Clearly, we are suffering from a national empathy deficit when struggling Americans are written off as only in it for a handout.
One of the most egregious lapses of the 113th Congress was its failure to pass an equitable, long-term, comprehensive Farm Bill in 2013. House and Senate conferees had been meeting to set food policy for the next several years and still hope to reach an agreement on a farm bill by early next year, despite yawning differences on the way the bill should be structured. Historically, bipartisan farm bills have passed by linking agricultural subsidies with food-stamp programs for practical and political reasons: rural legislators wanted the agricultural portions and urban members supported the supplemental food-assistance portion. Unfortunately, the farm bill proposals currently being championed by the House of Representatives would either jettison the meager assistance provided by the supplemental food-stamp program from the bill entirely or would dramatically reduce the numbers of beneficiaries to subsidize a small number of wealthy commercial operations.
