The Heritage Foundation - a conservative think tank - complain that people are taking advantage of loopholes. People who have recently become unemployed and receive unemployment money, are applying for SNAP without the need. The Heritage Foundation argues that the system does not take into account savings, saying that people who have worked hard to save are taking advantage of a government run system. I would argue that those same people have paid their taxes to the system, and should be able to receive their benefits since they were once working a job that allowed them the expendable income to save in the first place. The people arguing this point are the same people suggesting that the working poor simply save their money and be frugal to survive the economic turmoil. These are the same people arguing that Social Security be ended. If someone who has been employed with a good job and has saved a small amount for retirement, how can they expect to get ahead if at the first sign of disturbance they dip into retirement savings? The SNAP program is there to aid the populace during times of struggle - and many of the struggling people need the extra assistance since the cost of food is on the rise. This study also says nothing about the retired - living on Social Security - the single mothers only able to work part-time so they can care for their children, nor the working poor who do not attain positions of full-time employment (or those who DO work full-time, but receive minimum wage). Another common misconception is that most of the people benefiting from SNAP should just go out and get a job. Sean Hannity argues that it would be better for America if the people on SNAP simply went out and got jobs so they could leave the assistance program. However, John Stoehr presented numbers that would suggest most of the people receiving food stamps were either ineligible to work, or were already working. This is yet another misconception from the conservative wing of the political sphere.
I did some research there because I knew people who were working who still received SNAP funds. I looked at Feeding America's website, which told me that 83% of the people receiving SNAP funds had incomes. The average income for those households - which had children, elderly, or disabled as well as the working income earners - was $744 per month. In addition, I found that unemployed people were only allowed three months of benefits before the program ousted them - unless they found a job. This means that most of the people receiving SNAP do have jobs. Hannity was clearly mistaken with his question. Even the Heritage Foundation's research stated as much. I decided I would take a look at some facts about food stamps, myself, since both sides seem to be arguing about it. While Hannity and the right seem to be arguing philosophy over facts - and twisting facts to their philosophical stance, the left sounded like it was doing the same. I figured it would be best to find something at which I could look so I could end the inner debate going through my own head.
Here is a link to the government website to help determine eligibility and the amount received for each household. I note that the monthly income is calculated based on the amount within the household. I figured that if one person received more then $2,000 per month, they were ineligible. I also figured that if a family of four received $2,500 or more, they were ineligible. On the site listed, it also states that they DO count bank accounts, but they do not count Social Security Income (whether retirement or disability), nor do they count TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) funds. So the problem with Heritage Foundation's assessment of the program is this: a person with $20,000 in savings, stretched out for the year, does not equal $2,000 per month. The same person, who is receiving TANF will not count those funds. In addition, most have to re-apply after 3 months of assistance from SNAP. What the Heritage Foundation does not take into consideration is that the person COULD get a job during that 3 month period, and then earn out of the SNAP funds - meaning their monthly income plus savings would exceed the amount for a single person. However, if they do not earn enough income plus savings to equal the cap for a family of four, they would receive SNAP, though get less due to their income.
Another thing I decided to research was how much of our GDP SNAP consumed - to combat the people who remark that SNAP assistance is contributing to our fiscal budget issues. What I found was the amount we - as a country - spend on SNAP is currently less than 1% of our GDP. Less than 1%. So, in fact, most of our taxes are not going to feed the people who can't afford to put food on their own tables. In fact, we spend more on healthcare for government employees than we do for SNAP. However, the amount we spend has been shown to be on the rise, nonetheless. This is due to the slow growth in our economy, and the lack of willingness for major corporations or 'job creators' to actually create more jobs that pay a wage to get the people on SNAP transitioned out of the program.
Here is another link from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) that gives a more basic look at SNAP, and the guidelines for eligibility as well as what SNAP aims to accomplish. One can see, with simple research, that someone got something wrong when looking at the numbers from the conservative right. I wonder why they decide to make SNAP the enemy when they claim our nation is Christian: Wouldn't a Christian nation wish to feed the poor with a modicum of their paycheck?
I recall a time in the last presidential election where Romney said something about not worrying about the 47% of the country whose taxes were not kept by the government. He said that Republicans shouldn't look at the message of tax cuts for those people, because they don't matter when it comes to cutting taxes - they don't pay. That 47% gets all of their taxes back at the end of the year. What's funny is that most of the people I've spoken to who argue that they don't want to pay to put food on lazy people's tables are members of the 47% who get all their money back. In essence, they already don't. For those that actually do - it means they make more than $40,000 a year, and the government keeps their income taxes. These people who make $40,000 or more per year end up paying roughly 30% of their income to taxes - which still, at the lowest level, allows for $2,300 per month of net income. Depending on where you live, it's either right at poverty, or well over poverty. For the people arguing against SNAP - most being rural America - that's well over the poverty line.
While the numbers prove one thing, the philosophy continues to be espoused despite the facts. Why? In my opinion, this is partly due to the Southern Strategy - a discreet form of politically capitalizing on racial polarization - becoming more abstract. The GOP (Republicans) use it now to attack social programs (TANF, social security, SNAP, Medicaid and Medicare, WIC, education) that benefit the poor - who are primarily minorities - in an effort to gain campaign funds and wealthy supporters. So, now, instead of being the party of the white people, they are the party of rich white people - a shrinking minority. They talk on states' rights, cutting taxes, and cutting spending for social programs so the poor (primarily minorities) will pay more and the rich will keep more of their earnings.
The one flaw this political strategy has is that the right refuses to see the economic situation as a cycle. It's not a ladder, where one person walks up the rung and attains mass wealth on his own. It's an economic cycle, a ladder where the people below the wealthy man holds him up so he can reach the top fruit and hand it down to the people below - that was the essence of trickle down economics. In our current condition, that idea sees the one man on top picking the top fruit and eating it while telling everyone else to find food from the middle and bottom branches of the tree. The man at the top does not realize that if he does not send the food down, the human ladder to the top crumbles. We created a system to keep the cycle in place, to forcethe man on top to send some food down, or help those below him get to the top branches so they could pick the fruit themselves. However, the conservatives again gained control, and removed the person put in place to kick the top man down if he didn't follow the rules. Now, we look at the system in place, where the man at the top has so much fruit he can feed himself for three lifetimes, and he complains that the fruit he has to give to the people at the bottom rung is straining his ability to feed himself.
To make this more concrete: The wealthy are not providing enough jobs that pay enough to keep people off government assistance. The Republicans insist that giving the top earners tax credits will trickle down and create more private sector jobs - but what have we seen? A rise in retail, restaurant and consumer service jobs that pay less than poverty, or are not full-time positions. It's time to stop pointing the finger at poor people who are only doing what they need to do to get by - or the tiny percentage of people who abuse the system - and start pointing the finger at the people who are benefiting the most from our current condition. I'm not saying punish the wealthy - I'm saying it's time to end the loopholes they use to get out of paying taxes, it's time to stop giving them outright cuts, and it's time to stop blaming the poor for the country's economic hardships.
No comments:
Post a Comment