RFKjr is a "betrayal of all my father worked for", by his sister Maxwell Taylor Kennedy in an emotional tribute to her father

Wow, this opinion echo puplished in th Boston Globe must be considered for award winning journalism.✍️🏆

My brother RFK Jr. is betraying our father’s legacy.

"It’s a betrayal of all that my father worked for."

Robert F. Kennedy would have turned 100 this week — and he would have been appalled at the Trump administration’s cruelty.  By Maxwell Taylor Kennedy

The late Senator Robert F. Kennedy former Attorney General
(b. 1925- D. 1968)

Maxwell Taylor Kennedy, the ninth child of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy, is an attorney and an author.

My father, Robert F. Kennedy, would have turned 100 years old this week. 

And were he alive, he would certainly be taking stock of the country he loved and served. Of course, there is no way to know precisely what he would have thought. 

But, I do know what he cared about most deeply: the injustice of poverty in the richest nation in the world and our duty as citizens to make sure that no child goes to bed hungry.

And specifically know, that he would have been appalled by the cruelty the Trump administration has directed toward America’s neediest people..

During the Republican government shutdown, the administration put 42 million Americans at risk of losing food assistance through the SNAP program.

And while the recent budget deal has provided some relief, it won’t make up for the permanent changes Republican legislators made to SNAP with passage of the president’s “Big Beautiful Bill” 🤢 this summer — tightening eligibility requirements and all but ensuring that millions will lose benefits.

It’s a betrayal of all that my father worked for.

And all those complicit in that betrayal have lowered themselves — not least my brother, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s secretary of health and human services, who knows my father’s legacy as well as anyone.

The legacy:  My father grew up in one of the most privileged families in the United States. The Great Depression had no impact on his standard of living. His father and brothers graduated from Harvard, just like did he.

But, Robert and his brother he President John F. Kennedy saw poverty up close during John’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for president in West Virginia. 

And shortly after taking office, President Kennedy authorized a pilot food stamp program. It grew throughout his time in office, and President Lyndon B. Johnson ushered in a major expansion when he signed the Food Stamp Act as part of his War on Poverty in 1964.

That same year, my father was elected to the US Senate. And it was there that his fierce advocacy for the poor and the hungry began in earnest.

A key turning point came during Senate hearings on hunger in 1967. One of the witnesses was a young Black attorney named Marian Wright who testified that Black children in Mississippi were starving. Some were skeptical. But my father resolved to see for himself and headed south with three other senators.

In Jackson, Miss., the senators heard from civil rights leaders and conservative politicians, but the 27-year-old Wright was again the star. Against great odds, she had recently graduated from Yale Law School and dedicated her life to helping bring children out of poverty. My father piled into a late-model sedan with Wright and his aide Peter Edelman — Wright and Edelman would later marry — and motored into the Delta, one of the poorest and most isolated regions of the United States, where rich black soil grew some of the world’s finest cotton and where white supremacy still defined life a century after the Civil War.

Ellen Meacham in her book “Delta Epiphany: Robert F. Kennedy in Mississippi” detailed my father’s trip through the region and documented the terrible conditions for laborers in 1967. New pesticides meant that fewer hands were needed to chop weeds in May and June. Modern farm equipment meant that fewer hands were needed to plow. And most devastating of all, subsidies from the Department of Agriculture paid landowners to leave portions of their fields unplanted — eliminating even more jobs for laborers. Landowners prospered; their workers starved. Elderly people without cash to pay for heat froze to death that winter in the Delta.

The drive down Route 61 is one of the most striking transitions in America, from gently rolling pine country into the flat, ancient, and seemingly endless alluvial plain that people call simply the Delta. The road is straight as a razor — 30 miles at a stretch with no curves. Cotton fields panned to the horizon when my father took the trip, punctuated by cypress breaks and irrigation canals “shining,” in Paul Simon’s imperishable phrase, “like a national guitar.” It must have felt like moving into a different region — but it probably felt, too, like going back in time.

They stopped on Ethel Street in the town of Cleveland early that afternoon, at Annie White’s rented shack of hammered, unpainted boards with gaps that allowed in light, rain, and wind. The single sink near the back dripped tepid brown water — no hot, no cold. A hole in the floor served as the only toilet. The stench and the flies were inescapable. It was hot in summer, cold in winter, and wet when it rained. A wood stove was the only way to cook or provide warmth. Rent had recently doubled from $3 to $7 per month. State officials had twice turned down White when she’d applied for welfare.

