I am pretty skeptical of Matt's framing that Trump is responsible for the SNAP benefit cutoff.
I have been generally worried about Trump's spending of funds in ways that have not been authorized by congress. I thought he was wrong to pay the troops with funding not appropriated for that purpose. I therefore have trouble faulting him for not coming up with creative ways to fund SNAP that probably stretch reasonable interpretation.
Matt may be right that Trump has discretion here, but I think he should have provided stronger evidence for his claim given the framing he chose for the article.
As a separate issue, I don't think shutting down the government is an appropriate way to negotiate expanded ACA subsidies, and (with less confidence) don't think expanded ACA subsidies are correct on the merit.
I think democrats should pass a clean CR and negotiate from there. I think congressional republicans should scrap the filibuster and reopen the government.
> So the politics of firing this gun may not play out exactly how Republicans hope.
I get the feeling Matt doesn't understand how this works. When Trump does something like this, he pretends it's not him who's doing it, and then all the Trump-friendly media (of which there is a ton) plays along. Not sure how any Dem or Dem-leaning person can miss this. Consider Trump's recent "Truth Social" post for example (and consider why it's called Truth Social):
> Our Government lawyers do not think we have the legal authority to pay SNAP with certain monies we have available, and now two Courts have issued conflicting opinions on what we can and cannot do. I do NOT want Americans to go hungry just because the Radical Democrats refuse to do the right thing and REOPEN THE GOVERNMENT. Therefore, I have instructed our lawyers to ask the Court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible. It is already delayed enough due to the Democrats keeping the Government closed through the monthly payment date and, even if we get immediate guidance, it will unfortunately be delayed while States get the money out. If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding, just like I did with Military and Law Enforcement Pay. The Democrats should quit this charade where they hurt people for their own political reasons, and immediately REOPEN THE GOVERNMENT. If you use SNAP benefits, call the Senate Democrats, and tell them to reopen the Government, NOW! Here is Cryin’ Chuck Schumer’s Office Number: (202) 224-6542
"our median living standards are much higher than in Europe"
Are they? Or do we work more hours for more income? There's no debate the median US worker earns more money than the median French worker. But the French worker gets 8 weeks PTO
"The Choice System’s impact was immediate and dramatic. Food supply increased by approximately 35 percent (100 million pounds) in the year around implementation. Within just the first seven months after launch, supply rose by 50 million pounds.
It also revealed how wrong the previous system’s assumptions were: auctions revealed that food banks were willing to trade 116 pounds of produce for a single pound of pasta.
Produce sold for just four percent of the average good’s price, while rice, pasta, and cereal cost roughly three times the median. The average price was 0.28 shares per pound, meaning food banks typically received about three pounds per share. But a quarter of loads sold for 0.3 shares or more, and eight percent of purchases involved food banks paying more than one share per pound.
Over 80 percent of the efficiency gains came from allowing food banks to choose to ‘buy’ lower quantities of higher quality food, which allowed food banks to correct skews in their other food sources. Compared to what they would have received under the old system, 30 percent of food banks chose to get more than twice as many pounds, while another 25 percent chose less than half as many pounds."
I'm trying to understand how this system led to a net increase in food supply measured in pounds when at the same time it sounds like food banks drastically cut back the volume of produce they were taking to get much smaller volumes of processed foods.
How reliable is the research in this area? It seems like there would be some strong ideological preference for finding good effects from SNAP benefits, and the list of a bunch of barely-noticeable improvements in a grab-bag of different measures makes me worry about multiple comparison/garden of forking path issues here. But I do not know this literature at all, so who knows?
Great article. Social programs can (1) be very effective on their own terms to alleviate human suffering - SNAP indeed gets people food and Medicaid gets them health care - and (2) have a bunch of second-order benefits in people's lives, because it turns out making people suffer gratuitously is bad and alleviating that suffering can be good in unexpected ways. There has emerged a really impressive body of literature to this effect particularly about SNAP, Medicaid/ACA health coverage, and the EITC. And it's also important for people to be aware that a really big chunk of the population benefits from social programs at some point in life.
Obviously people have different normative views about social insurance. I think social spending is really good and I think a lot of voters agree. But either way, the above realities are underrated in the discourse and should be more widely known.
