-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
The Food Stamp program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), is a target for Republicans who voted to cut $40 billion from the program. The reasons that Republicans have given are so divorced from reality that one can reasonably suspect their true motivations lie elsewhere. The primacy of fantasy in the GOP has been recently evidenced by Michele Bachmann who sees signs of the End Times, a wished-for global apocalypse.
First up on the list of fantasies is by Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Arkansas) who said “the food stamp program [grew] exponentially because the government continues to turn a blind eye to a system fraught with abuse.” In reality, SNAP participation closely tracks the long term unemployment rate, prolonged by Republicans. The sale of SNAP benefits for cash, called “trafficking,” has been cut to $1 in every $100 of SNAP benefits. The reality is a one percent abuse rate, the fantasy is SNAP is “fraught” with abuse.
The next fantasy is that able-bodied people are getting food stamps instead of working. The reality is that 83% of all SNAP benefits go to households that include a child, an elderly person, or a disabled person. The average individual gets $133 a month in SNAP benefits. It is ridiculous to imagine that a person is going to quit their job for $133 a month that can only be spent on food, but Republicans bear ridicule well.
The next fantasy is that SNAP recipients use their benefits to buy cigarettes and alcohol. The SNAP program uses Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards, similar to debit cards, that can be used in the supermarket checkout line only to purchase food. The Right likes to point to Jackie Whiton, a Peterborough, New Hampshire, store cashier who declined to accept an EBT card as payment for a pack of cigarettes. In reality, the EBT card contained state assistance money, not SNAP benefits, which can be used to purchase tobacco products. The store she worked for has a policy of accepting EBT cash benefits. In reality, Whiton was fired for violating the company’s policies.
The Republican war on programs that benefit Americans in need isn’t based on a philosophical commitment to small government. If it were, the $20 billion in farm subsidies, a welfare program for agribusiness, would be near the top of their hit list. According to a Greenberg report, the Republicans “are very conscious of being white in a country that is increasingly minority.” The report goes on to say that the “race issue [is] very much alive.” There you have it. Obama is taking their money and giving it to “Those People.”
H/T: Dave Johnson, Paul Krugman, Dottie Rosenbaum, Amanda Marcotte, Brian Tashman, WMUR.
Oh, hell, what am I typing?
I can’t see the keys. They’re covered in blood.
Tina,
Your last rant was going so well, until you inadvertently disengaged your Caps Lock.
I was unable to read the rest of your message, because it wasn’t in large-enough type.
Please repost, and remember to keep the Caps Lock on.
Thanks.
I eagerly await your next massive missive. Because I live only in a read-it world.
The fact is cause and effect. A lack of cause results in a lack of effect. So in that way, yes, you are responsible for lessened conflict, nick, but only in that way.
And “blood on your keyboards” because people disagree? Please.
Agreement is not required.
Never has been. Never will be.
Proof and logic are though and that’s simply the nature of the forum. Those with both usually fare well. Those without, don’t. That’s how a marketplace of ideas works. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinions, but no one is entitled to their own facts.
@nick spinelli
lmfao, Tony is a professor?
Wow, his attitude made me think he was nothing more then a YT troll.
Professor of what?
“know it all isms?
Does he even know more than a handful of people personally, who collects welfare?
I will try my best to just ignore him, but he makes it so easy to destroy in his attacks.
The way he keeps making a complete hypocrite of himself is pure gold.
I personally know, ….God, I can’t even count them all.
I will give a rough est:
My building is 8 floors high, every single person collects benefits, its a requirement to live here, gov funded.
You can ask anyone that lives here and they all will say that at least half the building is on drugs.
That is just one building, one lousy building.
BTW, we have a camera system that is tied into the cable network and I can watch all the cameras right on my TV set.
(BTW, I don’t watch TV, in the 6 months I have lived here, its only been on about 10 times)
what me to stream it online, next month on the first?
I wont, just a thought though. 😉
6 SNAP (Food Stamp) Myths
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or SNAP, the new name for food stamps), is one of the best lines of defense against hunger in the United States. The federally funded program helps working families, seniors and many others in need put food on their tables. But stereotypes about SNAP and who uses it persist.
Coalition against Hunger
http://www.hungercoalition.org/food-stamp-myths
Let’s set the record straight:
Myth #1: People who get SNAP don’t work.
FACT: In 2010 according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the program, 30% of households enrolled in SNAP do work. Of all SNAP households in the United States, 49% include children, 16% include seniors and 20% include someone disabled. All together, 76% of SNAP households contain a child, a senior or a disabled person.
Myth #2: SNAP is a drain on taxpayers.
FACT: Every $1 in SNAP benefits generates $1.73 in economic activity, according to Moody’s economist Mark Zandi. SNAP not only helps low-income people buy groceries, it frees up cash for other expenses, such as medical care, clothing, home repairs and childcare. That benefits local businesses and their employees, which boosts the economy as a whole.
Myth #3: SNAP is rife with fraud and abuse.
FACT: “SNAP has one of the most rigorous quality control systems of any public benefit program,” according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. SNAP fraud has actually been cut by three-quarters over the past 15 years, and the program’s error rate is at an all-time low of less than 3 percent. The introduction of EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) cards has dramatically reduced consumer fraud. According to the USDA, the small amount of fraud that continues is usually on the part of retailers, not consumers.