White swept the dirt yard and gathered wildflowers to decorate indoors. She’d trained wild honeysuckle to climb the entry and help mask the odor from the open-pit toilet. For the baby’s diapers she used old cloth — difficult to clean. White’s parents and grandparents had picked cotton. As an infant, she’d sat atop the cotton sack as her mother picked, and pulled the sack to the next bush. Her mother died from a venomous snake bite in the fields. 

White, like many Black Americans growing up in the Delta, began chopping and picking cotton as a child and never attended school long enough to learn to read and write. Her children read borrowed books by oil-lamp light when they could afford the fuel.

The family rarely had more to eat than bread and molasses or beans, and often missed meals. My father was probably the first white man to set foot inside the house. In the back he found a toddler named David White, sitting silently on the dirty floor, staring at breadcrumbs.

David did not look up when my father made a clicking sound with his tongue that would have brought all of my siblings to attention, nor when he brushed the child’s cheek with his hand. Marian and Peter had entered the room and watched in silence. My father sat down beside David White. A tear slipped down his cheek. He made more attempts to connect with the boy. But David did not respond. He simply kept picking at the breadcrumbs on the floor and lifting them to his mouth. David and I were both about 20 months old that day, and it must have been shocking for my father to see a child so much like his own son, but doomed — literally starving.

When the trip began, Marian Wright didn’t trust Senator Kennedy. But watching this scene, she felt her distrust dissolve. She doubted she would have sat down on the floor in that stinking house, among the crumbs, and wondered whether she would have touched the child, with his little distended belly and open sores. She later said: “He could do almost anything after that, and I trusted him from that time on, just as a human being.”

I don’t know how it is that people change, sometimes overnight. But I believe my father was never the same after that trip. He flew back to D.C. with Senator Joseph Clark of Pennsylvania that night, and arrived late for my mother’s birthday party at our family home, known as Hickory Hill. My older siblings remember the night because of the new and different way my father entered the house. Normally he was full of vigor, motion, and energy. But that night he was quiet, his face somber, careworn, serious, as if something had shifted inside him.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans cut taxes for the rich by taking money from middle class social safety nets- Impeach Trump Again!

Shame on Idaho lawmakers who voted for Trump’s hidious: ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ | Echo opinion published in the Idaho Statesman

Budget bill 😳😧😠 The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” was passed by the House by one vote❗

Both Idaho Republicans Representative Mike Simpson (age 74) and Representative Russ Fulcher (age 63) voted for it, even though the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said this bill will increase the federal deficit over the next 10 years by over 3 trillion dollars. 

This hideious bill will cut hundreds of billions from Medicare and Medicaid and various other social safety net programs, all or most of which benefit the middle class down to the poorest. 

Republicans are making these cuts to justify a tax cut that will disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations. To summarize – the party of “fiscal conservatism” wants to increase the deficit (which would be absolutely unacceptable if the White House were occupied by a Democrat) in order to cut taxes mostly for the wealthy, while giving lip service to paying for this tax cut by cutting $800 billion from programs that help ordinary Americans. The absolute stupidity of this approach is mind-boggling. 

SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition): As a lifelong Idahoan and Boise resident, I know firsthand how vital SNAP is. 

After losing my job during the Great Recession, I went from working as a legal assistant to applying for food assistance just to keep my son fed. I skipped meals so he could eat dinner. I borrowed eggs and oil from my mom so he wouldn’t go to school empty-handed for a class party. 

SNAP helped us survive when everything else fell apart.  Today, more than 132,000 Idahoans rely on this program — including veterans, older adults and families who work hard but can’t make ends meet. Yet Congress will slash average benefits to just $5 a day. That won’t even cover a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread.

Worse, these horrible cuts will strip thousands of Idaho kids of free school meals. That’s not fiscal responsibility — it’s punishing children and families. 

SNAP isn’t charity. It’s a smart, effective program that reduces hunger and keeps communities strong. Idaho grocers, farmers, and families all benefit. I urge Idaho’s delegation to reject these harmful cuts. You can’t fix a broken budget by taking food away from children. 

