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More than 1 million children lost access to food benefits after Trump bill passed
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2026
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Food "benefit". 🤡
Americans are such clowns in their rhetoric. Everything gets twisted.
Food is not a "benefit".
"Benefit" is one of the less inflammatory descriptions. Republicans typically demonize these programs by referring to them as 'entitlements'.
The word "entitlement" is one that the cons have loved to weaponize - they make it sound like the people getting entitlements are entitled little brats (or welfare queens, as Ronnie Raygun put it), when it's about the legal framework of those programs.
They love to twist language - see their use of the word "elite" as another great example. People with ungodly amounts of money don't count as elite in their view, but someone that cracks open a book is an elite.
Free food from the government is absolutely a benefit. In fact many workplaces offer free meals as a benefit.
It's actually a human right as defined by the UN - https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
Article 25
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control
Goes very nicely with
Article 22
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality
Does the US uphold human rights? No. That's the main issue here.
So you believe everyone should get free government provided food, clothing, and housing?
Then by your definition there’s not a single country in the world that upholds human rights.
Should Elon musk be given free food, clothes, and housing by the government?
Yes. And Elon already is wildly subsidized by the government...
So you agree that not a single country on earth, not even the communist ones, uphold human rights, correct?
You think a trillionaire should be given free food, clothes, and housing by the government. That’s absurd.
Also who is paying for all this food, clothing, and housing? What type of housing? Do you get free housing wherever you decide to move at any time? How much food do you get per week? What clothes do you get?
I am pointing out that the government already subsidized Elon. What he decides to do with that money has been largely left up to him. So yes, we the people have provided Elon with the housing and feeding of his questionable ideas in the form of Twitter.
Elon musk isn’t subsidised by the government - his companies are. His companies that employ how many tens of thousands of people?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think government subsidies should be a thing without taking part ownership for every $1 of subsidy, but that’s neither here nor there.
No one is owed free food, clothing, or housing.
So your argument is everyone needs to form themselves into a corporation so the government can then subsidize not them but their corporation thus letting the sweet largesse trickle down on the people?
I’m not sure you understand how subsidies work. Actually no I know you don’t.
If you want to start a business and get subsidies from the government go for it. You don’t just get rich personally.
Yes.
That’s absurd. Who is paying for all this free stuff? Who is making it? If you want to move state, do you get a free house there as well?
If you work a 40 hour week you should recieve food, shelter, medicine and entertainment.
I believe this is achievable thanks to the incredible innovation over the past 2 centuries.
What's absurd is the current system. Where billionaires can extract from nations without giving anything back. It's absurd that food for children is being cut to bomb children on the other side of the world.
What I believe may sound absurd to you. But look at our reality. It's fucking crazy!!
Didn’t answer my question. Who is paying for it all? Who is making it? If you move do you get another free house?
The collective pays for it through tax collection. The people who already make it will still make it. If you wanted to move you would give up your current house and trade it for a different one.
Why can you not imagine a better, fairer society?
Do you even understand the scale of the extra taxation that would be needed to provide everyone with free food, clothing, and housing?
You’d be taxing everyone 95% of their income lol You’d also have to have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of empty housing vacancies in every single city at all times to accommodate people moving.
Yes! It would be extremely difficult but that's the dream!
There's already millions of empty homes due to capitilism. 100% tax on any income above $100,000,000 would be a start lol
That would be a communism level nightmare that would do nothing but end up how communism always does - extreme poverty for all but the ruling elites, millions of deaths.
Also virtually no one has an income per year of over $100 mil, by design.
When you incentivise people not to work, unsurprisingly a massive percentage of the population will happily not work. This means income tax dries up, jobs disappear, productivity plummets, and the rich people whose companies produce everything just say fuck it because the government is trying to confiscate all their money, close their businesses, and move to an island. Then virtually all produce and products are gone, there’s no work, and as such there’s no tax revenue at all, and the entire population is dependent on the government getting that tax revenue.
So you see the issue?
Those things are happening right now under capitalism. No system is immune from corruption. That's why it's so important to stamp it out when you see it.
No one should earn over $100mil full stop. The design is flawed.
I don't really see the issue. With all our technological advancements, people shouldn't have to work as much as they do. I would love to see people have more time off. Yes some would sit around and do nothing, maybe they need the rest, but I think the majority would get bored and do something they actually wanted to do. In would be a net positive for society. Parents could spend more time with their kids.
