COMPASSION and the MULTIPLIER EFFECT

 By Roger Kostmayer

Sometimes doing the right and compassionate thing is also the smart and economically prudent thing.

 

But cutting food benefits to needy children is just the opposite – it’s wrong AND dumb. These cuts not only increase hunger and suffering, they decrease demand,

 

economic growth and jobs. In spite of these facts, a majority in Congress wants to reduce the supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) at the worst time for both the needy and the economy. The size of the cut in the House is $5 billion a year and some House Republicans are trying to double that number. What this means is almost 50 million of our neighbors who are struggling to survive the Great Recession will be denied the assistance that’s keeping food on their tables.

 

The arguments in favor of this cruel and senseless legislative act are a combination of austerity ideology and a slander campaign to blame the victims. SNAP opponents claim that recipients (75% of whom are children, the elderly and the handicapped)are unworthy and lazy. Data show they are neither. 41% of SNAP beneficiaries are working families who can’t survive on minimum wages, and (if “unworthy” and “undeserving” are code words for immigrants) the charges are false because both illegal immigrants and immigrants with less than 5 years residency are specifically excluded.

 

Instead of cutting this lifeline for the most needy, which consists of $2 per meal, and losing the positive multiplier effect of $5 to $10 billion each year, why not close the tax loopholes and corporate subsidies that would save hundreds of billions over the next decade? That solution would save more money, prevent more hunger, create more jobs and grow our economy instead of retard it.

 

Roger C. Kostmayer

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