The United States House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill yesterday to cut food stamps and throw 3.8 million people out of the program in 2014. Is this an ill-conceived attention getting move? In response, Democrats protested and President Obama issued a veto threat.

In some statistics, we may be recovering here from the disastrous economic turn down of a few years ago, but the poor and middle class are still suffering. On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke reported that the economic stimulus put into place in 2008 would continue, stating the Fed wanted more time to "scrutinize the economy." When the Fed made this announcement that the stimulus would continue, the stock market shot up to new heights, so a lot of rich people got richer in one day. The gap between rich and poor keeps growing.

I am not an economist by any stretch of the imagination, but I think that what our government has to scrutinize - Mr. Bernanke is right to want to look more closely - is how to help the middle class and the poor benefit more from the stimulus. We should not be cutting food stamps or any program that helps the poor. According to recent studies, women are particularly at a disadvantage in this economy, stating 41% are either poor or on the brink of being poor. Wages for women still lag behind men. Does our Congress think its constituents want them to end food stamps? My hunch is that most people don't want them cut, they see the value in helpin g people get back on their feet. Food stamps and (hopefully, eventually) the stimulus help everyone-but perhaps the Fed can examine how to increase assistance to poor women. By helping women, who are often the heads of households and the sole breadwinners, we help children, we help the community, and we boost the economy.

Source: Forbes