I get Matt is a left wing commentator, but the description of right wing policy preferences in this article is a ridiculous straw man. The right wing is more concerned about incentive effects than inequality. That’s not being indifferent to poverty. It’s prioritizing different factors/values.
In terms of pro growth policies being a point of partisan disagreement comes down to how much you conflate the right wing with MAGA/Trump. For example, basically every red state YIMBY bill is better than basically every blue state housing bill.
"but the description of right wing policy preferences in this article is a ridiculous straw man. The right wing is more concerned about incentive effects than inequality."
The problem with this theory is that present national GOP officeholders are practically oozing glee about the program being cutoff while simultaneously doing literally nothing to introduce legislation to correct any incentive effects. (Please note that I'm a lower-case "L" libertarian and would be fine with completely eliminating SNAP and similar programs, but would want it done through a proper legislative process and on a phase-out basis, not just turned off overnight, to allow private charities to get ramped up/reconfigured and also reduce the risk of pro-big government backlash.)
A DC gravy train rider like Matt cannot write a single article even about Trump cutting food benefits to poor people without defending the billionaires that fund the corruption gravy train that led to Trump in the first place.
>"a style of left politics that is obsessed with the wealth of the richest people"
For someone that claims to be a deep thinker Matt's position on rich people is utterly idiotic.
Since the case against ginormous power disparities should be definitionally evident to anyone that calls themselves "a liberal", it is quite comical although not surprising that someone who benefits from a DC ecosystem propped up by concentrated wealth cannot see that the problem with massive wealth is not the wealth itself but the fact that it naturally leads to disproportionate political power and ultimately a monopoly on the use of violence.
Elon Musk spent $250 million on Trump and got immediately appointed to as a special government employee for that very reason to steal American data and kill poor foreigners through cutting aid. Even former right-wingers who left the GOP see there is a problem here but these "paid to lose" Democrats like Matt do not think Musk's money translated to power.
FDR: "The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power."
The left does not oppose the uber wealthy just because they are "rich and successful", they have always opposed them because extreme wealth will either end Democracy or lead to violence in an attempt to preserve it.
As someone who doesn't follow the issue closely, a heuristic I use to conclude that Israel is probably the better side is that Hamas is using it's own children as human shields. As someone who doesn't follow the issue closely, it seems like by cutting off SNAP benefits the GOP are using their own children as human shields so probably the better side is the Dems.
"SNAP is one such program, which is why it wasn’t impacted when appropriations originally lapsed. However, administering the program requires a modest amount of spending over and above the expenditure on the benefits, and the appropriations for that administration ran out at the end of October."
Where can I find a source for this? Or some description of how SNAP is funded? Google search results are obviously flooded with current events.
I think if the progressive left spent more time coming up with a reasonable and coherent vision of programs for the genuinely poor they would actually be a lot more popular, not sadly because people would pay a lot of attention, but because it would provide a logical and internally consistent worldview to build messaging on top of, in a way that “decommodifying housing” and “government grocery stores” really just doesn’t.
Sometimes I get really ambitious about making dried beans a staple in my diet. They are cheap, environmentally friendly, and very good for you.
I want to be one of those hippie ladies that brings their own jars to the bulk section of the grocery store and brings home a huge collection of grains and beans. I already do this a bit, but I suck at cooking dried beans specifically. I follow the recipe, but they literally never cook all the way through for some reason! And yes I've tried the baking soda thing.
"brings their own jars to the bulk section of the grocery store"
Unless there's some option to do tare weight that I've never seen at any bulk food section, you'd ironically be paying a premium for the product by bringing your own jars since the jars would be much heavier than the provided plastic bags and you're paying by gross weight. Better to use the provided plastic bags and then repurpose those for collecting compost, pet waste, etc.
You can do that at some stores! There's a fancy place here in Seattle that will weigh your jars and print a sticker for you to put on the bottom for next time. I've never actually done it. It would probably be better to go during less busy hours.
The easiest way is to start with lentils, split peas or black eyed peas which don't need to be soaked overnight.
Another way to get it to work is to buy a good crockpot and use it to cook the beans. You can soak them overnight and then simmer them all day. The slow cooking is really good at getting them fully cooked.
