Food Stamps defuned by Congress

[colourwheel]

House Republicans successfully passed a Farm Bill Thursday but ripped apart funding for food stamps from federal agricultural policy.

 

This is a new low for the Republicans in congress. The Bill they passed says nothing about funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps. Historically a farm bill funds about 80% of the food stamps in America while giving direct subsidy payments to farmers. The bill has always been a bipartisan bill till now, a socialism bill that republicans always love.

 

This bill passed with no democratic support and has started an outrage on capital hill.

 

I don't know about you but I have relatives who are very conservative and have been republicans all their lives who depend on food stamps to help provide for their children because they don't make enough income from even working 2 jobs who actually got duped into voting for some of these heartless politicians in congress right now.

 

Can anyone even think of a rational reason why the Republicans in congress are doing this? Did the Republican party just all of a sudden decide they want to be the party who does not care about 47% of Americans?

Edited July 12, 2013 by colourwheel

[M48A5]

The Republicans passed a bill that did not address funding for the food stamps program. There is no need for legislation for the program to continue as it is, but legislation is required to change the program. The Republicans want a reduction of 3% and the Democrats oppose any cuts. What was passed was the farm subsidies with the food stamps program to be dealt with at a later date.

[JimboUK]

I'd be more concerned as to why so many need assistance in a first world country, I've just looked at the numbers, what the hell is going on over there?

[TRoaches]

I wonder how someone with one job, never mind two, would have difficulty affording basics like food unless they are maintaining other expenditures that are beyond their financial means. I think the answer to that question would also go a long way towards answering jim_uk's question.

 

I am saying this as a person who grew up fairly poor, and who is fairly poor now. I have been amply and nutritiously nourished the entire time, and it was not thanks to food stamps. It is because I spend wisely and am necessarily frugal. I don't mean to sound unsympathetic or judgemental towards people who rely on such programs but it really is that simple. Programs like that should be reserved for people who cannot earn sufficient income due to disability, injury, age, or the time requirements of single-parent child rearing. They should not to be used to enable people to purchase luxuries from the extra income. And by luxuries, I don't mean nice cars or trips to ski resorts. I mean things that many people consider necessary but really are not, like cable TV and iPhones. I find it very hard to believe that such a high percentage of the population would actually be unable to feed themselves if they simply trimmed the fat from their budgets.

 

Food is cheap in our country. There are places in the world where the food supplies are controlled by gangsters and war lords, and where large segments of the population resort to things like prostitution to feed their children. They would consider basic education to be a luxury, but here the kids are coddled through school and every idiot seems to have a cell phone that costs around $1000/year (enough to nourish several people for months if spent wisely). It is shameful and embarrassing, and it is something that I think about every time I am at the grocery store in line behind someone who pays for their groceries with food stamps then pulls out cash to buy a few cartons of cigarettes, 20 lotto tickets, and a case of beer. Happens almost everytime I'm there.

 

If we truly wanted to help the poor we would limit the spending of that money to the aforementioned people who truly need it, and spend the rest on health care and education. We won't do that, however, because any politician who suggests such a thing is attacked as someone who "doesn't care about the poor" when, in fact, such cutting measures would be beneficial to those who are truly disadvantaged. Welfare at this point has very little to do with actually helping anyone, and more to do with gathering votes from (sorry to be blunt) the lazy, greedy, and uninitiated.

 

The act of splitting the food stamp program out of the "Farm Bill" is a smart one, because farm subsidies and food stamps are only peripherally related at best. One of the things that our congress likes to do is marry two unrelated issues into one bill, so that they pass or fail together. That way a congress person who opposes farm subsidies can be labeled as an "enemy of the poor" for also opposing food stamps, or vice versa. It doesn't mean that food stamps are doomed like the OP suggests. It simply means that a dedicated food stamp bill will be required for the first time since the 70's, and such a bill will hopefully be more focused and will make the system efficient and effective. The issue is also not as partisan as the OP suggests, as Republicans are already talking about the need for that bill. They just didn't want it lumped in with the farm subsidies bill. It deserves its own dedicated legislation. 80% of the farm bill's cost went to food stamps before it was axed, so even calling it the "farm bill" was politically dishonest until now.

[sukeban]

@Jim

 

Complex question, but perhaps the two largest explanatory factors would be the low federal minimum wage and the fact that you've got high divorce rates and an increasing large number of single parent households. Making ~7 dollars an hour might be fine when you're 15 and in high school, but it is most definitely not going feed, clothe, and house a family, especially when that family is headed by only a single individual. Most working class jobs (not in the trades) simply do not pay enough for an individual to make do without some form of government assistance, something that should be pretty shabby commentary of the current state of the American economic model. Yet this is where most of the "job growth" in the US is taking place (what Texas brags about...), with the low-paying retail and "service" sectors crowding out the old core of well-paying blue collar jobs in manufacturing, constuction, raw materials, trades, auto, etc.

