Posted on 12/04/2013 10:20:54 AM PST by SeekAndFind
As budget negotiators lurch toward their December 13 deadline for funding the government, another conference committee is struggling to reach an agreement over the farm bill. Unsurprisingly, the dispute is not over the bill’s completely unjustifiable subsidies for agribusiness (both parties support those) but food stamps.
House Republicans passed a bill calling for $39 billion in reductions in the planned budget for food stamps (technically known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) over the next ten years. A bipartisan Senate bill included just $4 billion in cuts. A couple of weeks ago it looked like negotiators were ready to settle on roughly $10 billion, but now it looks like that agreement has fallen through, at least for the moment.
The timing for the negotiations happens to be problematic, coming during the holiday season and shortly after the 2009 stimulus’s temporary increase in SNAP benefits expired on November 1. Those extra benefits, incidentally, expired in part because the Obama administration diverted some of the funds to other projects, including Michele Obama’s anti-obesity efforts.
Democrats and the media are raising the usual outcry over Republican hard-heartedness and suggesting that the proposed Republican cuts will lead to widespread hunger and hardship. Most of the handwringing is based on myths. Among them:
The massive increase in food-stamp spending was caused by the recession, so cuts are insensitive to economic reality. The food-stamp program certainly has exploded in the weak economic years since 2009, from 33.5 million beneficiaries at a cost of $53.6 billion a year to 47.7 million beneficiaries at a cost of $82.9 billion. Much of that increase was indeed due to the recession and increased unemployment. But the growth in food stamps actually started long before the recession began — under George W. Bush, in fact. President Bush nearly doubled both the program’s cost and the number of recipients.
In addition, studies show that the increase in food stamps was much greater during this recession than in previous ones, suggesting that at least some of the increase was due to policy decisions rather than economic conditions.
The CBO projects that long after the recovery solidifies and unemployment declines, both costs and participation will remain at much higher levels.
Food stamps keep Americans from going hungry. It’s hard to imagine that the government could spend almost $83 billion per year without having some impact on hunger in America. Yet there is little real evidence that it does. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that “the literature is inconclusive regarding whether SNAP alleviates hunger and malnutrition for low-income households.” Similarly, a study for the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that for nearly all vitamins, minerals, and macronutrients assessed, the dietary intake among SNAP participants was comparable to that of nonparticipants in similar situations.
Food stamps are just a temporary safety net, not a form of dependency. No one wants to deny children, the elderly, or the disabled some temporary assistance to help them get through hard times. But the evidence suggests that for many recipients food stamps are becoming not a temporary safety net but a way of life.
Nearly 56 percent of SNAP households are on the program for five years or longer. And roughly 4.5 million recipients are able-bodied adults. In 2011, the most recent year for which data is available, only 27.7 percent of nonelderly adult participants were employed, while just another 28 percent reported that they were looking for work. Importantly, one of the largest “cuts” that Republicans have proposed is simply to restore the program’s work requirements.
Food stamps are effective economic stimulus. Led by Mark Zandi and other Keynesian economists, food-stamp advocates have made wildly exaggerated claims about the program’s role in stimulating the economy. Zandi, for instance, claims that “extending food stamps is the most effective way to prime the economy’s pump.”
But aside from the fact that those economic models just as well predict an alien invasion would be a boon to the economy, there is little evidence to support the theory. Even the Agriculture Department’s own inspector general concluded that it was unable to determine whether the additional dollars in the stimulus’s food-stamp expansion were in any way effective in meeting the 2009 Recovery Act’s goals. Three of the four performance measures the program was supposed to use, the office found, “reflected outputs, such as the dollar amount of benefits issued and administrative costs expended” and did not provide any insight into outcomes.
On the other hand, we do know that a failure to get government spending under control will have long-term economic consequences. Food stamps are hardly the major cause of deficits and debt — that distinction lies with middle-class entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare — but every little bit helps.
The Republican proposals would slash benefits. The proposed Republican cuts would reduce food-stamp spending over the next ten years relative to the projected budget by just 5 percent. Even after the cuts were fully phased in, spending would remain higher than it was in 2010. Slashing this is not.
