Congress, Politics, Society

SNAP and the Bauer Theory of Behavior Modification

By Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger

“A government’s allowing people to starve when it is preventable reflects a lack of concern for human rights, and well-ordered regimes…will not allow this to happen.”

John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (1999)

It ought not be a matter of serious debate that every human being is entitled to nourishment sufficient to sustain life.  The right to sustenance is subsumed within the right to life.  We acknowledge in our founding documents that protection of that right is a primary function of government.  No rational person would choose to live in a society that permitted its members to die for lack of food.  Nevertheless, the food stamp program, now called the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), is under attack by Republican members of Congress.  The recent vote in the House of Representatives to cut funding for the program, and the arguments advanced in support of the cuts, suggest that the GOP believes that providing the poor with enough to eat is a discretionary exercise , demanded by neither law nor morality.  It appears that the Republican Party has adopted what I call the Bauer Theory of Behavior Modification. The formulation of the Bauer Theory can be found in the following statement made several years ago by its namesake, former South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer:  “My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals.  You know why?  Because they breed.  You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply.  They will reproduce, especially ones who don’t think much further than that.  And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior.  They don’t know any better.”

It would be easy to dismiss Mr. Bauer’s comment as merely unfortunate and aberrational, but for the fact that it has been repeated many times in one form or another by other Republican leaders.  In March of last year, for instance, Republican Minnesota State Representative Mary Franson remarked, “Isn’t it ironic that the food stamp program, part of the Department of Agriculture, is pleased to be distributing the greatest amount of food stamps ever?  Meanwhile, the Park Service, also part of the Department of Agriculture, asks us to please not feed the animals, because the animals may grow dependent and not learn to take care of themselves.”

Variations on this theme filled the halls of Congress during debate over cuts to the SNAP program.  Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R. Kan.) observed, “You can no longer sit on your couch and expect the government to feed you.”  Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R Wash.) complained, “Since President Obama took office, SNAP has grown at an unprecedented rate, with one in seven Americans now receiving food stamps.”  Rep. Tom Cotton (R. Ark.) claimed that the program is fraught with “rampant waste and abuse.”  Rep. Stephen Fincher (R. Tenn.) went biblical with the out-of-context quote, “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”  And in a town hall meeting, Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R. Ok.), argued that most aid programs for the poor should be eliminated.  “The food programs are designed to take care of people who can’t work, not won’t work.  And we all know those people that won’t work, right?  They’re abusing the program, and we’ve got to get them off of it.”

The legislation itself reinforces the beliefs expressed in the foregoing comments.  It permits drug testing of SNAP recipients, despite the fact that several courts have ruled unconstitutional similar provisions covering applicants for TANF benefits.  And, for good measure, it makes lottery winners ineligible for benefits. I suppose gamblers should not be feeding at the public trough.

The Republican criticisms have not been burdened by the facts.  SNAP is one of the most efficient government programs, with fraud accounting for only 1% of expenditures, less than the rate of fraud in farm subsidies and far less than the abysmal record in the defense industry.  The program’s error rate is 3.8%, compared to 4.7% in the federal crop insurance program.  The recipients of what amount to less than $1.40 per meal are not the able-bodied; 83% of SNAP benefits go to households having a child, an elderly person or a disabled person, and 61% of recipient households have gross annual income not exceeding 75% of the federal poverty level.  But why has the program grown so much over the last six years?  The best answer is one I used to hear from my kids when responding to a perfectly dumb question: “Well, duh, Dad.” With the financial collapse of 2008 and the highest unemployment rates since the Great Depression, there are now almost 47 million people living in poverty in this country.  The math isn’t difficult.

The lack of a factual basis for the Republican demand for benefit cuts leads us back to Mr. Bauer.  The Bauer Theory is not about poverty, but about the impoverished.  The program cuts are not aimed at reducing poverty; they are rather a statement of moral condemnation.  Poverty is not about a lack of jobs or educational deficiencies or structural inequality.  It is a product of indolence, irresponsibility and immorality.  Under the theocratic political philosophy now dominating Republican policy arguments, poverty is proof of moral decay to the same extent that material wealth is proof of moral righteousness.