I saw a short video recipe about making lentil waffles that actually works! You soak red lentils in soy milk overnight with one date and then blend it in the morning with a tiny bit of baking powder. Then just cook it in the waffle iron.
I was hoping to read more about how specifically SNAP is helping people. “Averting starvation” - maybe that was relevant in the 60’s when that study you mention happened. But nowadays hardly anyone in the US is dying of starvation. ChatGPT says it is about as common as getting hit by lightning.
On the other hand, illness from eating too much food is a huge problem in modern America. Even the poorest often suffer from obesity.
So I just wonder, at a very basic level, should we be trying to incentivize anyone to eat more food?? Maybe if we gave people “anti-SNAP” instead, money that can be spent on anything *except* food, that would be better.
This is like saying, "I'm using an umbrella, and it's keeping me dry. Therefore, I don't need to worry about the rain and can get rid of the umbrella."
Hunger is something that does affect millions of Americans. Even if someone isn't literally starving to death, it makes people irritable, in pain, and less capable of long-term planning. Those Snickers ads aren't wrong.
You have to consider both the costs and the benefits. I agree that hunger makes some people irritable, but when you have 30 Americans a year dying of hunger and 300,000 dying of obesity, it doesn't make sense to ignore the drastically higher death toll caused by obesity.
I think you both underweight the problems with malnutrition, and confuse the tools with which we deal with them. The stress that comes with malnutrition is very bad for people and also a contributor to long-term mortality, even if they don't starve.
I agree with Matt's take on leftist focus on crushing billionaires. I'm actually not super interested either way in anti-trust laws. I don't care so much if some people or companies get super rich. We should have highly progressive taxes so that we can build a robust safety net.
Can I take a minute and thumb my nose at the middle class? I'm not running for office, I'm not going to say any of this stuff out loud, but I'm annoyed by their (our?) moral impulses.
I've been seeing a whole bunch of memes on social media about "HoW cOmE pEoPlE oN sNaP gEt LoBsTeR fOr DiNnEr?" Ok, how restrictive do you want to make this program? If we get rid of lobster I already know you're going to find the next most luxurious food available on SNAP and get pissed about that. You're really mad about $177/month in benefits? "ThEy DiDn'T wOrK fOr It." Ok why don't you just advocate abolishing the program? Do you want there to be no food assistance for poor kids? "No." Ok, then either SNAP or some similar program is going to exist, so get over it.
Then, on the the rich people side of things, I think Matt is correct about elected Republicans' priorities, but average MAGA Republicans are just like Democrats in that they have zero problem raising taxes on people richer than them. But of course, just raising taxes on billionaires won't raise enough money to do anything, so again, "tax the rich" is just moral posturing.
Funny enough, the SNAP program would probably be more sustainable if everybody paid some 0.01% SNAP tax and the program was framed more as something akin to unemployment benefits that we would all use if we fell on hard times. I wouldn't like the sense of entitlement that would create, but it does seem to be the dynamic.
I think there's a lot of antipathy toward assistance programs, because just about all lower-middle class people have a family member who could get their shit together and refuses to and who abuses the programs.
To tie it with the shutdown more broadly, I think that it's a humiliation ritual. People should be made to feel bad about being poor. It's the "common sense" notion of "spare the rod, spoil the child," which doesn't actually work, but sounds like it should to most people. The poor are infantilised, and in need of discipline, according to this logic. It's not to give them support they may need, but about control.
More broadly, Trump and his Republican allies don't need Democratic support to open the government. They could pass it on their own. Trump has spent months taking over the power of the purse, and Republicans and the courts have largely let him. But for Trump it's not about that. He has to assert dominance. He has to make Democrats get kicked in the teeth and agree to get kicked in the teeth. Like with the folk wisdom of "spoiling" people one sees as lesser. I don't think that it's likely to work, but the logic is stubborn.
It's both possible to want there to be SNAP, and to not want people to spend it on things like Soda and other junk food. If people think they money is being wasted they are less likely to support it.
A bit ironic that the sea bugs went from "this is what the poors eat, because they can't afford mutton" to "how dare you have that delightful, expensive crustacean in your cart", right?