From Dawn Pierce, in Boise, Idaho

Republican MAGA cruelty redefined childhood to teenagers 14 years and younger no longer up to 18 years old

Republican Cruelty - reminds us about the classic scene in the musical "Oliver" the story by Charles Dickens, when the orphan Oliver asks the cruel headmaster for more food, "The quote from the Dickens novel is the same as the theatrical production. 'Please, sir, I want some more'.” Echo opinion letter published in the Virginia Pilot.

Demand for food pantries to surge with SNAP changes
(Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program 😡😥) 

Food need- With the congressional cuts to SNAP and Medicaid passed by Republicans in the big ugly cruel tax cut bill, the local food pantries will have demands put on them like never before. 

SNAP funds are being cut and work requirements to participate are increasing. The upcoming SNAP work requirements change the definition of a child from “under 18 years of age” to “under 14 years of age.” This is unfair to parents and their children between 14 and 18, particularly among one-parent households.

Demand on food pantries is also increasing because our minimum wage law has not kept up with inflation. This requires many with wages above the poverty level, but not wealthy, to also utilize food pantries. This population, also called ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed), does not have enough extra cash for the food intake required, thus utilizing food pantries.

Sadly the Republican representatives in the Virginia House of Delegates and in Washington DC, are not responding to these basic human needs. Individuals are hungry, and food pantries need assistance. In November, we must elect democrats who will win elections in 2026 and for the future.  #StopRepublicanCruelty

From Nancy Terrell, in Williamsburg, Virginia

Maine Writer Post Script:  Republicans invented the mantra about supporting "Family Values", but there is nothing in their MAGA cruel policies to show Americans how families are "valued".  

Poor People's Campaign mobilizing voters who could account for one-third of the electorate

Echo report published in The Village Voice, by Robert Hennelly, about teaching advocacy for the poor. This report was published in June 2023, and the information is revealing about the importance learning about the impact of poverty:

“If you’re poor and you can’t pay your light bill, when the lights go off, we are all Black in the dark.”

Reverend William Barber Gives the Poor People’s Campaign a Second Wind. A gathering in Washington sought to inform, train, and energize a new generation of advocates dedicated to improving the lives of those among us who are poor and ignored.

It’s a simple equation.
“Poverty=Death” a sign on the backdrop in large letters on the stage of the International Ballroom at the Washington D.C. Hilton.

Several hundred social justice advocates from more than 30 states gathered there for the plenary session of the Poor People’s Campaign’s Moral Poverty Action Congress, which ran from Juneteenth (June 19) to June 21, 2023.

The confab comes more than three years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, which disproportionally hit poor communities of color. Of the 1.2 million deaths, public health experts estimate that well over 300,000 lives were lost due to the inability to access healthcare. Essential workers were particularly hard hit. A joint Kaiser Health News/The Guardian investigation determined that — in the first wave alone — 3,600 healthcare professionals died, two-thirds of whom were people of color.

“Overall life expectancy declined by 2.7 years between 2019 and 2021, with AIAN [American Indians and Alaska Natives] people experiencing the largest life expectancy decline of 6.6 years, followed by Hispanic and Black people (4.2 and 4.0 years, respectively), and a smaller decline of 2.4 years for White people,” reported the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The original Poor People’s Campaign (PPC), which aspired to form a multiracial-interdenominational coalition of poor and low-wealth people, was in the planning stages when its most high-profile booster, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, in April 1968. King was in Memphis TN, to support striking sanitation workers, who had gone out after two of their co-workers had been crushed in their garbage truck while seeking sanctuary from the rain.

PPC has always been a movement about addition, not subtraction or division, that aims, through nonviolence and faith-informed action, to make the world less of a hell on earth. It looks to flip the American wealth pyramid, which spends hundreds of billions on war and weapons systems, while keeping the federal minimum wage at $7.25 an hour since 2009.

The Washington, D.C., PPC gathering was called to lobby Congress for issues such as universal healthcare, which faces long odds given the pushback from the well-funded medical industrial complex that spends lavishly to lobby politicians in Washington. “The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival” is a national crusade that began in 2018, and is dedicated to organizing the 140 million poor and low-income people in the nation, and their moral allies, to take action around the systemic injustices of racism, poverty, ecological devastation, and the denial of health care, militarism, and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism — all issues confronted in PPC’s literature.