 

And in no small way, federal, state, and local governments are directly subsidizing the ability of the companies to pay such a paltry wage via these assistance programs, adding mightily to the irony of the situation. To borrow the useful but played-out phrase from the banking bailout, the ability for firms to pay low wages is effectively the "privatisation of profit" and the "socialization of debt," which in this case means that taxpayers pay for the assistance of other citizens while companies pocket what they would have otherwise paid in wages.

 

So the TDLR is that you've got two problems: 1) neoliberal economics making most people poorer and 2) the unravelling of the family unit (though in reality, of course, these two things are also very much related).

 

EDIT:

 

Roaches also makes some good points, especially regarding the spending habits of many low-income folks in the US.

Edited July 12, 2013 by sukeban

[JimboUK]

Surely the market is broken somewhere? a widespread reduction in income should cause a reduction in prices, is there anything keeping prices inflated? I can understand a weak dollar pushing up imports but surely the US is pretty self sufficient when it comes to food.

[Lisnpuppy]

When I was pregnant with my daughter I was no longer able to work due to medical issues. I had no income and my daughter's father left (and we were not married) and he provided nothing to me at that time.

 

I was able to move in with my Mother (whom my Father had just left lol..it was complicated!) and I went to apply for some assistance and get a medical insurance card.

 

I did not like doing this. I had a degree and needed no vocational training. They told me that I would be eligible for (up to the birth) the insurance (and I was grateful) and for $112 of food stamps per month and nothing else. No more food stamps...no "welfare" check as you only got a check for being in the job training which I did not need and could not do then (and I won't get started on the disability, it wasn't an option at the time.) I asked them...what would I have done if I had not been able to live with my Mother?

 

I was told that it was a good thing my car was in my Father's name or I wouldn't have gotten what I did. After I had my daughter my food stamps were doubled. Nothing else.

 

I did not have bad spending habits and I don't think necessarily other people of low income have worse habits than those that aren't What they certainly lack is education on making better food choices and figuring out if certain bad foods really are cheaper than other foods...and what other options could be. I think home ec classes need to come back to our schools to teach things like budgeting, running a household, etc.

 

The food stamp program has changed alot. We still had paper money then which led to more fraud.

 

Once I went back to work I was startled to discover that my daycare was $400/month and it took a huge portion out of my paycheck. Fortunately I got a better job and could still get by all right if careful. Anything bad would have sent me over the edge though. So many people are forced to face going back to work and end up being perhaps less well off than if they would stay in the welfare program. The welfare program is broken. Giving it less money or even maintaining the status quo is not the answer. They need more people to check up and make sure that the right people are getting the right amount of money. They need more educators for life skills as well as job skills. I saw many a strapping young man going to get their welfare checks that looked like they could have lifted a house.

 

It should never seem to be a better choice to stay in this program than to leave it. This was made to give people a hand up at their time of need, temporarily. It isn't like that because there is no oversight. The workers can't keep up. Our education system is terrible here and all these things would help the hemorrhaging the system is doing. However it seems that the solution is always either throwing more money at it or taking money from it.

 

I can not say what the answer is but I know that taking money (or even not adjusting with the market or the economy) is not the answer. Taking funding from these departments that run this isn't the answer as you get what you pay for. Something needs to change and perhaps it needs to be privatized in some ways...Ia m really not sure.

[TRoaches]

@jim_uk: The economy is broken on many levels, and it is far too complex to condense into a few issues. It is the result of many interconnected problems. Many of the problems are admittedly way above my understanding, but some of it can be understood to an extent just by talking to the older generations and putting the pieces together as far as what has changed.

 

I live in Pittsburgh, a town that was once the industrial jewel of the nation. I have talked to many of the old retired mill workers, and many seem to agree after a beer or two that they have themselves to blame for the decline of industry here. The common explanation goes something like this: Their great-grandfathers were poor, uneducated immigrants who jumped at the opportunity to work themselves, literally, to death under terrible conditions in the steel mills and related industries. They welcomed this opportunity because it meant upward economic mobility for their families. They flocked here to take advantage of it. The work conditions were terrible by our modern standards, but they did not entirely see it that way. Working 365 days out of the year meant more wealth in their family than ever had in its history, and was not really a change from their old lives anyway since the agrarian lives that they immigrated from also required 365 days of work simply to survive with no hope of upward mobility. Some of the conditions, however, were truly unacceptable and this led to unions being formed, then busted, then strengthened in resolve by the busting. Their sons followed in their footsteps, and through the unions further improved the conditions, pay, and benefits. Eventually the economy became globally linked through advances in shipping and communication technologies, around the same time that the next generation gradually became greedy. They attempted to continue to demand more and more while others in the world were willing to do the work for less money, because they were still at that point of agrarian survival struggle. The steel companies moved to places like South America and China, were the workers had the same desire that our workers once did, and took the supporting industries with them. The town went down the economic toilet along with our manufacturing and export production.

