Heartless House Republicans and Tea Party members yesterday voted to cut nearly $4 billion a year from food stamps allowing states to put broad new work requirements in place for many food stamp recipients and to test applicants for drugs.

The vote was 217 to 210, largely along party lines.

Republican leaders, under pressure from Tea Party-backed conservatives, said the bill was needed because the food stamp program, which costs nearly $80 billion a year, had grown out of control.

But while Washington Republicans and Tea Party politicians try to take food out of the mouth of America’s poor they are turning a blind eye to bloated and corrupted items such as the Farm  Bill and the current cost to the United States for its recent never-ending wars.

Historically, the food stamp program has been part of the Farm Bill, a huge piece of legislation that had routinely been passed every five years, authorizing financing for the nation’s farm and nutrition programs. Separating Food Stamps from the Farm Bill saved it from cuts which would have affected some Washington GOP politicians  including Vicky Hartzler of Missouri, Michele Bachmann of Minnesota,  and South Dakota Republican Kristi Noem who receive millions of dollars a year in subsidies despite their enormous net worth’s.

And lets not forget that direct federal spending on the war through 2012 will reach $823 billion, surpassing the $738 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars the U.S. spent on the Vietnam War, the Congressional Research Service estimated in a March 29 report. Only World War II had a higher direct cost, $4.1 trillion, in current dollars. Much of that money going into the pockets of the the GOP backed war machine which in turn kicks back and supports the Republican and Tea Party.

Once again the Republican Party and the newly formed Tea Party attack the poor viciously for pennies while pocketing millions, and perhaps billions of dollars.

This has got to stop.