SNAP without Crackle or Pop

While clever verbiage in the Republican approach to cutting Social Security and Medicare represents a feeble disguise to avoid angering seniors (a major segment of MAGA supporters), the GOP assault against the Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is an open and most obvious assault against financially impaired Americans who lean heavily Democratic. Lots of those on SNAP programs have full-time jobs; they just do not make enough in today’s world to pay even for a life most ordinary.

It’s no secret that rapidly rising food prices, compounded by exploding rents, are pushing an increasing number of Americans well below the poverty line. Many are working in red states with no set state minimum wage. Remember the Federal minimum wage, last set in 2009, remains $7.25/hour. And in expensive financial and tech job urban centers in blue states, even minimum wage rates of $15/hour or more are simply insufficient to sustain life at or near the bottom of the economic ladder. If a check is written by non-military governmental agency, excluding Congressional pay and perks of course, it is in the crosshairs of GOP programs to keep taxes for the rich low. The GOP continues to tout its completely failed, totally disproven, “trickle down” economic theory: “a rising tide floats all boats.”

It’s pretty clear that transparent labeling – “woke,” “patriot”, “entitlements,” “job creators,” “freedom requires guns,” “immigrants are stealing our jobs,” “replacement,” etc. – is part of a GOP culture war to discount anything they do not like with a disparaging epithet. Those in the bottom economic quadrant who are not willing to embrace MAGA White nationalism are, in Republican eyes, irrelevant and expendable. They are diehard Democrats. The SNAP “entitlement” program is near the top of programs the GOP hates. Yet the rapid shift in our economic reality has moved more Americans than ever to SNAP dependence, 41 million of us!

“A U.S. Department of Agriculture official testified Thursday [2/16] that some of the agency’s food programs are being overburdened in the push to feed needy families… The acknowledgment came Thursday morning as Republicans on the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee repeatedly hammered the USDA over a dramatic rise in its spending to update a nutrition program known as the Thrifty Food Plan.

“‘We are making changes to the federal nutrition programs to ensure that our support is meaningful and push the needle on that issue of food insecurity that you raise,’ Stacy Dean, the USDA’s deputy undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, told Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.). ‘But it’s also the case that I think some of our programs are being asked to do too much.’… Dean highlighted benefits to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — formerly known as food stamps — as an example. SNAP is intended to help needy families gain access to healthful foods.

“‘SNAP benefits are covering a whole food budget when households are supposed to contribute their income,’ Dean said. ‘But their income is strapped because they’re a working family that can’t afford child care, their health insurance might be out of reach for them or they are living in a state that hasn’t offered Medicaid coverage, the refundable child tax credit is no longer there for them.’… A 10-year budget and economic outlook released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected an $8-billion increase in SNAP spending for 2023 and $93 billion for it over the next decade. The CBO cited higher SNAP enrollment and the rising costs of the Thrifty Food Plan, which is used to determine SNAP benefit levels, as reasons for the 6% and 8% increases, respectively.

“Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the committee chair, framed SNAP in her opening remarks as ‘a modest form of help’ on the individual level. ‘The average benefit is only about $6 per person per day,’ she said. ‘$6 for all of their meals combined. I’m sure there is at least one person in this room right now who has spent more than that on their morning coffee.’… Stabenow also said the last farm bill — which was passed in 2018 and is taken up in Congress every five years — ‘directed a long overdue reevaluation of the Thrifty Food Plan.’ She said ‘the assumptions on which SNAP is made’ hadn’t been updated since 1975… ‘This update increased the average SNAP benefit by less than $2 a day, a modest increase but one that is estimated to lift 2.4 million people, including 1 million children, out of poverty,’ she said.” Associated Press, February 17th.

Unfortunately, to the GOP, income impaired Americans are on the wrong side of the political aisle. SNAP is thus just an entitlement begging to be removed from the federal budget. “Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), the top Republican on the committee, lamented that nutrition is the costliest portion of the farm bill. The CBO [Congressional Budget Office] estimate projected nutrition programs in the farm bill to cost more than $1.2 trillion over the next decade.

“‘The pandemic and inflation drove some of these cost increases, but let there be no doubt that the largest driver was a decision by the leadership of the Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services mission area to abandon 40 years of precedent and increase SNAP benefits by 21% to record-high levels, levels that are unsustainable,’ he said… ‘Some will cynically point to the provisions to update the Thrifty Food Plan in the 2018 farm bill as the basis for USDA’s action, but Congress never agreed to permit a quarter of a trillion dollars — quarter of a trillion dollars — spending increase.’

“Boozman argued that the USDA’s actions have made passage of the next farm bill “much more difficult because they showed a lack of good judgment and a gross abuse of discretion” that disrupted the balance of the farm bill coalition and “severely eroded” trust. He questioned whether the unprecedented spending increase would leave any funds for farmers… ‘As a reminder, SNAP is intended to supplement a beneficiary’s monthly grocery budget,’ Boozman said. ‘It was not created to serve as the beneficiary’s monthly grocery budget.’” AP. So, let’s them starve? Why? Too avoiding “over-taxing” the mega-rich? Really? Even after one of the largest corporate rate cuts in our history: 35% down to 21% creating one of the greatest budgetary deficits ever?

I’m Peter Dekom, and under current GOP doctrine, we cherish guns over children, favor the rich over everyone else, must stop coddling folks trying to contain global climate change (an effort that hurts profit-seeking businesses), and we are willing sacrifice educational quality to appease White Christian nationalists and religious fundamentalists; they just plain do not care about anything or anyone else.