If you've been following the republican primary with even mild interest, you've probably heard this phrase: "Barack Obama, the food stamp President". The unsubtle implication, of course, is that a Democratic President can't but help create that fabled 'culture of dependency' that supposedly benefits mainly ethnic minorities, and stands at odds with the robust entrepreneurial culture the republicans claim to champion.
There are many things wrong with that implied argument, starting with the demographics of SNAP - the 'Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program' - as food stamps are actually referred to. Of the 45 million beneficiaries, 49% are white, only 26% African American. Of course, racist dog whistles don't necessarily require empirical proof or any noticeable tethering to observable reality.
But what should really blow this argument out of the water is one simple fact: among the people who benefit from SNAP are a staggering number of the men and women we send out to fight and die for our country, and their families.
Read on.
From Military Spouse:
“When you don’t have food, you’re afraid,” said Carey, a Navy wife based in California. “A man wants to think he can take care of his family. It’s hard for him when he can’t, and scary for both of us. My husband is supposed to do what his country needs him to do. But that means I’ve got to find a way to feed my kids ’cause that’s what I’m supposed to do. And I’m sure I’m looked down on because I had to get on Food Stamps.”
[...]
“Poverty among military families is a greatly under-reported story,” said Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times columnist and author of 13 books, including Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. To chronicle the plight of the millions of workers earning poverty wages, Ehrenreich became one, then wrote about the reality of the working poor.
Last year [2010], Ehrenreich reported that according to her sources, some 25,000 families of service members were eligible for Food Stamps.
From the Times-Herald of Georgia:
From 2008 to 2009 military families were using food stamps at twice the rate as civilians, 25 percent to 13 percent. About $31 million of food stamps were used in nationwide commissaries. [...]
President Obama, in the 2010 Defense Authorization Bill, increased the food subsistence program for military families to $1,100 and made it non-taxable to help get families off food stamps. But will it?
The military pay scale does not match cost of living anywhere in America. So if the U.S can only pay men and women who volunteer to serve and protect our freedom a wage that reflects poverty, how can anyone complain about someone else getting food stamps?
How indeed. I imagine being a desperate, 1% draft-dodging bottom-feeder would be helpful.
Like, say, Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich.
3:44 PM PT: If anyone wants to do something tangible for our men and women in uniform in a Netroots kind of way, I'd suggest donating to Netroots For The Troops. None of us has to stand aside.