We are becoming a nation of prigs.

111 thoughts on “SNAP and the Bauer Theory of Behavior Modification”

  2. I personally struggle with this. On the one hand I have in-laws who are financially struggling and the husband is working 3 part time jobs to make ends meet and they just recently signed up for public assistance. On the other hand, these same in-laws aren’t willing to cut their lifestyle which includes a lot of cigarettes, booze and name brand products to make the dollars they do have, stretch further. They aren’t just sitting around on their butts being lazy and they don’t want to be on food stamps. Thus my conundrum.

  5. I continue to be astounded at the callousness and hypocrisy of the GOP. In fact, I find it difficult to maintain friendships with my Republican friends and family.

  6. People find comfort among those with like mind.

    All one has to do is look at Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans, as examples, to understand that Democrats are better with words than deeds.

    The system is broken. ALL politicians thrive on the issue and gain nothing from the solution. You may feel relief referring to republicans as evil but it accomplishes nothing other than deflecting blame for a moment.

    This country has more than enough wealth to feed and insure its populace if the focus becomes to rid the system of corruption.

  7. According to the Bauer Theory–we should have let the big banks fail back in 2008. We need to curtail that type of greedy Wall Street behavior that tanked the economy.

  8. Denigrate others to elevate ones self is a party trick we all can do. Denigrate others to elevate ones party is a repub party trick.

    It is also employed by dems, it has been done by me, and I dare suggest everyone here has cast this particular stone at times in their life.

    I am human and thus the power of the beast exists within me, The power of Beauty does also.
    A fine line I explore and ponder, when does the beast simply rage to protect the beast, opposed to, when does the beast step up to promote and protect the Beauty that exists in us all.

  9. Sit in a chair all day and breathe. Eyes closed, ears closed, mind closed, arguably you may be nothing more than a chair that has to eat and excrete.
    Perhaps the repubs can start belittling indoor plumbing.

    After all if the folks in need of assistance did not eat or drink, they would not need indoor plumbing.
    ……
    DBF addendum:, Eyes closed, ears closed, mind closed is reference to the repubs that made the statements Mike A has highlighted.

  11. lottakatz 1, September 30, 2013 at 12:59 am

    Republicans are just plain evil. That’s where I’m at these days, that is my conclusion after the last 5 years. Evil is the only word that fits. Evil.
    =======================
    Yep.

    All they do is grin and Bauer it.

    An evil grin.

  12. Mike A, thank you.

    I have heard most of the repub statements you mentioned. Each time I’m sure my blood pressure hiked. My internal distress would be “that” person is so wrong. Your combining them makes it plain for me to see, it is not one persons ignorance spouting ignorant anti food stamps memes…… It is a combined strategic effort by repubs to denigrate and devalue those folks in need of assistance.

  13. Many people getting SNAP work a full-time job, and are not “sitting on a couch.” Gee, and aren’t the Republicans the group that is against raising the minimum wage? And some of them want to abolish the minimum wage entirely!

    I think every member of Congress should be required to live for a month on minimum wage as a prerequisite to serving in the Congress.

    Heck, maybe we should all try it for a month………

    (Full disclosure — I worked for minimum wage back in the late 70s, back when one could still scrape by, and even then it was difficult.)

  16. Republicans are just plain evil. That’s where I’m at these days, that is my conclusion after the last 5 years. Evil is the only word that fits. Evil.

  17. Mike,
    How much money went to corporate welfare, including oil subsidies?? Are those corporations deadbeats?

  19. Mike,
    Well done. It amazes me that so many of the politicians who want to cut and destroy the SNAP program claim to be religious god-fearing people. I just never heard of any god that insisted on leaving sick and disabled and poor people them to die of starvation. Thank you for reminding us that the facts do not get in the way of the mantra that if you are poor and disabled and not working, that you must be a deadbeat.

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