Food Stamps or Jobs?

White House officials are trying to slam GOP efforts to cut food-stamp funding, even as President Barack Obama told wealthy donors that he won’t compromise on his ambitious, government-fattening progressive policies that have failed to reverse the nation’s unemployment and poverty.

The food stamp program “is one of our nation’s strongest defenses against poverty and hunger,” Cecilia Muñoz, head of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council declared Tuesday.

Food-stamp cuts “would be harsh and unacceptable at any time, but particularly so as we enter the Thanksgiving and holiday [Christmas] season,” Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council, told reporters during a midday phone conference.

The officials oppose the GOP’s efforts to cut spending on food stamps, which has grown sharply under Obama’s economic policies and amid the recession. The number of participants in the food program, dubbed SNAP, has jumped from 28.2 million in 2008 to 46.6 million in 2012, boosting the cost to taxpayers from $35 billion in 2008 to roughly $80 billion in 2012.

The GOP’s planned cuts will deny school lunches to 210,000 kids, and meals to four million Americans, Sperling claimed.

But Sperling admitted that the economy is “still coming back” from the 2008 crash, after five years of Obama’s government-first policies.

The Democrats’ attempted slam on the GOP came as Obama spent two days dining with wealthy high-tech and entertainment stars and executives in Hollywood and San Francisco, while he flattered them in pursuit of political donations to advance his political agenda.

In several speeches, Obama defended his collectivist policy during the fundraising trip, saying the nation’s success “happens because, collectively, we come together and we’re willing to work for it.”

“More than anything, what we need right now in this country, is a sense that we are in this together,” he told a fundraiser hosted by former basketball star Magic Johnson at his house in Beverly Hills, Ca.

Obama also insisted that his policies are correct, despite the nation’s high unemployment and growing debt. ”Most of the time, we’ve got good answers. We know what works. And what’s stopping us is a failure of our politics and a lack of ambition,” he declared.

Obama dismissed evidence that his policies are failing. “You’ve just got to keep on going. … It requires endurance, and it requires persistence. But at the end of the day, I’m confident we’re going to be victorious,” he said.

“Sometimes it’s bumpy, and sometimes it’s hard, and sometimes there are setbacks. … That’s okay because it’s worth it,” he told another wealthy crowd Monday in Beverly Hills.

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