The Republican House of Representatives has reached new lows in cutting SNAP (food stamps) at this time of high unemployment and increased food insecurity. However, the farm bill that they did pass increased funding for agribusiness & the wealthy through farm subsidies. For more context, read the whole of Paul Krugman’s column today. Krugman points out that the farm subsidies are where the bigger theft of taxpayer funds is happening.
When the House begins work on a farm bill this week, conservatives will target the growing food stamp program, which they complain is rife with fraud and waste. But critics say conservatives are overlooking problems in other farm programs.
Government audits and court records show hundreds of millions of dollars in losses due to fraud in a variety of farm programs, including crop insurance and subsidies that help agribusinesses promote their products abroad. The rate of food stamp fraud, on the other hand, has declined sharply in recent years, federal data shows, and now accounts for 1 percent of the $75 billion program, or about $750 million a year. (emphasis added)
That’s from a news article, not Krugman’s column. It definitely looks like the Republicans are not watching where the money goes. But the best play in this farm bill fiasco came from Rep. Jim McGovern who introduced a pointed amendment:
During a House Agriculture Committee hearing recently, Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, offered an amendment to delay cuts to food stamps until the percentage of improper payments in the crop insurance program matched the error and fraud rate for food stamps. The food stamp error rate is 3.8 percent, according to Agriculture Department data, while the rate for the crop insurance program is 4.7 percent. (emphasis added)
Naturally, the Republicans voted his amendment down. It would be surprising for them to help the people who are down and out and need it most. But what Rep. McGovern did is what more Democrats need to do every chance they get: point out that the Republicans will not help the Americans who need it most, and Democrats will. Hopefully it will lead to Democrats taking over the House again.
Because as long as Republicans control the House, there is no hope for the people at the bottom.
If Obama does not privatize Medicare the GOP will not raise debt ceiling and plunge the economy into recession again.
Ugh!
The food stamp program seems pretty easy to defend. The Republicans in the House, by trying to gut it, are not going to win popularity contests.
Just as our legislative “leaders” in Massachusetts are terrified about raising the income tax one penny lest the Democratic majority drop to only 75%, because they fear voters will freak out on them, many national Democrats cannot believe the voters will actually support them on food stamps. Despite public opinion surveys showing strong popular support for these programs in these hard times, Democrats seem convinced that the “anti-handout” message will resonate better than the humanitarian one.
What I think would work is ads juxtaposing the cuts in food stamps with the increase in agri-business subsidies in the GOP House bill. THAT comparison would resonate. But many Congressional Dems have equally strong links to agri-business themselves. Still, they should push this and everything else they can; thanks to gerrymandering they’d need to win the nationwide popular House vote by about 8% to take the chamber back.
this would not be a problem. The president could simply veto any farm bill that does not include food stamps.
If he thinks it is a win politically, he can frankly say that he wants food stamps in the farm bill.
If he doesn’t want a public fight over food stamps, he can just veto the farm bill and state that there is too much waste and fraud in it, and say that he will sign a bill that doesn’t have waste and fraud.
All he has to do is repeat the process until someone figures out that what the president really wants is a food stamp bill.
The president has all the power here. The farm state republicans need the farm bill, and they can’t get it without the president’s signature.
There are lots of farm states. Nebraska and Oklahoma are farm states, to be sure — but in many ways, so are the very blue IL, MN, CA, PA, WI, NY; and the purple IA, VA, NC, AK, MT, etc. It’d be a hell of a show-down, and the optics would suck. Despite reality, Obama would be portrayed as cutting out the legs of the good old American Farmer who toils on his 40 acres, so that the lazy, dark-skinned naer’do’well city dwellers get a free meal. That’s not reality, but that’s the natural vision oodles of middle class suburban Americans perceive.
Tough optics make tough politics.