Food stamp controversy

Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist for the AJC, Mike Luckovich, hit the target square on:   Seated across from each other are the GOP elephant and Jesus, with the caption:  "Tonight's debate:  Should corporate subsidies for the rich be cut instead of food stamps for the poor?"

Opposing opinion columns in the same issue are by Rep. David Scott (D-GA) and by Benita Dodd of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation.  I read Dodd's piece first and found myself almost persuaded that she had a point and that too much was being made about the cuts.

Her main point was that this is merely a rollback of the temporary increases in food stamps that were part of President Obama's stimulus program during the worst of the recession.    Well, I thought, as the economy improves it makes sense to roll back temporary benefits that may no longer be needed.

But this illustrates so well why you have to work hard at getting the news right.   Then I read Scott's piece, and saw a very different picture:  "The terrible Republican cut of $40 million reduces the food assistance program by half."

Scott clarifies who gets this assistance, and its not just the Republican fantasy of "black urban or illegal immigrants" that they seem to find unworthy.   The facts are that 37% are white, 23% are African-American, and 10% are Hispanic.  U.S. Department of Agriculture stats show that 99% of them live below the poverty line, and 900,000 are veterans.

Further, with regard to unworthy recipients, the program's analysis shows that 97% of those receiving aid are accurately assessed as qualifying, and part of the 3% inaccuracies were actually underpayments.   That seems like a remarkably well-run program.

So what persuades Republicans that the program is not needed and that recipients are not worthy?  Dodd gives it away when she states "Nobody wants low-income families, children or the elderly to go hungry."   But, she goes on:   "The real issue [is] too many politicians willing to get and keep Americans increasingly dependent on government."

Why would anyone want to do that?   It is simply a lie that Republicans tell themselves to justify their heartlessness toward the unfortunate, while demanding that corporations and the rich be supported by government in the form of subsidies, tax breaks, and fat government contracts, often to produce unneeded war planes and ships.

So, back to Luckovich's cartoon:   Corporate subsidies for the rich or food stamps for the needy?  Let's have that debate.

Ralph