Let ‘em Starve!!!

vs 

Let ‘em Starve!!!

The New Rightwing View of Misery & Poverty

I guess it is not surprising when many of those who have the capacity to feed impoverished families (with children) prefer to use starvation as a military tool (as members of Israel’s rightwing parties have suggested in Gaza) or as a mechanism to keep taxes low under the thoroughly disproven “trickledown” theory: cutting taxes for the rich trickles jobs and money down to everybody else. PS It has never happened that way; rich people didn’t get rich by trickling their money down every time they get a tax cut. So, simply put, if no one feeds children, they get sick and often die or grow up with bodies that carry the aftereffects of malnutrition forevermore. Don’t believe me? Look at the results of the 2017 Trump-era massive federal corporate tax cut (from 35% to 21%) which generated virtually no trickles at all but instead fostered hot dividends and lots of mergers and acquisitions… adding trillions to the federal deficit. Exactly who benefited?

And while it seems odd that we live in a land where there are now individual trillionaires and over 800 individual billionaires (according to Fortune Magazine) – where Trump isn’t even rich enough to make the top 400 list – we have several corporations valued in the trillion+ dollar range… and except for real estate and sales or transfers of assets, we do not tax wealth. Instead, we twist and squirm to cut benefits to those who need them the most to reduce taxes for those who need those cuts the least. We are the only developed nation on earth without universal healthcare; we still have medical bankruptcies (even for those with insurance because of exclusions, caps, deductibles and co-pays), growing homelessness and political parties willing to sell the average and the poor down the river to promote even lower taxes for the rich.

Well, school’s out for the summer for many public-school students, some of whom relied on the school lunch program to get enough to eat. So now what? Writing for USA Today, July 2nd, Kayla Jimenez and Alia Wong explain how “A dozen Republican-led states are rejecting summer food benefits for hungry families… The governors of a dozen states – Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming – opted out of the program, leaving about 9.5 million students without the aid this summer, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. All of these states are led by Republicans, who have said they oppose welfare, the administrative burden of overseeing food benefits and what they call overreach by the federal government. All but two of the six states with the highest rates of food insecurity opted out of the benefits. The two exceptions, whose Republican governors accepted EBT, are Arkansas and Louisiana…

“Summer EBT, or electronic benefits transfer, is the first new federal food assistance program in nearly half a century. The SUN Bucks program grants $120 per eligible child to be used during the summer months, leveraging existing programs including pandemic-era funding. Kids are eligible if they qualify for free or reduced meals during the school year. Families can use the money in addition to other government food benefits…

“What makes food insecurity worse? When everything else costs more too, Americans say… U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack called the new federal food assistance program ‘a proven game-changer’ in combating child hunger. He said the program would help officials close the gap in summer hunger families experience.

“The most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows more than 44.2 million people nationwide experience food insecurity in the U.S., including 13 million children. The department defines food security as having ‘access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.’ Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Texas and South Carolina have the highest prevalence of food insecurity, according to recent USDA data.

“White House leaders slammed state officials, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who refused to opt in and help combat hunger for parents who can't afford to feed themselves or their children.” The manifestations of younger children facing that polite word for malnourishment – “food insecurity” – are not pretty. The longer term effects include underdeveloped bodies and brains, cognitive difficulties, and an inability to learn or concentrate. Those children are less prepared to break the cycle of poverty, already challenged by the end of upward mobility and a red state obsession with fighting culture wars above the need to care for and educate its children to compete in a world that demands increasing skills just to survive.

For those who want to deal with issue on a “greed is good” analysis, they should be aware that allowing food impaired generation after generation not only perpetuates the need for social programs to respond to the problem… and also leads too many of these youngsters growing up, dropping out and left with no discernible skills. Drugs offer an escape, just as criminal activity ramps up to pay for it all. Yes, “greed meisters,” that requires more jails and prisons, more judges, police and social support systems, and one way or the other we will all pay for this stupid momentary cost savings. Or we could just react as human beings showing a modicum of care and concern as most religious teachings explain. Just when did being a constantly hungry child become their own private cruel and unusual punishment? What did those children do to deserve that fate?

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you ever wonder where anger and desperation are born, just look at those who just don’t care enough even to feed hungry children right here in the good old USA.