Millionaires On A Food Stamp Diet?By Danny Tyree September 25, 2013
(Even after years of the use of debit cards, we still talk about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as "food stamps." It's like announcing, "I reckon I'll drive down to the general store in my horseless carriage and get vittles with the food stamps.")
FOOD STAMPS
Many people have cheered this attempt to see "how the other half lives," but Shaich has also received criticism from both the left and the right. Some SNAP recipients find the campaign a too-brief, meaningless gesture. One recipient observed, "Whoa! A whole week living with only necessities? Heck, Mr. CEO, I could do that standing on my head - although my cigarettes and smartphone might fall out of my shirt pocket and the beer might run down my nose..."
Work Incentive
I'm glad people are talking again. In the old days we at least had acknowledgments of "There but by the grace of God go I." Now that such invocations of religion are verboten, people have relied on, "I think life — and poverty — were caused by comets. I wish I could help the poor, but it might rip a hole in the fabric of space and time..." Many of us are willing to take an "I gave at the office" approach to hunger and ignore the millions of hungry children. Raising the issue is just so DIVISIVE, although that certainly has nothing to do with the percentage of food stamp recipients who grouse, "Those dirty fatcat one-percenter razzinfrazzins are so JUDGMENTAL!" Defenders and critics alike want to judge SNAP in its entirety on a pass-fail basis rather than acknowledging individual differences. There's a difference between "only industry in town abruptly closed" or "crippling disease strikes widowed breadwinner" and "Practices unsafe sex, alienates family, avoids church and routinely tells boss to take this job and shove it." Mere dependence on food stamps is not a matter of SHAME. Swelling the ranks of SNAP via a sluggish economy and a snazzy PR campaign is not a matter of PRIDE. Hunger is what it is — and it is an OPPORTUNITY for all of us to roll up our sleeves and find a comprehensive solution through fine-tuning of SNAP eligibility, coordination of food banks, greater job opportunities and REALISTIC (not pie-in-the-sky) progress toward living wages. $4.50 a day doesn't leave much room for sharing, but Shaich has given us much to chew on.
©2013 Danny Tyree. Distributed to subscribers
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