While Republican Legislators are out and about shaming low-income
Americans for their low incomes we must look at the magnitude and nature of the
issue of the need for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments in the
first place. First a bit of history.
SNAP aka Food Stamps as the original program was titled was a
farm subsidy program that gave money directly to low-income people who could
not afford the prices that farmers needed to be paid in order to grow and
deliver food to the customers. The government wanted to limit farm prices and
farmers could not live with that. Therefore, instead of curtailing all farm
prices that would keep food prices down for everyone, they made the Food Stamp
program to support the people who were the least able to pay the higher prices.
After farming morphed into "agri-business" and factory farming, the
business owners wanted the money paid to them directly. Republican legislators
being the business-friendly people they are, made it so. Food Stamps which were
a performance measured system that assured people could afford to eat was turned
into a subsidy for business owners that has zero accountability or requirement
that anyone actually eats.
Something else happened along the way. Businesses learned that
by chipping a potato they could turn an 84ȼ potato
into a $4 bag of chips. Of course the humble potato is only an example of the
processing of produce into ready-to-eat food-like merchandise. Retail stores
also found it useful to sell heated meals, e.g. hotdogs, burritos, pizzas, etc.
The lines blurred between farm produced groceries and "convenience
foods" that were popular but less nutritious. Sodas instead of milk,
fat-free milk instead of whole pasteurized milk.
I was in line at the supermarket when the cashier told the woman in line ahead of me that she could not buy the fat-free milk because it was not for her children as required. The clerk was only following what the cash register was reporting about the purchase rules. The price was the same. I gave her my gallon and took hers saying, "meet me outside."
There is a reason that there is a
SNAP program. In 2014 there were 22,699,000 households consisting of 46,535,o00
human beings whose access to income was so low that they needed my (and your)
help to buy enough food. Most households that receive SNAP funds have at least
one wage earner in it. This means that there are 22.7 million EMPLOYEES who are
paid too little to be able to buy food along with all the other necessary things
like rent, heat, medicine, telephone service, transportation, child day care
and clothes.
If everyone who receives SNAP
funds could get by with a second job in the household, the economy would need
an additional 22.7 million additional jobs just for them. Then the household
would need a whole another job to pay for the child daycare so that mon could
work another 40 hours per week. Maybe we
need to define marriage as being among three adults (or four) to be able to
live by work alone. Work that is as defined by the business owners who think
they know the value of labor as did Henry ford in his day.
The average monthly household
SNAP payment equates to $1.46 per hour based on a 40-hour work week. Let's just
agree that nobody is getting rich on SNAP money.
So why is it that conservative
politicians and legislators are shaming SNAP recipients for their need for
subsidy when the businesses just want the money directly? Well there is your
answer. The businesses want the money directly not through a process where they
must perform to get it. Farm subsidies are like insurance. They get the money
when the crop yield fails. They get the money when the government thinks that
farmers are planting too much of something and they pay out to not plant. They
get paid when there are too many chickens or too few.
The economy paid out $70 Billion
in 2014 for SNAP payments. This means that a lot of families and children were
able to eat as well as than if their employers actually paid a living wage.
We taxpayers pay one way or the
other. We pay so people can eat or we pay so that businesses can be profitable.
The act of shaming the person who must use the money to feed their family is unconscionable.
After all the economy really doesn't care on what the SNAP funds are spent as
long as the industry gets 100% of the money (less of course the bank's
transaction fees.) It appears to be a struggle between the various "food"
producers to get a larger share of the pie and the consumer is the scapegoat.
Prohibitions imposed by state
legislatures include, shellfish, soda, condiments, meat, prepared hot meals,
food at casinos or on cruise ships, etc. It is just like the Blue Laws ofyesteryear where a store owner wanted to be closed on Sundays and wanted to be
assured that his infidel competition was not going to be selling similar
products on Sunday.
With such laws stores variously
could not sell spray paint or paint brushes but could sell paint in cans.
Alcohol is still regularly not sold on Sundays. One could sell cigarettes but
not sell matches. So stores began giving away the matches. The entire system
was designed to limit the competition and assure a higher sales quota for those
with the influence. It is the same way with SNAP purchase restrictions except
that the buyer is disparaged as part of the plan.
Limiting SNAP total funding is a
matter of Legislative debate and action. Limiting what can be purchased is a
"gimme" to the lobby of the influential retail markets couched in the
wrapper of being concerned about propriety of fund use and good eating habits
of low-income people. Come on, when did a Republican legislature ever be
concerned about the health and safety of any human population? Everything they do is economically driven for one business or another.
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