Over the past few years, the PPC has seen a revival under the leadership of Rev. Dr. William Barber and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. Barber came to national prominence during his Moral Monday campaigns, which he originated in North Carolina, where he was president of the state NAACP and pastor of the Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro.

A substantial portion of the delegates sitting in the Hilton on Juneteenth were not alive when King walked the earth, including Sierra Edmisten, 28, a mother of four from Hastings, Nebraska. “I have four kids, all ages eight and under, and we struggle quite a bit on food stamps on and off,” Edmisten tells the Voice. “I work in childcare, and I can’t afford to feed my own kids.” Edmisten chokes up a bit when she recalls her circumstances back home but goes on to describe her success working with other members of her community, with Nebraska Appleseed, a community-based, social justice nonprofit, to beat back cuts to the SNAP [food stamp] program.

“We had pushed with Covid the SNAP benefits to 165% of the poverty level,” Edmisten says. “They wanted to snap that back to 135%, and we stopped that to at least 2025. So we kept 10,000 Nebraskans, including myself, on SNAP.”

The recent PPC plenary session took on the feeling of a well-produced gospel revival, with the live band and energized choir bringing the audience to their feet. C-SPAN was in the house, live-streaming the event. On June 18, NBC News reported that Barber had shared his last sermon at his North Carolina church — where he had been pastor for 30 years — and was now retiring to transition full-time to Yale Divinity School, where he would be the founding director of the Center for Public Theology & Public Policy. When Barber took the podium in the Hilton Ballroom, he referenced his retirement and told the adoring audience that it was his ambition to “train up a 1,000 people in five years … but the problem is, I didn’t think the Lord would let me hit 60 and get pregnant again with a new idea. I am a little old to be carrying a baby.”

The focal point of the session was a panel discussion, moderated by Barber, on new research by David Brady, a professor at the School of Public Policy at the University of California Riverside. Brady’s landmark study documented that risk factors related to cumulative poverty make being poor the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. In 2019, according to Brady’s research, poverty was linked to 183,000 deaths, or 500 hundred deaths per day — and that was before the Covid pandemic. Brady’s research is based on a panel study that tracked 20,000 people from 1997 to 2019. The study excluded subjects under 15 years old, meaning it did not include infant mortality — which has historically been exponentially higher for households of color. For Brady, those qualifications meant that his findings on the impact of poverty on mortality were “conservative.”

“I should not be in a hospital with my sick child, wondering if I can pay my rent at the end of the month because I can’t work while he is recovering.”

Brady explained to the audience that his tracking research documented a clear linkage between poverty, race, and premature death. Those trends would help contribute to America’s overall life-expectancy decline. He noted that, for several decades, the U.S. poverty rate, at 17%, had been well above the 9% to 10% of the population reported in peer nations, such as France and Germany.

The foundation for these race-based economic and health disparities becomes apparent early on in life, according to Brady’s analysis. “The reality is, child poverty in the U.S. is 10% for white kids, which is too high, but it’s a similar rate of poverty to what we see in Germany and France,” Brady told the audience. “The reason why the United States has such high poverty is that we have egregiously high child poverty for Black, Latino, and Native American children. In the U.S., a third of African American children are poor. No country in the history of rich democracies has had a child poverty rate that high.”

Perhaps most disconcerting was Brady’s observation that there were three times as many poor people, such as Sierra Edmisten, who were employed than those who were not working and were living in poverty.

Barber said that Brady’s data underscored the need for “a moral movement” that “connects the dots and the injustices” that have resulted in the nation having 140 million poor and low-income people — a statistic that includes those below the poverty line as well as those who struggle month-to-month to make ends meet. Said Barber, “That’s why, in this movement, we can tell you that there are 26 million poor and low-wealth Black people — that’s 60% of the Black population. There’s 30% of white people that are poor and low-wealth, that’s 66 million…. If you’re poor and you can’t pay your light bill, when the lights go off, we are all Black in the dark.”

