04.18.12
Rich Man’s Burden — food stamps
“If we stopped it all right now we’d get rich a whole lot quicker.”
To preserve the gigantic Pentagon budget, House Republicans want to cut, cut, cut — anything that has to do with keeping the working poor afloat. This as part of the fight for the most important cause — easing the rich man’s burden.
From food stamps to child tax credits and Social Service block grants, House Republicans began rolling out a new wave of domestic budget cuts Monday but less for debt reduction — and more to sustain future Pentagon spending without relying on new taxes …
Nothing better illustrates this perhaps than the renewed focus on food stamps — now titled SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). And the estimated $33.2 billion in 10-year savings there could have an immediate impact on the farm bill debate and come November, the 2012 elections.
An average family of four would face an 11 percent cut in monthly benefits after Sept. 1 and, even more important, tighter enforcement of rules would require that households exhaust most of their liquid assets before qualifying for help. This hits hardest among the long-term unemployed, who would be forced off the rolls until they have spent down their savings to less than $2,000 in many cases.
Indeed, food stamp enrollment and costs have exploded since the financial collapse four years ago, making SNAP a target for the right — but also a far bigger political issue in swing states like Florida, Nevada and Ohio.
National enrollment reached 46.4 million people in January 2012, a nearly two-thirds increase from the average monthly participation in fiscal 2008. The annual costs — now running in excess of $80 billion — have more than doubled in the same period. And even the most ardent food stamp proponents will sometimes say SNAP is a program “asked to do too much.???
The White House deliberately increased monthly benefits in 2009 by about $20 per person as a way to pump stimulus dollars into the economy. And in this post welfare-reform crisis, strapped governors have sought to maximize food stamp dollars as a cheap way to help families without tapping state funds.
No surprise. Republicans have always hated food stamps and fighting hunger.
A week ago or so ago, the New York Times ran a front page story on how food stamp usage had surged in the response to the poor being tossed out of social welfare programs during the economic collapse.
Sadly, yes, poor people must eat. It’s a damn nuisance. We need to pay for more Predator drones and things.
In October of last year I wrote about the surge in food stamps as an indicator of a failing country — ours — at GlobalSecurity.Org:
The US national security machine and its army of private sector warning robots disguised as human beings whirs and buzzes, scanning the world for menaces as the country rots from the inside out. Triumphant that it’s greased some fleabags in Yemen or added another one hundred unmanned flying or crawling machines to its mighty arsenal, it’s missed all the serious indicators of danger, those nasty internal signs, like the 44-45 million people on food stamps …
Food stamp usage in the US is a symbol of national economic failure so systemic it takes your breath away. It is rock solid proof the US economy does not provide jobs which earn a fair living for a polyglot cohort that dwarfs entire western nations.
And the great and powerful Oz’s of our national defense structure are really on the stick, aren’t they? While they were getting the lion’s share of national swag during the last decade, a Biblical mass of their countrymen were applying for food assistance.
If you add up the populations of the 50 states, starting with the least, the number of people on food stamps in the US is a number that roughly includes the summed populations of:
Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Idaho, Nebraska, West Virginia, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Connecticut, Oregon, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Kentucky.
That’s 26 states.
If you read the food stamp program websites run by the states, you come to understand they serve the working poor.
This shows a country where the economy and business have so depressed wages the US government must take up the slack so hunger doesn’t stalk the land.
The proposed House Republican budget cuts, which probably have no hope of passing (although one cannot always be certain) seek to preserve defense spending.
But that means mostly money for arms manufacturing.
You see, even many families of soldiers also need food stamps:
Lately a lot of complaints have been made about the food stamp program. Let’s take a look a one group that gets food stamps — 14,000 military families were on food stamps in 2000.
The Pentagon does not keep track of any military families that are on food stamps. President Bush in 2001 decided to authorize a $500 subsistence pay increase that was taxable in order to help military families get off food stamps. It did not work. Military families increased on food stamps because food stamps are non-taxable.
From 2008 to 2009 military families were using food stamps at twice the rate as civilians, 25 percent to 13 percent. About $31 million of food stamps were used in nationwide commissaries.
From July 2009 to March 2011 in Oklahoma, where there are four military bases — Fort Sill, Tinker AFB, Vance AFB, Altus AFB — $1.8 million in food stamps was spent.
There’s a deep national immorality entrenched here. And you’re not a decent human being if you can’t see it. What does that make those who would slash money for food so the Pentagon gets to keep everything it’s grown comfortable with in the last decade?