It's bad faith. As soon as we get rid of lobster, the next nicest thing will go viral, and that would repeat until the SNAP recipients are forced to eat nutriloaf.
As for soda I guess I agree, but I'm with Matt here. It would be better to give people cash and if we're concerned about people being unhealthy, tax junk food or whatever.
Okay, but the tax junk food part will never happen (even though I agree it should). So given that, I think it's a reasonable idea to limit SNAP. WiC seems like overkill (if Matt's 2021 article is anything to go by), but I feel like there's a middle ground where we cut out pop and chips and cookies.
Ultimately yes, if we have a SNAP program, we do have to decide what it will and won't pay for. I don't actually have strong opinions on that. No lobster? Fine. I just don't think it stops there with these people.
I'd like to ask the critics what they want SNAP to pay for and if they can't come up with a list, let's just stick with whatever it's currently paying for.
It’s also heavily location dependent. If you live somewhere where lobster is extremely expensive I could see SNAP recipients blowing their whole wad on an expensive luxury item immediately then not having enough for the rest of the month being a legitimate problem. Where I live though, lobster tails regularly go on sale for 6 or 7 bucks, a lobster dinner with baked potato and a vegetable is cheaper than eating at McDonald’s. Banning SNAP from being spent on lobster here would accomplish little beyond virtue signaling.
I am pretty skeptical of Matt's framing that Trump is responsible for the SNAP benefit cutoff.
I have been generally worried about Trump's spending of funds in ways that have not been authorized by congress. I thought he was wrong to pay the troops with funding not appropriated for that purpose. I therefore have trouble faulting him for not coming up with creative ways to fund SNAP that probably stretch reasonable interpretation.
Matt linked to NPR as a source for why Trump could tap contingency funds. I find NPR a pretty partisan source. Here's a source arguing the other side. https://amuseonx.substack.com/p/judge-mcconnells-snap-order-a-short
Matt may be right that Trump has discretion here, but I think he should have provided stronger evidence for his claim given the framing he chose for the article.
As a separate issue, I don't think shutting down the government is an appropriate way to negotiate expanded ACA subsidies, and (with less confidence) don't think expanded ACA subsidies are correct on the merit.
I think democrats should pass a clean CR and negotiate from there. I think congressional republicans should scrap the filibuster and reopen the government.
> So the politics of firing this gun may not play out exactly how Republicans hope.
I get the feeling Matt doesn't understand how this works. When Trump does something like this, he pretends it's not him who's doing it, and then all the Trump-friendly media (of which there is a ton) plays along. Not sure how any Dem or Dem-leaning person can miss this. Consider Trump's recent "Truth Social" post for example (and consider why it's called Truth Social):
> Our Government lawyers do not think we have the legal authority to pay SNAP with certain monies we have available, and now two Courts have issued conflicting opinions on what we can and cannot do. I do NOT want Americans to go hungry just because the Radical Democrats refuse to do the right thing and REOPEN THE GOVERNMENT. Therefore, I have instructed our lawyers to ask the Court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible. It is already delayed enough due to the Democrats keeping the Government closed through the monthly payment date and, even if we get immediate guidance, it will unfortunately be delayed while States get the money out. If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding, just like I did with Military and Law Enforcement Pay. The Democrats should quit this charade where they hurt people for their own political reasons, and immediately REOPEN THE GOVERNMENT. If you use SNAP benefits, call the Senate Democrats, and tell them to reopen the Government, NOW! Here is Cryin’ Chuck Schumer’s Office Number: (202) 224-6542
"our median living standards are much higher than in Europe"
Are they? Or do we work more hours for more income? There's no debate the median US worker earns more money than the median French worker. But the French worker gets 8 weeks PTO
Not directly on point, but this article on Feeding America's use of market design to optimize food bank supplies was fascinating: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-market-design-can-feed-the-poor/
Example:
"The Choice System’s impact was immediate and dramatic. Food supply increased by approximately 35 percent (100 million pounds) in the year around implementation. Within just the first seven months after launch, supply rose by 50 million pounds.
It also revealed how wrong the previous system’s assumptions were: auctions revealed that food banks were willing to trade 116 pounds of produce for a single pound of pasta.
