British Defence Secretary wants to cut benefits, not troops

British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has warned he will resist further cuts to the armed forces in Chancellor George Osborne's forthcoming spending review.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he said other Conservative Cabinet ministers believed that the greatest burden of any cuts should fall on the welfare budget. There was, he said, a “body of opinion within Cabinet who believes that we have to look at the welfare budget again”, and that “we should be seeing welfare spending falling” as a result of rising employment levels.

More on The Independent

Benefits can do more harm than good for child poverty

Higher benefits for British poor families could do more harm than good, Iain Duncan Smith claimed last night, as feckless parents will only spend the extra money on themselves. In an attack on Labour’s child poverty targets, the Work and Pensions Secretary said youngsters’ lives were not necessarily improved by bigger handouts.

He claimed that any extra cash doled out to dysfunctional families may simply be frittered away on drugs and gambling rather than being used to improve the lives of children. Mr Duncan Smith's comments come after it was estimated that measures introduced by the Chancellor's Autumn Statement would push 100,000 more children into poverty.

Mail Online

GOP to Hungry Americans: You Can Starve

Hunger and starvation is no excuse to welch off the Federal Government.

That's the Republican response, in any event, to how to deal with the budget deficit. While Republicans defend billions of dollars in subsidies for Big Oil and propose further tax cuts for the wealthy, they see food aid for hungry people here and around the world as a bad idea. Bug Guvmint should get out of the business of keeping people from starving. Now isn't that special:

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans are targeting domestic nutrition programs and international food assistance as they try to control spending in next year's budget.

In a bill released Monday, Republicans proposed cutting $832 million - 11 percent from this year's budget for the Women, Infants and Children program, which provides food for low-income mothers and children. The 2012 budget proposal for food and farm programs also includes a decrease of almost $457 million, or 23 percent, from international food assistance.

Full story on AlterNet

Also see Hunger in America on mikemalloy.com