Penny Pinching!

An abandoned Walmart in Wisconsin.

The nation's largest retailer has disappointing revenues. The controversy surrounding that involves Washington and the stubborn lawmakers who won't give the poor and middle class a break.

After all, these politicos are living high on the hog while the working class are struggling from day to day trying to keep food on the table.

I can testify. I work two jobs and still can't achieve the successes of the upper income and well off.

It's a shame though that Walmart relies on all their shoppers to stay vibrant.

Food stamps were cut last year and the Congress is planning on bringing up a bill that will engage in severe cuts to the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).

Whenever you hear That Guy Who Helped Obama Win rant on his right wing carnival about 50 million (previously 47 million according to the right wing agitators) being on food stamps, I think to myself that those on assistance are helping Walmart stay in business. I think that those on assistance keeps me working.

Shopping easy Walmart has reinvented its image with newer ways to attract shoppers.

For you see I work in the service industry. These people on assistance are spending money to keep food on my plate. They are keeping my hours plentiful.

With the rising costs of food, gas, energy consumption and tuition, people are turning to food stamps, food banks and various charities to gain access to necessities to keep themselves from landing in the homeless shelter.

Without a safety net, these people will rob and kill those who have the luxuries of having food in the refrigerator or in the pantry. They would steal fuel, water, bread and meat to keep feeding their families. And yet, these Republicans and their conservative allies are thinking the poor are the reasons for the economic recession. Perhaps those who complain about the poor, should walk a day in that person's shoes!

The Republican Party and its allies in the conservative movement are heartless when it comes to the lower and middle class. In their warped minds, the lower class and those who are too poor are stealing from the taxpayers by accepting food stamps, welfare and necessaries.

It does affect everyone.

The Huffington Post reports that Walmart struggled at the end of last year. But according to the retailer's new estimations, it wasn't because people didn't want to buy. It was because they couldn't.

The retail giant warned Friday that the effect of last year's national food stamp cuts on its bottom line will likely be deeper than the company previously estimated. As a result its comparable same-store sales -- a retail metric that measures how stores are doing year over year -- will likely be slightly down for the fourth quarter.

“The sales impact from the reduction in SNAP [the U.S. government Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits that went into effect Nov. 1 is greater than we expected,” Walmart’s Chief Financial Officer Charles Holley said in a news release Friday. “And, second, eight named winter storms resulted in store closures that impacted traffic throughout the quarter.”

The GOP-led push to cut food stamps benefits to the tune of $5 billion left 47 million Americans reeling during a time of near record-level food insecurity.

The racist right website The Blaze was tipped off by a cart load of necessities. In 2013 a glitch in the Louisiana EBT program caused a panic and people loaded carts full of groceries.

Because about 18 percent of all total food stamp dollars are spent at its stores, according to an October report from the Wall Street Journal, Walmart can serve as a way to gauge how Americans are coping.

Walmart executives were cautiously optimistic about the effects of the cut on Walmart's bottom line last year. "Everybody's benefit is going to get cut, price will become more important. And when price is more important, we're more relevant," Bill Simon, the retail giant’s U.S. CEO, said in October. He noted that Walmart’s market share actually decreased when the food stamp program initially expanded in 2009.

But the opposite hasn't held true so far, indicating that the poorest Americans are so pinched they can’t even afford to shop at the cheapest retailers. Family Dollar, another typical destination for Americans in a squeeze, also reported disappointing earnings earlier this month, which they blamed on factors including food stamp cuts, high unemployment and the payroll tax increase.