Produce sold for just four percent of the average good’s price, while rice, pasta, and cereal cost roughly three times the median. The average price was 0.28 shares per pound, meaning food banks typically received about three pounds per share. But a quarter of loads sold for 0.3 shares or more, and eight percent of purchases involved food banks paying more than one share per pound.
Over 80 percent of the efficiency gains came from allowing food banks to choose to ‘buy’ lower quantities of higher quality food, which allowed food banks to correct skews in their other food sources. Compared to what they would have received under the old system, 30 percent of food banks chose to get more than twice as many pounds, while another 25 percent chose less than half as many pounds."
I'm trying to understand how this system led to a net increase in food supply measured in pounds when at the same time it sounds like food banks drastically cut back the volume of produce they were taking to get much smaller volumes of processed foods.
“…trade 116 pounds of produce for a single pound of pasta”
Jesus Hopping Christ, that’s insane! Do poor people not eat any produce?
How reliable is the research in this area? It seems like there would be some strong ideological preference for finding good effects from SNAP benefits, and the list of a bunch of barely-noticeable improvements in a grab-bag of different measures makes me worry about multiple comparison/garden of forking path issues here. But I do not know this literature at all, so who knows?
Great article. Social programs can (1) be very effective on their own terms to alleviate human suffering - SNAP indeed gets people food and Medicaid gets them health care - and (2) have a bunch of second-order benefits in people's lives, because it turns out making people suffer gratuitously is bad and alleviating that suffering can be good in unexpected ways. There has emerged a really impressive body of literature to this effect particularly about SNAP, Medicaid/ACA health coverage, and the EITC. And it's also important for people to be aware that a really big chunk of the population benefits from social programs at some point in life.
Obviously people have different normative views about social insurance. I think social spending is really good and I think a lot of voters agree. But either way, the above realities are underrated in the discourse and should be more widely known.
I get Matt is a left wing commentator, but the description of right wing policy preferences in this article is a ridiculous straw man. The right wing is more concerned about incentive effects than inequality. That’s not being indifferent to poverty. It’s prioritizing different factors/values.
In terms of pro growth policies being a point of partisan disagreement comes down to how much you conflate the right wing with MAGA/Trump. For example, basically every red state YIMBY bill is better than basically every blue state housing bill.
"but the description of right wing policy preferences in this article is a ridiculous straw man. The right wing is more concerned about incentive effects than inequality."
The problem with this theory is that present national GOP officeholders are practically oozing glee about the program being cutoff while simultaneously doing literally nothing to introduce legislation to correct any incentive effects. (Please note that I'm a lower-case "L" libertarian and would be fine with completely eliminating SNAP and similar programs, but would want it done through a proper legislative process and on a phase-out basis, not just turned off overnight, to allow private charities to get ramped up/reconfigured and also reduce the risk of pro-big government backlash.)
A DC gravy train rider like Matt cannot write a single article even about Trump cutting food benefits to poor people without defending the billionaires that fund the corruption gravy train that led to Trump in the first place.
>"a style of left politics that is obsessed with the wealth of the richest people"
For someone that claims to be a deep thinker Matt's position on rich people is utterly idiotic.
Since the case against ginormous power disparities should be definitionally evident to anyone that calls themselves "a liberal", it is quite comical although not surprising that someone who benefits from a DC ecosystem propped up by concentrated wealth cannot see that the problem with massive wealth is not the wealth itself but the fact that it naturally leads to disproportionate political power and ultimately a monopoly on the use of violence.
Elon Musk spent $250 million on Trump and got immediately appointed to as a special government employee for that very reason to steal American data and kill poor foreigners through cutting aid. Even former right-wingers who left the GOP see there is a problem here but these "paid to lose" Democrats like Matt do not think Musk's money translated to power.
FDR: "The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power."
The left does not oppose the uber wealthy just because they are "rich and successful", they have always opposed them because extreme wealth will either end Democracy or lead to violence in an attempt to preserve it.
As someone who doesn't follow the issue closely, a heuristic I use to conclude that Israel is probably the better side is that Hamas is using it's own children as human shields. As someone who doesn't follow the issue closely, it seems like by cutting off SNAP benefits the GOP are using their own children as human shields so probably the better side is the Dems.
