged over three years from 2014 to 2016. Norway edged past previous champ Denmark, which fell to second. Iceland, Switzerland and Finland round out the top 5…

❝ Study co-author and economist Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University said in a phone interview from Oslo that the sense of community, so strong in Norway, is deteriorating in the United States.

“We’re becoming more and more mean spirited. And our government is becoming more and more corrupt. And inequality is rising,” Sachs said, citing research and analysis he conducted on America’s declining happiness for the report. “It’s a long-term trend and conditions are getting worse.”

Somehow, I don’t think folks betting on “Make America Great” know crap about what brings happiness to ordinary American families, working-class individuals.

Rich get richer – and meaner

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Even as the income gap widens, the wealthiest Americans are giving a smaller share of their income to charity, while low- and middle-income people are donating a larger share, according to an extensive analysis of Internal Revenue Service data conducted by the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

The Chronicle…said in a report released on Monday that Americans who earned $200,000 or more reduced the share of their income they gave to charity by 4.6 percent from 2006 to 2012. Those earning less than $100,000 donated 4.5 percent more of their income, the report said…

The Chronicle’s editor, Stacy Palmer, said that wealthy donors were more likely to support the arts and higher education and less likely to give to social-service charities…

They’ve learned to think like Republicans. They contribute to services which add to their own quality of life. That doesn’t include the overwhelming portion of the population struggling to make a living.

Changes in giving patterns were most pronounced in major cities, where the percentage of income that residents donated dropped markedly between 2006 and 2012, according to the report.

In Philadelphia and Buffalo, New York, the share of income given to charity fell by more than 10 percent, and there was a 9 percent drop in Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Washington, D.C.

The cities where residents gave the smallest share of their income to charity were Hartford, Connecticut; Providence, Rhode Island and San Jose, California.

My characterization of Republican ideology, ethos, rejection of concern for those in need isn’t a snap judgement. It includes all the foolish folks who look upon class distinctions as irrelevant. Stack up those who identify thoroughly with the wealthy without differentiation between the head start of inherited wealth – and patent leather-libertarians who only care that they succeeded regardless of the greater scheme of economics and the distribution of wealth.

In other words, I’m not surprised by this report. The response from our wealthy class and their Republican flunkies is also predictable: this must be a flawed report and in any case it will be ignored.