Utopia Talk / Politics / USDA cancels $11 mil for NC food banks

murder Member	Sat Mar 15 15:02:57 USDA cancels $11 million in federal funding for North Carolina food banks The State Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services received a letter from the United States Department of Agriculture earlier this month stating it will no longer receive funding for the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program. The nonprofit Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina is one of seven food banks that receives funding through federal programs like this one. “Our portion of that would have been $2 million,” said Amy Beros, the nonprofit’s CEO. “But statewide, it's an $11 million impact for the food banks across North Carolina. She said the $2 million in federal funds the nonprofit would have received would go directly to farmers for the purchase of fresh food that’s then distributed across the 34 counties they serve. Beros told WUNC there needs to be a call to action. “Please reconsider this program,” she said. “These are our farmers. These are neighbors across our counties that are in need, and this is going to be a huge impact economically.” Moving forward, the organization is looking for possible state funds to help mitigate the loss. In the 34 counties that the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina serves, Beros said hunger has been steadily increasing in recent years. http://www...ding-north-carolina-food-banks
kargen Member	Sat Mar 15 15:46:20 The program has only been in place for two years and can be funded by different agencies or at the state levels. Some of the programs associated with schools were overpaying for fresh produce so in part the program was ended because of the actions of the participants abusing it.
murder Member	Sat Mar 15 16:29:17 Right.
Rugian Member	Sat Mar 15 19:37:50 Murder Total federal spending was $4.45 trillion in 2019. In 2024 it was $6.94 trillion. A $2.49 trillion, or 55% increase, in just five years. The fact that you and the Democrats can look at that statistic and think "cool, nothing wrong there" is exactly why you people should never be allowed anywhere near the halls of power
murder Member	Sat Mar 15 20:01:07 The fact that you can know that people are going hungry and think to yourself "cool", is exactly why you'd go straight to hell if there was any such place.
Rugian Member	Sat Mar 15 22:17:46 To all of UP: Is there a single person on here who doesn't believe that murder suffers from innumeracy? I doubt it.
Sam Adams Member	Sun Mar 16 07:18:38 Oh no some stupid and or lazy people are poor and hungry its the end of the fucking world.
murder Member	Sun Mar 16 12:18:49 Oh no some rich people will have to pay taxes or Americans will go hungry. It's the end of the fucking world.
kargen Member	Sun Mar 16 16:00:58 those people would not be going hungry if the funds were not abused/stolen by greedy and crooked people between the source of the money and the people it was meant for. That is why going to a state or local area funding if we insist on the government doing it makes sense. Less levels of bureaucracy for the money to funnel through.
Dukhat Member	Sun Mar 16 18:04:31 There has been no proof of any of what Kargen says. We fucking operate in a hellscape of misinformation.
kargen Member	Sun Mar 16 18:42:08 even if there were no corruption every level takes a chunk just to pay their employees and expenses. The amount allotted gets smaller and smaller as it goes from us to the IRS to congress to parent department to inner department agency and that is before it even begins to get to the organization that will be using it. And you are a fucking idiot if you think there isn't waste and fraud almost every step of the way. This is from an article in 2003. The problem hasn't gone away and may actually be worse. "The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today announced a 10-point initiative to substantially curb abuse of the Medicare program by unscrupulous providers of power wheelchairs and other power mobility products who prey on Medicare beneficiaries. At the same time the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) said it is investigating the proliferation of durable medical equipment (DME) fraud cases involving inflated billings to Medicare, charges for equipment and supplies not delivered, and the falsification of documents to qualify beneficiaries for wheelchairs and other equipment that they often did not need. “Spending on power wheelchairs has increased nearly 450 percent over the last 4 years, an unprecedented growth in this benefit,” said CMS Administrator Tom Scully. “While many of these wheelchairs are provided by ethical suppliers and go to beneficiaries in need, we know that a great number of unscrupulous suppliers are promising free wheelchairs to beneficiaries who don’t need them. We are taking immediate action to stop these scams.”" Every government agency or department has this problem. Search for Covid Paycheck Protection Program fraud and you will find tons of things proving you are indeed an idiot thinking there is no abuse.
murder Member	Sun Mar 16 21:08:39 "even if there were no corruption every level takes a chunk just to pay their employees and expenses. The amount allotted gets smaller and smaller as it goes from us to the IRS to congress to parent department to inner department agency and that is before it even begins to get to the organization that will be using it." I assume your solution then would be for the poor to directly mug the wealthy that way there's an efficient transfer of funds. -
Sam Adams Member	Sun Mar 16 22:56:51 How about the poor get off their lazy butts and get jobs.
williamthebastard Member	Mon Mar 17 02:06:16 Hos about you grow up and stop telling the infantile lie that people choose poverty, you utter moron?
williamthebastard Member	Mon Mar 17 02:12:08 Your classism and craving to feel supreme is off the wall psychopathy
williamthebastard Member	Mon Mar 17 02:24:47 Of course, its a classic tenet of marxist theory that the petite bourgeoise (the class most closely associated with Nazism) have always felt the need to hate the proletariat in order to feel like theyre almost aristocrats.