"SNAP is one such program, which is why it wasn’t impacted when appropriations originally lapsed. However, administering the program requires a modest amount of spending over and above the expenditure on the benefits, and the appropriations for that administration ran out at the end of October."
Where can I find a source for this? Or some description of how SNAP is funded? Google search results are obviously flooded with current events.
> I also trust that people are not relying on Slow Boring as their only news source.
Well I also read the comments.
Anyway, what’s new?
I think if the progressive left spent more time coming up with a reasonable and coherent vision of programs for the genuinely poor they would actually be a lot more popular, not sadly because people would pay a lot of attention, but because it would provide a logical and internally consistent worldview to build messaging on top of, in a way that “decommodifying housing” and “government grocery stores” really just doesn’t.
Sometimes I get really ambitious about making dried beans a staple in my diet. They are cheap, environmentally friendly, and very good for you.
I want to be one of those hippie ladies that brings their own jars to the bulk section of the grocery store and brings home a huge collection of grains and beans. I already do this a bit, but I suck at cooking dried beans specifically. I follow the recipe, but they literally never cook all the way through for some reason! And yes I've tried the baking soda thing.
Do you have an Instant Pot? Life changing for this purpose!
I need to replace the plug. My dog chewed it off when he was a puppy. (It wasn't plugged in.)
"brings their own jars to the bulk section of the grocery store"
Unless there's some option to do tare weight that I've never seen at any bulk food section, you'd ironically be paying a premium for the product by bringing your own jars since the jars would be much heavier than the provided plastic bags and you're paying by gross weight. Better to use the provided plastic bags and then repurpose those for collecting compost, pet waste, etc.
You can do that at some stores! There's a fancy place here in Seattle that will weigh your jars and print a sticker for you to put on the bottom for next time. I've never actually done it. It would probably be better to go during less busy hours.
The easiest way is to start with lentils, split peas or black eyed peas which don't need to be soaked overnight.
Another way to get it to work is to buy a good crockpot and use it to cook the beans. You can soak them overnight and then simmer them all day. The slow cooking is really good at getting them fully cooked.
Dried lentils work fine, but for other beans I always use canned!
I saw a short video recipe about making lentil waffles that actually works! You soak red lentils in soy milk overnight with one date and then blend it in the morning with a tiny bit of baking powder. Then just cook it in the waffle iron.
I cook lentils pretty frequently! Not as much as I should...
Do you do an overnight soak?
I've tried it all! At some point I just decided I had bad beans
That's entirely possible. The older they get, the harder they are to soften up.
They're also good for your heart.
I was hoping to read more about how specifically SNAP is helping people. “Averting starvation” - maybe that was relevant in the 60’s when that study you mention happened. But nowadays hardly anyone in the US is dying of starvation. ChatGPT says it is about as common as getting hit by lightning.
On the other hand, illness from eating too much food is a huge problem in modern America. Even the poorest often suffer from obesity.
So I just wonder, at a very basic level, should we be trying to incentivize anyone to eat more food?? Maybe if we gave people “anti-SNAP” instead, money that can be spent on anything *except* food, that would be better.
This is like saying, "I'm using an umbrella, and it's keeping me dry. Therefore, I don't need to worry about the rain and can get rid of the umbrella."
Hunger is something that does affect millions of Americans. Even if someone isn't literally starving to death, it makes people irritable, in pain, and less capable of long-term planning. Those Snickers ads aren't wrong.
You have to consider both the costs and the benefits. I agree that hunger makes some people irritable, but when you have 30 Americans a year dying of hunger and 300,000 dying of obesity, it doesn't make sense to ignore the drastically higher death toll caused by obesity.
I think you both underweight the problems with malnutrition, and confuse the tools with which we deal with them. The stress that comes with malnutrition is very bad for people and also a contributor to long-term mortality, even if they don't starve.
I agree with Matt's take on leftist focus on crushing billionaires. I'm actually not super interested either way in anti-trust laws. I don't care so much if some people or companies get super rich. We should have highly progressive taxes so that we can build a robust safety net.
Can I take a minute and thumb my nose at the middle class? I'm not running for office, I'm not going to say any of this stuff out loud, but I'm annoyed by their (our?) moral impulses.