I do understand how hard it would be to achieve. But I believe it's possible.
It’s not possible because again, it all depends on the government taking infinitely more tax revenue than they do now, while incentivising people to not work and not pay tax, meaning less tax revenue than before……while needing significantly more…..there’s no way in which you can get triple figure multiples more tax revenue by incentivising people to not pay tax.
The idea that earnings should be capped is ridiculous, and nothing but jealousy. Anyone earning that much a year is pretty much guaranteed to be providing tens/hundreds of thousands of job, hundreds of billions/trillions in revenue and taxes, and deserves every bit of that money. Those people generally took massive risks, financially/socially/relationship/lifestyle/etc wise, and it paid off.
The last thing anyone should be doing is disincentivising people from doing that.
That's just not true though.
I understand the importance of a CEO. It's a difficult job and requires dedication. But how can you honestly say they deserve to earn x1000 times more than someone who works just as hard but doesn't have the right connections.
Then there are shareholders. They use their wealth to aquire more wealth. Yes they make decisions about where the company should make investment but they also only care about one thing, portfolio growth. This leads to loopholes in tax laws, private equity gutting companies, attacks on workers rights and criminal cover ups.
No one earns a billion fairly. Just because you are well off doesn't mean you deserve to be. The notion that 'these people create jobs' is a cop out. These people need to be reigned in.
I've seen figures saying total billionaire worth is $21trillion. Divided equally, that would give every person on Earth $2500. I don't know about you but that would help me enourmously. And imagine the difference it would make to someone from Iraq or Sudan.
Obviously it wouldn't make sense to just hand it out like that. It's just an example to show how much wealth is owned by those who don't actually need it. They're not even doing anything useful with it and would still be unfathomably rich if they gave some away.
The decisions of a ceo affect the entire company. Every single thing about that company, from production to profit to employees jobs is affected by every decision they make. They can sink the entire company, or they can make everyone money and improve the company and hire more people, give raises/benefits/promotions/etc for example.
Their responsibility is legitimately worth 1000x those of some other employees. Now don’t get me wrong, lots of CEO pay packets are absurd - but it’s what shareholders and board members feel they are worth if they accomplish their targets.
The notion that no one earns a billion fairly is ridiculous. Jeff Bezos for example made the biggest, most advanced marketplace in the history of the world, that allows people to get almost anything they want delivered to their door within 48 hours. How did he not earn a billion dollars “fairly”? Elon musk made electric cars that can drive themselves. How did he not earn it “fairly”? He has made thousands of people millionaires.
We don’t get to police how people spend their money. If billionaires want to horde it and do a Scrooge mcduck every morning, that’s their right. What you should focus on instead of being jealous and angry is making billions yourself and giving it all away if that’s what you think should be done with that sort of money.
We have no right to tell others how to spend the money they earned.
We police how people spend their money all the time! Taxes! Laws. Life is full of resitrictions. Just because you have money it doesn't mean you're above the law.
By law you must also contribute to society through taxes. How is it fair that a handful of individuals can buy the presidency to reduce their tax contributions. How is it fair that their companies can lobby the government to bend/break the rules.
Musk and Bezos have done well. They had innovative ideas and expanded them incrdibly well. They deserve to live in luxury. They could give half their wealth away and still live in luxury.
I still want to live in a meritocracy where good ideas are rewarded. But the amount of power these individuals have is monstrous. Some of their wealth must be taken away.
So you don't pay for food in your country?
Stupid take.
I'm saying SNAP is funded through national effort and international cooperation. Which USians are entitled to as part of their basic human rights.
No it is absolutely not a benefit, but a bad solution to a problem that shouldn't exist.
A more proper non propagandist name would be basic food aid.
The reasons people need food aid are typically things like not being able to get a job or being sick. Needing food aid is not a "privilege" or "benefit", it's a sickness of a malfunctioning society.
To call it a "benefit" is propaganda to make it seem like an evil system that cater to the rich is benevolent.
Free government provided food is a benefit. This is not even remotely debatable. It’s a benefit provided to low income earners. The middle class don’t get it. The upper class don’t get it. That would make it a benefit.
