As you have no doubt heard by now The Conservative Republic of Brownbackistan, er, sorry, the deep red State of Kansas, last week fired the openng Salvos in what can only be described as "the War on the poor":
Republican Gov. Sam Brownback signed House Bill 2258 into law Thursday. The measure means Kansas families receiving government assistance will no longer be able to use those funds to visit swimming pools, see movies, go gambling or get tattoos on the state’s dime.
and in Missouri a bill is trying to ban food stamp recipients from buying "steak and seafood" with their food stamp benefits
Now the sort of law can be very difficult to oppose because it lumps in things many people would agree with (not using benefits at strip clubs, or to get tattoos) with much more subtle , and nasty restrictions that require you to really understand what ti is to be poor, to know why they are SO nasty. Eg restrictions on using benefits for "arcades" or "pools" means you can;t save up to give your kid the birthday party he really wants at Chuck-e-Cheese or Worlds of Fun- a tiny bright spot in the grim existence that growing up poor often is)
Similarly prohibitions on buying "seafood" with food stamps (meant to conjure visions of lobster-eating "welfare queens" living high on the hog) means that canned tuna, a high-quality low-cost protein, is suddenly denied to folks who really need it.
The problem is, these arguments are all about nuance and facts, and these laws are meant as a pure emotional appeal, to arouse middle class anger at "freeloaders" (to distract them from the REAL reason, they are so economically anxious, their own shrinking paychecks and share fo the national wealth).
But Just as this is a "stunt law" there IS a Stunt Clever democratic Lawmakers could stage to reframe the debate entirely:
In form it is simplicity itself. (wildly unenforceable but that is not the point) A rider to any bill restricting the use of Food Stamps or Temporary Cash Assistance that provides that the EXACT SAME spending restrictions shall apply to any state funds received by the owner of any business, or any corporation, or its officers and directors that employs ten or more full-time workers who are also eligible for food stamps or other public assistance. Hell we can even name it "the Wal-mart Rule"
The idea is to bring the issue into proper focus. Since the Reagan era the Right has 9as part of a racist appeal to white voters) railed against "welfare queens" and conjured this image of people living high on the hog while doing no work, that resonates deeply with people working full time jobs and seeing thier paychecks cover less and less every year. The real culprit of course is the fact that wages have been plummeting in real dollars and purchasing power since the 1970's).
Getting people angry about the people below them on the socio-economic ladder, convincing them they would be just fine if the weren't having to pay for so many "freeloaders" is now the core of the GOP strategy (see Romney, Mitt and 47%) , because it distracts from the fact that the REAL problem is the GOP's policies that funnel more and more of the nation's wealth to t the top tiers, and asks for less and less back from them.
The way to fight back against this is to put a human face to the Shibboleth the right has constructed. To turn "welfare queens" into "the working poor". To make it that when food stamps and are mentioned we don;t think of Fox New's fake surfer dude, and instead think of the guy who cleans our office or bags our groceries at the local superstore.
Adding and "employer rider" starts to open the debate of whether coproations and employers ALSO have a social responsibility to bear the costs of giving their empoloyees a decent living. The turth is that, far from lazy "welfare queens" Almost 60% of food stamp recipients work full time, and sometimes hold MORE than one full time job. In fact, for many of them, that Job involves wearing a uniform and putting themselves in harm's way for their country, as 25% of Us military families are on food stamps
We people read of laws restricting food stamps they need to not gleefully rub thier hands and think they've "stuck it to the freeloaders" , but instead understand that they've just made a solider's kid's life just a little more miserable.
The point is to get employers mentioned in any story about welfare and foodstamps, because we need to force the debate in this country as to why anyone should worked 40 hours a week and still be unable to feed themselves or their family.
It's time to turn the anger over poverty in America from "freeloading" PEOPLE, and put it where it belongs, on Freeloading COMPANIES We need to start making the argument that if you are paying your employees so little that they are on public assistance, then YOU the business owner are the one who is "freeloading" and YOU are the one who should be ashamed, not your employees.
IF people want to be angry they should be angry at a corporation like Wal-Mart that had $16 billion in revenue last year,but took another $4 billion from public coffers in the form of safety net benefits for its employees because of how badly Wal-mart underpays them, not the Walmart employee who gets an average $1 per person per meal in assistance to buy food.
Then maybe we can finally have the long overdue debate on things like the minimum wage and the why corporate profits have tripled in the same time that real wages have declined. And maybe, just maybe, we can do something about that.