I've been seeing a whole bunch of memes on social media about "HoW cOmE pEoPlE oN sNaP gEt LoBsTeR fOr DiNnEr?" Ok, how restrictive do you want to make this program? If we get rid of lobster I already know you're going to find the next most luxurious food available on SNAP and get pissed about that. You're really mad about $177/month in benefits? "ThEy DiDn'T wOrK fOr It." Ok why don't you just advocate abolishing the program? Do you want there to be no food assistance for poor kids? "No." Ok, then either SNAP or some similar program is going to exist, so get over it.
Then, on the the rich people side of things, I think Matt is correct about elected Republicans' priorities, but average MAGA Republicans are just like Democrats in that they have zero problem raising taxes on people richer than them. But of course, just raising taxes on billionaires won't raise enough money to do anything, so again, "tax the rich" is just moral posturing.
Funny enough, the SNAP program would probably be more sustainable if everybody paid some 0.01% SNAP tax and the program was framed more as something akin to unemployment benefits that we would all use if we fell on hard times. I wouldn't like the sense of entitlement that would create, but it does seem to be the dynamic.
I think there's a lot of antipathy toward assistance programs, because just about all lower-middle class people have a family member who could get their shit together and refuses to and who abuses the programs.
That's there index for these programs.
To tie it with the shutdown more broadly, I think that it's a humiliation ritual. People should be made to feel bad about being poor. It's the "common sense" notion of "spare the rod, spoil the child," which doesn't actually work, but sounds like it should to most people. The poor are infantilised, and in need of discipline, according to this logic. It's not to give them support they may need, but about control.
More broadly, Trump and his Republican allies don't need Democratic support to open the government. They could pass it on their own. Trump has spent months taking over the power of the purse, and Republicans and the courts have largely let him. But for Trump it's not about that. He has to assert dominance. He has to make Democrats get kicked in the teeth and agree to get kicked in the teeth. Like with the folk wisdom of "spoiling" people one sees as lesser. I don't think that it's likely to work, but the logic is stubborn.
Of course tough love works. Support should be conditional. To get the support you need to get your act together.
For example, my parents policy when you turned 18 was either
get out
pay rent
go to college
If you weren't doing the stuff you needed to do then support was cutoff. Paternalism is GOOD
It's both possible to want there to be SNAP, and to not want people to spend it on things like Soda and other junk food. If people think they money is being wasted they are less likely to support it.
As for Lobster it codes as rich luxury
A bit ironic that the sea bugs went from "this is what the poors eat, because they can't afford mutton" to "how dare you have that delightful, expensive crustacean in your cart", right?
It's bad faith. As soon as we get rid of lobster, the next nicest thing will go viral, and that would repeat until the SNAP recipients are forced to eat nutriloaf.
As for soda I guess I agree, but I'm with Matt here. It would be better to give people cash and if we're concerned about people being unhealthy, tax junk food or whatever.
Okay, but the tax junk food part will never happen (even though I agree it should). So given that, I think it's a reasonable idea to limit SNAP. WiC seems like overkill (if Matt's 2021 article is anything to go by), but I feel like there's a middle ground where we cut out pop and chips and cookies.
Ultimately yes, if we have a SNAP program, we do have to decide what it will and won't pay for. I don't actually have strong opinions on that. No lobster? Fine. I just don't think it stops there with these people.
I'd like to ask the critics what they want SNAP to pay for and if they can't come up with a list, let's just stick with whatever it's currently paying for.
It’s also heavily location dependent. If you live somewhere where lobster is extremely expensive I could see SNAP recipients blowing their whole wad on an expensive luxury item immediately then not having enough for the rest of the month being a legitimate problem. Where I live though, lobster tails regularly go on sale for 6 or 7 bucks, a lobster dinner with baked potato and a vegetable is cheaper than eating at McDonald’s. Banning SNAP from being spent on lobster here would accomplish little beyond virtue signaling.
We should all use SNAP when we fall on hard times! What’s wrong with that?
Universal SNAP.
I'm not kidding.
Universal SNAP and universal Section 8 and Medicare for all aaaaaand it's communism.
And it’s beautiful!
I’d accept a credit card with no limit I could bill to the government in lieu of in-kind benefits, though
Absolutely!