I think you’re getting stuck on the word “benefit”, hence your use of the word “privilege”. Government Benefits are not privileges. The word benefit has multiple meanings, one of which is an advantage or profit - but the other is a payment or gift made by an employer/state/etc.
Being born into a wealthy family comes with lots of benefits.
Being poor qualifies you for some government benefits.
The word benefit in those 2 sentences does not mean the same thing.
I don’t get any government benefits because I earn too much money. Free food would be a benefit.
This is a thread about the US governement taking food away from children and you're getting hung up on semantics.
It's good to know you're privileged enough not to need support from the governement. Others are not so lucky.
Im “getting hung up on semantics” because the word being used incorrectly is literally the entire point of this chain of comments. Words have meanings, and “government benefits” are not the same as “privileges” or just “benefits”.
Food stamps are a government benefit. Full stop. End of story.
Ok fair. SNAP is a government benefit if you must use the technical term. It's not the end of the story though.
I think there is some truth in the original comment of this thread. They are called government benefits to make people believe they are not entitled to them. When in reality they are your right as a human being.
Free food is not a human right.
It is. It may not be provided in many countries and that is something we should aim to fix, but as a human being you are entitled to free food.
No you’re not lol. Why do you think you are?
I suppose the caveat is, you have to be unable to afford it to recieve it for free. Like you, I have a high enough income that I'm not entitled to free food. It's good to know that it's available if i fall on hard times though. I'd like to see it expanded not reduced.
And that’s why it’s a government benefit and not a human right. Human rights apply to everyone at all times.
From what I’ve read, the new rules are trying to make sure that only people who really need the “free” food are getting it. If the states won’t keep records and means test to ensure this, their federal funding will reduce and the state will have to use their own money to make up the difference.
As someone who detests government waste and fraud, that sounds like a good thing. Tax revenue isn’t something that should be wasted. Every person getting handouts from tax money should be properly vetted to make sure they actually qualify/need it.
Every cent of government spending should be audited and publicly available. The only people against that are people who benefit from the waste/fraud.
Ok yeah I see what you mean. Definitely agree about government spending being auditable and public. And obviously wasted taxes are bad. But I'd argue taxes are never wasted on feeding the population, especially children!
If they’re being spent feeding children who live in households who can afford to feed them but are fraudulently getting taxpayer funded food, then that’s taking food off the plate of a kid who’s parents genuinely can’t afford it. That’s what needs to stop, and that’s what the new laws are trying to do - make sure the money goes to those who need it.
Does the US need a war with Iran. Does it need to invest so heavily in AI. I'd say no. I'd say that money would be far better spent providing support to the next generation. Or literally anything else. Green tech, healthcare, education are far more worthy causes than tax cuts for the rich.
We all needed someone to go to war with Iran, because Iran have been preparing to launch a war on the entire western world for decades, and no one has done anything to stop them.
I don’t think people on here understand the situation with Iran. They despise the west. They want everyone in the west dead. They have been enriching uranium, despite even previous democrat administrations saying they must never be allowed to while doing nothing to actually enforce it, to make nukes to launch at the west. It’s not to protect themselves, it’s to attack.
There is no next generation if the west is a nuclear desert.
Iran hates the West because the West has been invading the Middle East for hundreds of years. The crusades were a horrendous time. Muslims and Jews lived fairly peacefully in Palestine before the West sent the WW2 european jewish refugees there and created the state of Israel. They did this to establish a base of influence in the region and further the US imperialist conquest. Maybe Iran wants nukes just so the West will leave it alone. Iran is not the aggressor. You are not immune to propaganda. Neither am I of course, I spent many years thinking the West were the good guys.
Iran is an aggressor. They will literally tell you this themselves lol
The west don’t want everyone who doesn’t have their same religious beliefs dead. Can’t say the same about Iran and most of the Middle East.
You are not immune to propaganda. The people of Iran do not want all Christians dead, they do not want all Jews dead. They want peace in the region. The US government and it's allies make that very difficult.
I’m not immune to propaganda, though I’m smart enough to see through almost all of it at least, but I’m also not just going to ignore facts. Their official religion calls for the death of everyone that doesn’t follow Islam, among other grotesque and deplorable things, and their regime has a pretty good history of trying to make good on that.
Dude wtf are you talking about?? Islam does not call for the death of non believers. You've fallen for propaganda. Muslims are not your enemy.
It literally does 🤣
Where? Show me.