For the 14th time, Republicans voted to reopen the government. Dems voted not to. So SNAP will be cut in half. Trump (or Schumer, unintentionally) has forced us to do something we have needed to do for years: understand why 42 million of us are on food stamps.
The SNAP program, introduced in 1939 and “reimagined” in the 1990s, seeks to alleviate hunger by providing electronic funds to an EBT card used to buy food items approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. For the kids out there, it’s like Venmo, but for groceries. Your “friend” is the federal government, not your parent.
Let me say upfront that no one wants any American citizen to go hungry. We work hard to pay taxes to create a safety net for our less fortunate who have fallen on hard times. But in some cases, the safety net has become a safety hammock.
Most of us believe that Americans should have the freedom to choose what they eat — and the responsibility to figure out how to pay for it. When they cannot, and for that temporary time period, most Americans are happy to help. Local food banks do a great job of leveraging SNAP dollars.
In terms Democrats can understand, we do not want to cut SNAP. We want to reimagine it. SNAP will be replaced by a program called “Getting a Job,” for those who can.