SNAP debate

Good evening boys and girls. If it would be okay with you, I would like to have a chat about food stamps. Yes, those food stamps. It’s come to my attention that our glorious Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) and his light-hearted minions have attempted last Thursday to make over $40 billion in cuts over 10 years to SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), or as it is more commonly known – food stamps – and we’re going to talk about it.

Woe is me – aren’t social welfare programs so difficult to have a sane discussion about? Warriors in the trenches of the welfare and food stamp debate usually fall into the category of “Bleeding Heart Liberal” or “God-Fearing Conservative,” and they both bring quite an arsenal to bear. Obviously I fall into the former category, and I would like to assure you I have a very healthy heart and good cardiovascular fitness.

Moving on from these snide comments, I just want to say that I have no idea why House Republicans are making such a move to cut benefits to the now 47 million Americans on food stamps. Not that I think it will pass the Senate or a presidential veto (the vote slid by on 217 to 210 votes) – I just don’t understand their argument at a logical, economical, or ethical level. Let’s start with the facts: according to the USDA, the number of food stamp recipients has risen from approximately 27 million to 47 million in the last 5 years alone. While some, including myself and economists Peter Ganong and Jeffrey B. Liebman, find this to clearly related to the economic downturn that happened in the same year that the number of recipients started to rise, others disagree. As much as I hate to admit, poverty is rising in America, but these programs exist as automatic Keynesian stabilizers to correct these problems and prevent people from falling off the Earth. Though clearly it’s correct to say Americans are simply 20 million stronger in terms of laziness, right? Wrong.

You see, conservatives in America seem to hold this ridiculous notion that those who need public assistance such as welfare and food stamps need that help because they are lazy and unwilling to work. If those bumpkins would get up off their stoop and pull themselves up by their bootstraps, then they wouldn’t need to be on the public dole. Because the problem can’t be systemic, you know? America is perfect like that. Freedom. The whole problem with that notion is that it is void of any factual support. You wouldn’t know it if you didn’t bother to back up your assertions with evidence, but more than half of all food stamp recipients are children and the elderly, those not fit to work and unable to support themselves. I’m sure little Timmy will utilize the great equalizer of education to the fullest when he’s starving each night. And Obamacare death panels to get Granny? Sounds more like starving her out here. Even if you think the other half of SNAP recipients are lazy (and they aren’t, they just end up earning a bachelor’s degree and make $7.25 an hour at 28 because there are no better jobs), it doesn’t make sense from an economic standpoint to deny them the average of $281 per family of 2.1 per month (it’s not $30,000 a month for a new Impala, guys). Has anyone ever heard of human capital?

But let me tackle this from an ethical standpoint, because my heart is bleeding and I’m good at showing it. Remember that “I support our troops” bumper sticker you put on your car, as if to combat the sentiments of the approximately 3 people in the country that don’t support the troops? Then I sure hope you support food stamps – around 1.5 million veteran households receive SNAP benefits. And I would like to believe that veterans didn’t fight in foreign lands and risk their lives to come back to an America where other Americans starve – especially not other veterans. Jason Kirell, a 35-year old Afghanistan War veteran and SNAP recipient, describes it best in his own words (warning – big, bad swear words):

“The whole concept is un-American. People living here, in the greatest country on Earth, with the most abundant resources, should be forced to go hungry because of the intellectual notion of fiscal conservatism and the ideological notion of self-reliance.

Are you fucking kidding me?

I didn't risk my life in Afghanistan so I could come back and watch people go hungry in America. I certainly didn't risk it so I could come back and go hungry.”

You got that right.

And I can barely touch on the religious notion of it all. The silly irony is that a good portion of those conservatives who would rail against food stamps would describe themselves as good Christian men and woman. I’m not really religious, but I seem to recall that Jesus was more of a “love-thy-neighbor, feed the hungry” kind of guy than a “self-reliance, poor people are lazy” kind of guy. Perhaps in an effort to add to this hilarious cognitive-dissonance, Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell recently went on a interview with the Christian Post and said there was “nothing more Christian” than trimming SNAP, although to be fair he said it in a ridiculous, brainwashed zealot kind of way in that this would prevent the system from “locking people into a permanent dependency on government handouts” so they can “break from the plantation of big government.” He then went on to say “America is such a compassionate nation, nothing in history that suggests that churches and communities and our families would let people die of hunger, there is absolutely nothing,” the only problem of which is that there is. People are starving right now. That’s why SNAP exists.

This is why the plans of House Republicans must not succeed (and it is my opinion that they will not) – cutting SNAP would not only be a hypocritical action harmful to children, the elderly, and veterans, but is also ridiculously uncaring to the needs of all hungry Americans. Men and women on SNAP and welfare are not lazy, good-for-nothing; they’re innocent, hard-working people who have taken the American Dream to heart only to have it trampled upon, leaving them in the dirt. I’m not asking you to become some paragon of virtue for these people; I’m asking you to think, and to feel, to see that there is a problem in America, and that this program is keeping them from the worst of it.

I’m glad we could have this chat. Same time next week?

-Kevin Salamon