Myth #4: SNAP benefits go to undocumented immigrants.
FACT: Undocumented immigrants have never been eligible for SNAP. Documented immigrants can only get food stamps if they’ve lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with exceptions for refugees, asylees and children). In fact, immigrants are far less likely to apply for food stamps because they worry about jeopardizing their immigration status and because the application process is especially daunting for non-English speakers.
Important: SNAP is a nutrition program run by the USDA and is not considered a welfare program. Receiving SNAP benefits will not affect a documented immigrant’s immigration status or any effort to gain U.S. citizenship.
Myth #5: Hunger isn’t a problem in my community.
FACT: More than 658,000 people in the five-county region get SNAP, a 56 percent increase since the start of the recession. See the most recent figures on SNAP participation in Pennsylvania.
Myth #6: SNAP leads to unhealthy eating habits and obesity.
FACT: National studies show no significant link, positive or negative, between food stamps and healthy eating. Nor do they demonstrate a relationship between food stamps and weight gain.
I got some penny stocks you might like if you are.
Are you buyin’ the 1% fraud?
The fact is you pit bulls are now golden retrievers. That’s the fact. There are comments here that are making you and 2 or 3 others bite your tongues hard. I bet there’s blood on your keyboards. But why the hell argue, you’re behavin’, I’m giving kudos, it’s all good. Carry on.
@Tony C.
What part of what happened at the walmarts don’t you understand?
Plus, I am not the one pushing exact data nor claiming things I don’t see, you are.
I am also not putting words in your mouth to have an argument against you, you are the one doing that.
Oh the irony in your ignorance is remarkable.
You keep asserting innocence until proven guilty then stick your foot right in your mouth claiming I am guilty and you have nothing of a valid source but red herring attacks as your defense.
Lewis Carroll, Elaine?
Up is down
And day is night.
I sees what I sees
And I is right.
I don’t care what you buy, nick.
Facts are facts.
pmjokes, Tony has nothing to learn, he’s a professor. And all of his family and friends are truthful.
The decorum of the guest bloggers improved after the adjunct professor fiasco. As, I said to you on that thread and now, I am Mr. Consistent.
@Tony C.
I made that post on purpose, to prove something, and you did exactly what I thought you would do.
Instead of relating to the reality of it and how the advertisers don’t care that we lie and almost force us to lie so they can get data.
And you reduced it into a red herring attack against me, even though its exactly how the survey sites operate, I think you are nothing short of a troll.
Unless you change your attitude and start showing respect and actual concerns to learn something new about things you do not understand,
you will be ignored from me.
There is a saying, that we all will learn something new, and those who think they already know everything are the ones who know the least.
Or something like that 😉
“Instead of relating to the reality of it and how the advertisers don’t care that we lie and almost force us to lie so they can get data.”
PMJ,
Anyone with a surface knowledge of on-line polling is that they represent little, because the respondents are self-selecting. To compare that with SNAP statistic is what you would call a……….false analogy.
Gene, Not buying it. But thanks anyway.
A week or two ago when someone was running afoul of blog policy by making ad hominem attacks on another poster for posting anonymously (which is not only blog policy to allow but a protected legal right vis a vis political free speech)?
Who’d have thunk that running afoul of the rules gets one chastised and that not running afoul of the rules results in less conflict.
Tony C. 10/15/13 7:26 am post.
Pure Gold!
I’d like to call it the Story of the Neighbor and the Witches. I suspect it will serve well in many posts.
My beloved English teacher, Miss Leach, would be proud of you. And that, sir, is worth being proud.
@nick spinelli
I know this is off topic, but i used to work with this guy who was actually going to school to be a child physiologist and we used to have discussions on what he was being taught.
He didn’t actually grow up in gov housing like I did, had a wealthy childhood and to be frank, he had zero clue of what he would try to discuss with me on the subject of abused kids and such.
I hope this doesn’t get me looked down upon, but I suffer from pretty sever depression that I deal with by burying it and find things like this board to occupy my time.
I have tried seeing doctors but got no where with them so I gave up on that.
Its like they try to treat you as backyard mechanics would debate on why a car wont start.
“Well, it wont turn over, the battery is probably dead”
“It isn’t getting fuel, so the fuel pump must be shot”
Even though, there are tons of other things that may be the problem, logical
answers always come up first.
Even though a few other simple questions can be asked, to determine if said problems are even relevant, its usually not even discussed.
It may be ok to do that type of reasoning’s with a car, but with human beings, it becomes much more complicated yet I have not found a doctor who can address my situation as a human being and he is using the same logic as a car mechanic would use.
Anyway, this relates exactly to what is going on here, and goes on all over the world.
I am glad I grew up the way I did.
Even if I look at an abused woman and say I understand what its like to be beat on and raped, I can never know what that actually does to a person unless it actually happened to me personally.
Well, I lost my train of thought and where I was trying to go with this but yah you cant teach street smarts.
But given that some people here cant even try to relate to the stuff I talked about and are reduced to putting words in my mouth and asserting they know me better then I know me, proves my point exactly.
pmjokes: The irony is, they know we are not being honest,
Thanks for admitting you lie for money; that was enlightening.