Mr. Bolton argues that such restrictions would “make some of
the poorest among us the poster children for obesity” or would “target those
who are poor and need a helping hand.” (Actually, I thought that was the whole idea: To target those who are poor and offer a helping hand.) He
prefers that, instead of “a crusade directed against all poor people,”
legislators should come up with a “comprehensive effort (against obeisity)
aimed at low-, middle- and upper-income bellies.” (I'd rather worry about my own belly and let the legislators worry about theirs.)
For a little context, I checked out the current level and
growth rate of SNAP spending by the federal government. It is incredible. After little to no net growth during the twelve years of the GHW
Bush and Clinton administrations, it doubled during the eight years of the GW
Bush administration and has doubled again during the first three years of the Obama administration.
Be sure to note the trend during President Clinton's eight years, helped admittedly by the dot.com bubble and a conservative Congress. I remember President Clinton saying something about "the end of welfare as we know it." Well, it certainly is different now.
Be sure to note the trend during President Clinton's eight years, helped admittedly by the dot.com bubble and a conservative Congress. I remember President Clinton saying something about "the end of welfare as we know it." Well, it certainly is different now.
There are a number of possible drivers of this phenomenal growth since 2000. One that seems reasonable is that the
economic meltdown hit lots of folks hard and necessitated getting food stamps
for a period of time. That came into play in 2009. Now, with all the
good economic news coming out of Washington, we can expect that driver to go
away.
A second is that government has been promoting and
advertising and pushing food stamps.
There has even been a joint effort with Mexico to
make sure Mexican immigrants know about the availability of and requirements to
get Food Stamps when they come to the USA. And there
have been advertising and recruiting programs in the US as well, such as this
one in Florida, to increase the number of users. Food Stamps can be great vote getters.
A third reason is that states with lots of folks who qualify
for Food Stamps, Florida for example as mentioned in the article linked in the previous paragraph, benefit from the revenue coming into their states and therefore do
whatever they can to enroll new recipients.
And finally, the food industry lobbies heavily
to get additional food items included on the qualified list because it is good
for their business. And Congress depends heavily on lobbyists.
I’m thinking that with those last three drivers in place we
won’t see any downturn in Food Stamp spending no matter how good the economy
gets.
But, back to Mr. Bolton’s column. I’m not sure where baloney falls on the
healthy to unhealthy spectrum, but Mr. Bolton’s position on this is pure
baloney. The only logical conclusion his
reasoning can lead to is that SNAP money should not be restricted at all and
should be available to spend on whatever the recipient chooses including
clothing, gas, electronics, utilities, lottery tickets, booze and cigarettes. After all, it is disrespectful to the
recipients to limit their choices and their freedom and might lower their self esteem. We have to trust them to combine SNAP money with whatever other funds they have and allocate the total appropriately among their various spending needs.
And that would never work because the food industry
lobbyists would be really unhappy after all the time and effort they have spent
to get their less nutritious items on the approved list. And unhappy lobbyists would result in an unhappy Congress.
One thing we can be sure of is that, if the health of the people getting Food Stamps were the primary concern, junk food would not be an eligible purchase. So, the primary concern must be elsewhere. Money and votes maybe?
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