Letter to the Editor: Cutting off food benefits latest example of cruelty

Dear editor:

Today (Monday, Nov. 10) is the 41st day of the shutdown. This week I saw cruelty in full force. President Trump withheld SNAP benefits; he also sued to not pay those benefits.  I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, as I saw at the town hall with our representative.  

People hooting and clapping that we had literally taken food from the poorest of God’s people.  Oh, that’s right. We stopped it to help our own people by cutting off food benefits. Two-hundred, fifty-seven million dollars to renovate the Kennedy Center while he cut food and healthcare benefits. 

So people are hungry. The cost of food, housing, utilities and healthcare are rising — mine went up 500%, thank you very much. They also gutted the Office of Special Education, serving 7.4 million students.  He also allowed Qatar to co-habituate a military base in Idaho. You know, the ones who fund Hamas. I guess a new plane will open the doors, so to speak. 

He also wants $230 million of taxpayer money. He also ended the US hunger report. The USDA will stop collecting and releasing statistics of food insecurity — kind of the if-you-don’t-look-for-it-it-doesn’t-exist, and for a finer point, 1.1 million people have lost their jobs so far this year. Not since the pandemic and the Great Recession has this happened. If manufacturing comes back, it will be robots running them, not people.  

Locally the 10 cent gas tax didn’t go through, but look for food and state taxes.  The Alliance Defending Freedom, the group responsible for ending Roe, has called our WFC leaders hence the Care Act to make pregnancy crisis centers untouchable. 

No oversight though millions of dollars sent to them in which, little actually goes to the actual women, no real medical personnel with some exceptions.  So instead of addressing our lack of maternal/infant this is what they do is to make pregnancy crisis centers untouchable. 

Let’s also talk about the elephant in the room, Rachel Rodriguez Williams, who served as the executive director of the one in Cody, helped with the one in Powell and is head of the WFC.

For our seniors who don’t have a driver’s license, I guess the new voter suppression bill is aimed at denying them the vote.  

Respectfully

Lynn Meier

Basin