Buried Provision in House GOP Bill Would Cut Off Food Stamps to Entire Families if One Member Strikes

Wednesday 23 March 2011
by: Zaid Jilani |
ThinkProgress | Report

Buried Provision in House GOP Bill Would Cut Off Food Stamps to Entire Families if One Member Strikes
June Jacobs-Cuffee at a supermarket in Brooklyn on Thursday, June 19, 2008. Cuffee and her son share $120 a month in food stamps. (Photo: Andrew Henderson / The New York Times)

All around the country, right-wing legislators are asking middle class Americans to pay for budget deficits caused mainly by a recession caused by Wall Street; they are attacking workers’ collective bargaining rights, which has provoked a huge Main Street Movement to fight back.

Now, a group of House Republicans is launching a new stealth attack against union workers. GOP Reps. Jim Jordan (OH), Tim Scott (SC), Scott Garrett (NJ), Dan Burton (IN), and Louie Gohmert (TX) have introduced H.R. 1135, which states that it is designed to “provide information on total spending on means-tested welfare programs, to provide additional work requirements, and to provide an overall spending limit on means-tested welfare programs.”

Much of the bill is based upon verifying that those who receive food stamps benefits are meeting the federal requirements for doing so. However, one section buried deep within the bill adds a startling new requirement. The bill, if passed, would actually cut off all food stamp benefits to any family where one adult member is engaging in a strike against an employer:

(More here.)