 

This is an admittedly very condensed and simplified summary of what happened to much of the manufacturing industry in the US, and manufacturing and export are the thing that really makes any economy truly strong. There are similarities between where our economy was 50-100 years ago and where the economies of much of South America and China are today. The people in those places are hungry for the work, and are willing to do more for less. From the perspective of the industries who need workers it is a very simple equation when it comes to working out where they should build the next factory. I imagine that a similar decline occurred in England with regard to a loss of industry because I do not see many consumer goods stamped "Made in England", and likely for similar reasons. It could be summed up as a sense of entitlement run amok, and is in many ways an insult to those initial immigrants who worked those 365 day careers so that their progeny could be wealthier and more educated than they could have ever dreamed, only to demand more. I particularly remember talking to a very old man (90+) who was expressing his disgust at his grandchildren's lack of employment, and comparing their lack drive to his life experience of going to work at the mill as a teen, being handed a broom and told to start sweeping, and eventually working up to a management position that earned him a house that his father would have considered a mansion fit for a king. His grandchildren were on the dole and producing babies that they could not support with multiple women, and one was in jail. It was obvious that this caused him immense emotional pain, to the point that a man who was once so strong and proud of his achievement seemed like he wanted to die and get it over with so he wouldn't have to watch the decline of his offspring.

 

Again, this assessment of the cause of our economic decline a highly simplified explanation of very complex and intertwining issues, and is based only on my personal experience talking to a relatively small sample of old-timers while having a drink with them in bars. It is, however, a story that I have heard enough times that I can't help but consider it to have some merit.

 

@LisnPuppy: Your experience really highlights one of the big problems when it comes to our welfare programs, and that is the fact that they are not really based on need or merit. A person in the situation you describe should absolutely qualify for assistance, but the sad fact is that the programs are not designed to help people like you. If they were there would have been no issue. They are, instead, designed to subsidize poverty itself. They actually incentivize continued reliance on aid, and a person like yourself who begrudgingly applies for aid is not the "target audience" when the programs are being funded. Its a shame. I'm about as anti-socialist as they come but I think a single parent should receive the utmost in aid. They should be prioritized well above anyone without children, to the point that the parent should have the option of not working at all to parent the child full-time at least until their mid-teens. One of the biggest reasons that I would feel personally ashamed to receive aid regardless of my income level is that I have no dependents, and would feel like I was literally stealing from the plates of needy children. The same goes for the elderly and the disabled.

[HeyYou]

The assistance programs are pretty much designed in such a way that once on it, it is almost impossible to get off of it, unless you are VERY lucky. In todays economy (US), when a significant portion of the decent paying jobs have left the country, I am not really susprised that better than 25% of our population is on some form of assistance. (over 40% in some areas, and NOT just ghettos...) If you are recieving anything at all, if you make any sort of taxed income.... it immediately reduces your benefits, and not proportionately. Pass a certain threshold, and you no longer qualify for anything at all. Nevermind that you are now bringing in far less than what you were when on assistance...

 

There is no short-term disability any more either. Hasn't been since some time in the 80's, or even earlier. (I know this, because I gave up walking for several months due to an injury) Since I was a single adult male, with no children at home, I didn't qualify for anything at all. I couldn't walk, I couldn't work, I couldn't even sit in a frigging chair...... but, so far as the government was concerned, I didn't qualify for anything..... which made life truly interesting there for a while......

 

Personally, I think the government has their priorities all wrong, but, that's nothing new......

[JimboUK]

The assistance programs are pretty much designed in such a way that once on it, it is almost impossible to get off of it, unless you are VERY lucky. In todays economy (US), when a significant portion of the decent paying jobs have left the country, I am not really susprised that better than 25% of our population is on some form of assistance. (over 40% in some areas, and NOT just ghettos...) If you are recieving anything at all, if you make any sort of taxed income.... it immediately reduces your benefits, and not proportionately. Pass a certain threshold, and you no longer qualify for anything at all. Nevermind that you are now bringing in far less than what you were when on assistance...

 

There is no short-term disability any more either. Hasn't been since some time in the 80's, or even earlier. (I know this, because I gave up walking for several months due to an injury) Since I was a single adult male, with no children at home, I didn't qualify for anything at all. I couldn't walk, I couldn't work, I couldn't even sit in a frigging chair...... but, so far as the government was concerned, I didn't qualify for anything..... which made life truly interesting there for a while......

 

Personally, I think the government has their priorities all wrong, but, that's nothing new......

 

Apart from the lack of short term disability it sounds much the same as it is here. We have an idiotic system called "Tax Credits", basically people pay tax and then can claim it back if they qualify. What this does is in effect clobber anyone who earns a little extra over the threshold for qualification, people can get hit for what in reality works out at near 90% tax for doing a bit of overtime, if there was ever a system designed to trap people in poverty then this is it. A simpler solution would be to take everyone on minimum wage out of taxation altogether, I don't think they want to do that because I'm sure they want to make as many people as possible reliant on the state. I know the last government went out of it's way to build up a client base of voters reliant on the largess of the Labour government, sadly this useless government we have now have done little to address the problem.