Food Stamp Cuts

[CaptLouAlbano]

I was in a discussion with some friends the other day and the discussion of the cuts in Food Stamps came up. Being among a conservative group of friends, the discussion surrounded the usual issues of fraud and abuse in the system: "Why should people be allowed to buy soda and junk food with them?", "They should require people to volunteer in order to get them", "Someone shouldn't have cable tv and a cell phone and still get food stamps", etc. All valid points, and not the first time any of us at the table have heard them.

I enjoyed the conversation, along with my pie & coffee, and then someone said, "They need to cut out the abuse, so that the people that really need them can get them". At that point I spoke up.

"Why do people need them?" I asked, without waiting for an answer. "You realize that many people who get food stamps have a job, and fail to earn enough income to support themselves, so why is it on our backs to support them? Aren't we then simply subsidizing the poor decisions that others have made in their life? If someone is 30 years old and their time and talents are only valued at $8/hour, who's fault is that? If a senior citizen worked their entire lives, but did not manage to save and invest properly to provide for themselves in their advanced years, who's fault is that? And why is it our responsibility to feed every single mom who's career skills relegate her to a checkout clerk at a gas station, or every senior that didn't bother to build a proper retirement income for themselves?"

Now, I am a charitable person, and do not want to be viewed as cruel. So I added, "Now sure, there are exceptions to this, and that is where charity should step in, provide the person with some temporary help while the charity works with that person to become self-sufficient, but the notion that we have to supplement the income of every person who made some pretty bad decisions in their lives is crazy."

And that got the ball rolling. I could see the light bulbs going on above people's heads as they started to think about it. One guy said, "You know you are right. My daughter's deadbeat husband walked out on her, left her with three kids a mortgage and all kinds of bills, but she was a nurse, earned a good living, and while she struggled for a bit, she never had to rely on the government for help."

And the examples flowed from there.

Now, this isn't anything new philosophically for folks like us, but was a wake up call for this group of conservative people. They never looked at the issue in that light before. They never considered that food stamps (and for that matter all welfare programs) are nothing more than the taxpayers subsidizing the fact that a significant portion of Americans failed to get the education, experience, and training to make their time and talent valuable to an employer.