As I See It

Food Stamp need is far worse than you assumed

By Craig McKinney
Posted 1/22/20

My sister, Linda Sullivan, is actively involved with a food bank in Bath, Maine, home of the Bath Iron Works, the largest employer in Maine. Bath is next to Brunswick, Maine, the home of Bowdoin …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in
As I See It

Food Stamp need is far worse than you assumed

Posted

My sister, Linda Sullivan, is actively involved with a food bank in Bath, Maine, home of the Bath Iron Works, the largest employer in Maine. Bath is next to Brunswick, Maine, the home of Bowdoin College. Bath and Brunswick are well off communities, yet my sister, from her experience with the food bank, said, “You have no idea how bad it is.” The food bank collects a lot of food, but it is never enough. The food bank supplements the Food Stamps that the recipients of the SNAP program receive.

My sister understandably opposes the Food Stamp cuts by Donald Trump because she does not want to see anyone, particularly children, go hungry.

She supports the efforts of 14 states to block Trump’s plan to cut Food Stamps. This plan is to have work requirements for those who receive the Food Stamps. The 14 states, liberal states, said that the plan “is unlawful, arbitrary and capricious.” The Trump plan would push an estimated 700,000 off of Food Stamps.

People can work and if, for instance, in some states make so little money on a $7.25 minimum wage, that they qualify for they and their children to get Food Stamps. Trump says “whoa.” He wants to cut the income requirements, hurting one in five struggling families.

My sister said, “You think it is worse.” But then pointed out that it will be worse because Trump wants to ax the free and reduced lunch and breakfast program, making one million children go hungry. Forty-percent of Highland’s students, and 39 percent of Marlboro’s students qualify for free or reduced priced lunches and breakfasts. That is a lot of students. In Marlboro it is close to 1,000 students come from families were their children qualify for either the free or reduce priced meals.

My sister used to be a Republican.

88 year-old great-grandfather Charley Busick is still coaching
Charley Busick retired 23 years ago as a Highland School District teacher, but he never retired as a coach.

A few years ago he retired as an Ulster County legislator, but he kept coaching. He is still a modified football coach, and an assistant girl’s basketball coach. He coaches middle school football in Marlboro with Frank Taddeo and Tom Corcoran, and girl’s varsity basketball in New Paltz with Jim Delmar. Before coaching at New Paltz he and Delmar had a lot of great championship teams in Highland.

Charley Busick is that rare great-grandfather, who is still coaching and the kids relate to that. At Highland the girls loved and looked up to and respected Charley Busick.

For girl’s basketball he taught the girls a lot of little things that added up to winning season after winning season. Do not be surprised if next year at age 89, he is still coaching.

New York State has fewest shootings after athletic events
A map of the 50 states of the United States identifies were all the shootings at school events occurred. One state, New York, had no shootings. Possibly because it has the toughest gun laws. No stray bullets at sporting events killed anyone in New York State in 2019. In a recent attack of Jewish people in Rockland County the attacker used a knife. The worst state to be in after a Friday night football game was Georgia. It, like many southern states, has very liberal gun laws.

A state with a bad gun history, Virginia, is about to make major gun law changes as the Democrats have taken over control of the state government. They will require background checks for all gun purchases in the state. A Republican protest is planned. Virginia was on the map for school shootings. Possibly in a future year it won’t be.

Virginia has been called the iron rail of guns to New York City. Now with background checks, criminals will have to find another state to buy their guns.

Where did my Social Security raise go?
I was to get a 1.6% increase in my Social Security, but it disappeared, eaten up by rising prescription costs. I only need two prescriptions, one a blood thinner and the other for blood pressure. The Federal government negotiates for prescription drugs for people who use Medicaid but not for the Medicare prescription drug plan.

Nancy Pelosi’s house has passed legislation again for the Federal government to negotiate the Medicare prescription drug plan. And Mitch McConnell’s Republican senate will not do it. My drugs, if purchased over the border in Canada, would cost a lot less. Moscow Mitch says senior citizens should pay more because the drug companies need the higher prices for the research costs to continue to make the best drugs. I think that is baloney. The real reason, in my estimation, is the drug companies finance the reelection campaigns of Republican senators. I feel that fellow American senior citizens and I are subsidizing lower drug costs for Canadians and people all over this world.

My Facebook friend, Caleigh Duggan of Clintondale, is a type one diabetic. She reported that a one-year’s supply of insulin in Detroit, Michigan, costs $18,000 and $1,800, right over the border, in Windsor, Canada. Moscow Mitch should go back to Russia.

2019 second warmest year, and there is worse data
Last year was the second warmest year in known history, but worse information looms in our future. In the Paris Accords 190 countries set goals to reduce their CO2 and other emissions. The bad news is “the world is far from meeting its climate goals.”

Because of the cumulative nature of Global Warming, this means 2020 in terms of climate crisis will be a worse year than 2019 and 2020 may be the warmest/hottest year in history. With this the ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic will continue to melt and the oceans will keep getting higher. In 2020 there may possibly be more record-breaking hurricanes, floods or droughts. Ask your local, county, state and Federal officials what are they doing about it?

One thing you can do is plant a tree. It eats up CO2.

A billion animals died in the fires of Australia.

The fires of Australia may have done more damage to the world’s eco-system than any Global Warming event in history as they killed a billion animals and may have wiped out hundreds of animal and plant types.

Australia is learning now what survived in the fires with a temperature of 122 degrees. It may be a year before Australia knows the full extent of the damage.

The fires destroyed farms and farm life. And food. It seems everyone knows about the koala, but what about the kangaroos.

Other areas like Indonesia have already suffered from a similar loss of life.

Every month for a year or more there will be research and stories about the loss of life in Australia.

It already is losing tourists.

If these were the worst fires in history, it means in 2020 we will face a lot of record-breaking climate change events.

Spanish Flu
This year’s flu apparently is worse than the average flu. In 1918 we had the Spanish flu. It was a killer. It got to Highland, Milton, Marlboro, and New Paltz by the local railroads and by boat to the river towns. The Highland Presbyterian Church was turned into a hospital. There were deaths in all of the listed towns, and all of those, who died, were young. Older people were protected because of the anti-bodies they had from having previous flus.

Annually I take the flu shot. It has been 101 years since we last had a killer flu. Anyone, who does not get the shot is gambling with their life. Next year after a century we could have another killer flu. I do not want to read next year about a local 10-year-old child, who died of a killer flu because the child did not get a flu shot.

A killer is the measles. I am glad that New York State requires a measles vaccine of every child who is attending a public or private school.