williamthebastard Member	Mon Mar 17 04:04:21 The reason the petite bourgeois hate the proletariat is because they represent everything the petite bourgeois are afraid of. The PB are in a position where they make a decent enough wage to get the tiniest sniff of the luxuries the ruling class have, they can afford to stock their bathroom shelf with cheezy brand name perfumes that are aimed at their class and that they think the wealthy also have in their bathrooms, and their greatest fear is to lose this tenous position and ending up having to look for employment and buy cheap food at the supermarket, like the proletariat. The proletariat are the smelly scruffies who cant afford brand name perfumes, they cant impress the Joneses with brand names jeans, they are everything the PB fear would happen to them if their income dropped suddenly and they lost everything that is important to them, everything that makes them feel they have someone to look down upon from their elevated position of superiority.
patom Member	Mon Mar 17 05:13:56 Well damn, Trumps trip to the Super Bowl would have paid for this program and several more. Didn't even watch the whole game.
murder Member	Mon Mar 17 07:50:40 "How about the poor get off their lazy butts and get jobs." It's hard to tell if you're serious. Our economic system requires a certain level of unemployment in order to control inflation. People that are hungry aren't unemployed because they want to be. They are unemployed because when the labor market tightens, it drives up wages and prices, and then the Fed raises interest rates to stifle the economy and force layoffs. Are you new here?
murder Member	Mon Mar 17 07:56:37 "Hos about you grow up and stop telling the infantile lie that people choose poverty, you utter moron?" That may be the dumbest MAGA nonsense. The idea that people want to be poor. Not all people. Certainly not them. But other people do. Those people want to be poor because poverty is a life of ease and comfort. The poor have it so good that even the MAGAts would want to be poor if it wasn't for their darn work ethic. Also that the poor people (minorities) have more kids so they can get more free money from the government ... as if those checks even covered the necessities. And then of course they wonder why those people crime. -
Rugian Member	Mon Mar 17 08:02:52 WTB Soyúz nerushímyy respúblik svobódnykh Splotíla navéki velíkaya Rus. Da zdrávstvuyet sózdannyy vóley naródov Yedínyy, mogúchiy Sovétskiy Soyúz!
williamthebastard Member	Mon Mar 17 08:12:47 Have no idea what youre posting, you idjit, and I know its not worth a microsecond to googletranslate, but Marx was German (German Jew)
williamthebastard Member	Mon Mar 17 08:13:26 Marx and Stalin were as similar as Burke and Trump
williamthebastard Member	Mon Mar 17 08:16:07 Which is why every pol sci program in the world includes reading at least bits of Marx and not a pol sci program in the world includes anything Stalin wrote. And why every pol sci program in the world includes reading at least bits of what Burke wrote and not a single pol sci in the world will ever include studies of Trumps tweets
williamthebastard Member	Mon Mar 17 08:18:38 Ironically, your Trump god is closer to Stalin than Marx was
Rugian Member	Mon Mar 17 08:29:22 Murder Again, you don't seem to be grasping the underlying numbers here. Federal outlaws in 2019 were $4.45 trillion. If you applied a standard 3% inflation escalator to that number, you would have ended up with expected expenditures of $5.16 trillion in 2024. Instead, 2024 expenditures were $6.94 trillion. A full $1.78 trillion, or 35%, above what would be considered a normal growth rate. The fact that you don't seem to have an issue with this means one of two things - either you think the federal government was spending 35% too little in 2019, or you think that the federal government's spending needs have legitimately increased by a full 56% in just five years' time. Either conclusion is insane. This level of growth is not only unjustifiable, it's unsustainable. If it was to continue, the budget would be $10 trillion by 2028. Interest on the national debt is already one of the single largest line items in the federal budget - how much more can we borrow before it starts to present serious fiscal problems? As for your solution - taxes - the amounts that would be needed to plug the whole would outright kill the economy. This isn't a matter of taxing a few billionaires - everybody would need to pony up, and pony up hard. In short, runaway spending is bad, and should be defended.
murder Member	Mon Mar 17 08:58:12 "Federal outlaws in 2019 were $4.45 trillion. If you applied a standard 3% inflation escalator to that number, you would have ended up with expected expenditures of $5.16 trillion in 2024." Is all that money going to the food bank? Then how is it relevant. Do you want to cut spending? Because I can cut it for you. I could easily trim $300 billion a year just on the Department of Defense. -
williamthebastard Member	Mon Mar 17 09:12:52 "Stalin’s name meant "man of steel"" Man, what Trump would give to have a strongman name like that.
Rugian Member	Mon Mar 17 09:14:27 What a stupid argument.
williamthebastard Member	Mon Mar 17 10:05:33 With his thesis reduced to a single line, he concluded: "A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture." Stalin or Maga? The only way you can tell its not Maga is that its too well-written to be them.
Sam Adams Member	Mon Mar 17 11:51:13 Murder, laziness is certainly a component of being poor. Sure there are other reasons too. But if you have too many handouts, you certainly encourage laziness.
kargen Member	Mon Mar 17 17:06:24 "Well damn, Trumps trip to the Super Bowl would have paid for this program and several more. Didn't even watch the whole game." It always cracks me up when people make this argument. Most the cost would have happened anyway. The president is protected everywhere he goes. That detail is on him 24/7. The only additional cost would have been flight time and that would come in at about $300K. A good chunk of change but not something that would pay for those programs.
patom Member	Tue Mar 18 04:51:46 So the next thing you will say is that Trump left at halftime because he was saving the cost of housing his entourage for another night away from home. It might be that he doesn't own any hotels in New Orleans, and couldn't see not making a profit from charging the tax payers for the accommodations.
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