New Orleans In the United States, like it or not, we’re on the countdown. The government has been shutdown for weeks, as the polarity between the party’s positions pushes towards a new record for dysfunction. The President is hands-off on a snack tour of the Far East beginning with Japan. There are no visible signs of negotiations in this last standoff at the No Ok Congress corral. What a mess!
Once again, in what has become commonplace in the Trump administration, the least among us are about to suffer the most among us. Within days, most Head Starts will shutdown with no money coming. Except in a few exceptional cases, there will be no food stamps and no utility assistance.
Josh Hawley, a Republican Senator from Missouri, stands in line behind no one as an archconservative, yet sometimes surprises with his attempts to present himself as a supporter of workers and unions as a different kind of far-right populist. Add to his special brand a cry from the wilderness on the op-ed pages of the Times calling for support for Congressional action to fund hunger programs for the poor.
He writes,
Millions of Americans rely on food assistance just to get by. The program often known as food stamps — officially it’s now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — is a lifeline that permits the needy to purchase basic food items at the grocery store. Last year, SNAP enrollees hit about 42 million. That’s over 12 percent of the American population. We’re not talking about high earners who don’t really need the assistance. SNAP broadly limits assistance to those who make 130 percent of the poverty line and below. These days, that’s folks who earn about $42,000 or less for a family of four. For these good people, food assistance is not an optional extra. They need it to feed their children. The millions of Americans who receive food assistance include young parents raising children, men and women with disabilities, families suffering from temporary job loss and workers who have fallen on hard times. Among SNAP’s many beneficiaries are veterans. Approximately 1.2 million of our warriors receive food assistance. Surely it is not hard to understand why SNAP is so essential to so many. The American economy has not been kind to working people in recent years. What cost $100 five years ago costs $125 today. So, if you’re not earning 25 percent more than you were five years ago, you’re getting poorer. That’s most families in America. And nowhere do they feel it more than at the grocery store. But nobody in America, this richest of nations, should go to bed hungry, and certainly no child.
We have to wonder who can disagree with Hawley’s argument? What kind of country uses starvation tactics to enforce political goals? The world has witnessed this with horror, regardless of the provocation, how Israel implemented this kind of inhumanity as part of its strategy, termed by many as genocidal, in Gaza against Palestinians. Is this who we are now, a country that punishes lower income families as part of its tax policies and then victimizes them in the divisive polarity of its politics?
The equally extremist governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, announced that he was taping a $150 million emergency fund to allow food stamp payments to continue in November. Someone asked me if I thought he had made a deal with Washington to get reimbursed, implying some cynical backroom motivations. Looking at the states that are refusing to pay, led by Texas, I was adamant that there no deal. Furthermore, it didn’t matter, even if he was doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, the important point was that he was doing the right thing.
If even Hawley and Landry see this is wrong, why don’t others? Will their voices be heard or make a difference? We doubt it, but, even if ignored, this should be remembered, as we continue to reckon with what we are becoming as a people and as a country.