But more importantly, most proposed cuts don’t actually reduce benefits. For example, as noted above, one Republican proposal would simply restore work requirements. Some worry that recipients might not be able to find jobs. Fair enough. But recipients could also satisfy those requirements through job training or job-search programs or by participating in volunteer and charitable activities. That doesn’t seem all that onerous.
A second Republican proposal would eliminate so-called “categorical eligibility,” which makes people eligible for food stamps if they participate in other welfare programs. Republicans would target food stamps to the truly needy by restoring the programs income and asset tests. How cruel.
The one proposal that could actually be considered a benefit cut, rather than an eligibility adjustment, is closing the LIHEAP loophole, which allows states to increase benefits for individuals who also receive government utilities assistance. Approximately 16 states have used this loophole to leverage nominal (often as little as $1) LIHEAP payments into an increase in a household’s SNAP benefits. Proposed reforms would set a $20 LIHEAP threshold before increased benefits kick in. That could be a modest benefit cut perhaps, but it is supported by Senate Democrats.
One can question the political wisdom or necessity of picking a fight over food stamps right now. But if we’re going to debate the issue, it would be helpful to debate facts rather than rhetoric.
— Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution.
“Food aid”, if given at all, should be in the form of 3 MREs per recipient per day. If it’s good enough for some 18 year old grunt in Afghan land it’s good enough for them.
Never happen.
This is how you lose elections. Republicans don’t need to cut safety net programs. They need to protect our industries and put people back to work.
Cutting safety nets while there are no jobs makes me want to vote democrat....well, except for all those other horrible reasons.
Boosting anti fraud measures would be perfectly acceptable. Arbitrary cuts without proving the people don’t need it is not acceptable.
This is how you lose elections. Republicans don’t need to cut safety net programs. They need to protect our industries and put people back to work.
Cutting safety nets while there are no jobs makes me want to vote democrat....well, except for all those other horrible reasons.
Boosting anti fraud measures would be perfectly acceptable. Arbitrary cuts without proving the people don’t need it is not acceptable.
Because Seek didn’t format the article properly, I made the same mistake at first.
When you read... “Food stamps....” read this as one of the myths the headline mentions.
Then the following paragraph debunks the myth.
I’ll ry and post this correctly in a minute.
Damn that reality. Sure can't let it get in the way of the rhetoric.
How do you starve an Obama supporter? .... Hide their food stamps under their work shoes.
The massive increase in food-stamp spending was caused by the recession, so cuts are insensitive to economic reality.
Food stamps keep Americans from going hungry.
Food stamps are just a temporary safety net, not a form of dependency.
Food stamps are effective economic stimulus.
The Republican proposals would slash benefits.
It keeps the profit lines up for grocery store chains and big food processors. How else you gonna sell your stuff to people who don’t have money?
You’re right. There was an article posted about Bernie Sanders a week or two ago. He didn’t think Obamacare would be a problem for Dems, as they would just accuse the R’s of wanting to destroy SS & all the other support programs.
We should be screaming about jobs and how bad the economy is doing due to Obama’s & the Dems’ policies. That seems to move the low-info voters.
““Food aid”, if given at all, should be in the form of 3 MREs per recipient per day.
That would be nice but would neer happen. But I think they should only be able to buy “minimum” essentials. The “No Frills” brand. No lobsters or filet mignon etc.
If the government just administered the Food Stamp program with a minimum of competence and eliminated the fraud, abuse, etc, the burden on taxpayers would be greatly reduced. Every criminal and street thug and their baby mamas has at least 1 EBT card. Most have several.
We should, but more than that we actually need to have a plan for jobs. Romney talked jobs some but didn't have much of a plan. His stance on import tariffs was only if the Chinese manipulated their currency.
In addition we need to hammer:
There’s been no proof that food provides nutrition? Oh let’s cut the food stamps then. How can anyone disagree?
The lobster, shrimp and prime beef industry like food stamps.
1 MRE lasts 1 whole day.
The problem is that because of the poor nutritional choices of SNAP recipients, most are no healthier than those who don’t receive food stamps. Reliance on processed foods and empty calorie snacks are a big problem.
Don’t forget about buying pre-packaged food and reselling it to buy cigarettes and booze...and fake nails.
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