Whazzahmattahwiduss?

Whazzahmattahwiduss?

Is there a famine going on that I ain’t noticed? Are we running out of stuff to eat?

If that’s so, how come HyVee is still printing sale flyers? How is it folks on TV keep trying to sell me everything from taco chips to tutti-frutti yoghurt cups?

If there ain’t enough food, how come grocery store shelves are full to overflowing and every third one of us is really, really fat, so fat they talk about it in medicalese – obesity. One out of three of us is easting so much we may be dead soon.

Even so, somehow, we just gotta be running out of food…

At least we’d better be.

Because if we’ve got all this food to spare, how come we seem so willing to let kids go hungry?

And old people?

And folks working really, really hard at jobs that don’t pay much?

And moms working really, really hard to take care of their kids and not getting paid at all?

If they’re going hungry, how come we’re all getting so fat?

And how come we may just stand by while our government – run by the folks we vote in and out of office – is planning to let a whole lot more folks go hungry – 35,000 right here in Minnesota.

Y’see, our federal government, under the leadership and direction of Donald J. Trump, is proposing a rule change that will take food stamps out of the hands of more than 3 million poor people, most of them kids.

Yeah, the gilded master of Mar-a-Lago is taking the Post Toasties off the tables of families struggling to make a living. And the move is backed whole- and hard-heartedly by a Congressful of bible-thumpin’ Republicans who are ever-eager to proclaim their love for Jesus out on the campaign trail, but when it comes time to follow His example and feed the hungry they’re skedaddling off in the opposite direction. Heck, if they had been there when He fed the 5,000 they would have sold tickets and kept the leftovers for themselves.

So now,  after giving the richest folks in the country the biggest tax break in memory, they’re angling to break the budgets of the working poor.

Yeah, I said working. Under the proposed rule a Minnesota family of 3 could make no more than $27,024 or lose their Supplimental Nutrition Assisstance, a.k.a. food stamps.

Right now the allowed annual income tops out at $34,296 … that’s $16.49 per hour for full-time work.

So what does that mean? Well, that yearly maximum comes out to $2,858 a month. Average rent for a 2-bedroom apartment will run $1,200 a month. If it’s a single mother with two kids, figure day care at a minimum of $1,000 a month, which leaves about $658 a month to put shoes on their feet, heat in the house, gas in the car and a trip to the doctor when the baby gets sick. Food on the table? Well, which one of the above are you gonna give up?

Yeah, that’s the life of luxury all those well-fed, well-lobbied politicos tell us poor people live.

And how many working people aren’t making $16.50 an hour? Aren’t making anything close?

In a country where we have way more food than we ought to be eating, we’re looking at letting 18,000 more Minnesota kids go hungry.

That’s on top of the nearly 165,000 Minnesota kids who already don’t have enough to eat.

That’s one hell of a way to curb childhood obesity.

Really, whazzahmattahwiduss?

What is the matter, indeed?