“We are that movement that puts everybody in the room — a Black woman from Alabama in the same space as a Kentucky coal miner. And we put the Kentucky coal miner in the same space as a Native indigenous brother and his suicided children,” Barber observed. “And what we recognize is that everybody has the right to live. Because the truth of the matter is, if you die from cancer, you don’t die Black, you don’t die white, you don’t die Republican, you don’t die Democrat. You die dead.”

Gregg Gonsalves, assistant professor at the Yale School of Public Health, offered the audience some global perspective that put a sad spin on the notion of American exceptionalism. “Life expectancy in the United States — the Institute for Health Metrics in Seattle ranked us in the 40s worldwide for life expectancy,” Gonsalves told the several hundred delegates. “That does not just mean [ranking below] France and Germany. It means [below] other countries much, much poorer than we are. By 2040, we will be in the 60s in global health rankings in terms of life expectancy.”

He continued, “We came out being the highest per-capita death rate from Covid and the highest excess deaths from Covid among the G-7 — the big rich industrialized democracies. It’s not rocket science. We didn’t invest in healthcare. We didn’t invest in social protections, and it came back to bite us, basically.”

When it came time for questions from the news media, there were only two reporters who made their presence known and were given the microphone. “So much of your work in North Carolina was rooted in place and moral witness. Will you continue that kind of site-specific work in New Haven, where Yale, one of the nation’s most richly endowed universities, is set in a community where 31% of the Black population lives in poverty, as compared to 6% of the population statewide [in Connecticut]?” the Voice asked Barber.

"I am not going to continue, I have already started. I went there to do it,” Barber responded. “It’s not even an issue of continuing. Where my body goes my fight goes. And it’s not that I will continue — it’s already happening. Just last week, 1199 [the local SEIU labor union] in New Haven and Connecticut was standing up and using the Moral Monday movement to go to jail at the state capital to fight for a living wage. I am not going anywhere to lead a movement, because I don’t believe in helicopter leadership. I am going there to join in wherever the movement is.”

When the session ended, the Voice caught up with Edmisten and Megan Hamann, from Nebraska Appleseed, the nonprofit fighting for justice and opportunity for all Nebraskans. Edmisten said she felt “empowered” but said the data “was a little bit staggering. Even I wasn’t expecting the data to be as bad as it was, and so I feel there is a lot ahead of us that needs to get done.” The single mother of four said she was heartened by Barber’s reference to the role that single mothers just like her played in the creation of the first Poor People’s Campaign. “I did not know that. And so that was very exciting for me to hear, because behind every great movement, there’s always a bunch of women that are helping to push it. And to hear that this was one of those movements was awesome.”

On June 20, hundreds of PPC campaigners fanned out on Capitol Hill for some scheduled meetings and cold-call visits. By 4 p.m., hundreds of the activists had reassembled across the street from the U.S. Capitol complex, in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, for a national speak-out program. “It was a great time,” Edmisten told the Voice, before the SCOTUS program got underway. “We actually got an impromptu meeting with one of Representative Don Bacon’s (R-2nd) staff members that we did not have on the books. And he actually sat and listened to us for a good 20 minutes, and we felt really heard. He actually knew a little bit.”

Ten minutes later, Barber arrived on the scene and huddled with several campaigners, including Edmisten, who had been selected to tell their personal stories of struggle “to the nation.”
Hamann added, “It was new and very compelling, and we talk a lot about specific state issues and policies that happen with smaller scale opportunities. But I really appreciate zooming out and talking about the big-picture systems that get us here. These are important conversations to be having, and the more people involved in these conversations the better.”

Much of the PPC’s 2024, national organizing drive is focused on mobilizing the 85 million poor and low-income people who are eligible to vote, accounting for one-third of the electorate. “There is voter suppression that’s happening in Nebraska,” Hamann explained. “We just passed through a voter initiative voter ID law, which is incredibly concerning for people like me in our state.” As voting rights advocates point out, voter ID laws hurt citizens who don’t drive and so might not have a state ID. She adds, “ We do a lot of work getting voters registered at all of our community events. Our immigrants and communities program is actually very engaged in power-building and voter education and access.”

On June 20, hundreds of PPC campaigners fanned out on Capitol Hill for some scheduled meetings and cold-call visits. By 4 p.m., hundreds of the activists had reassembled across the street from the U.S. Capitol complex, in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, for a national speak-out program. “It was a great time,” Edmisten told the Voice, before the SCOTUS program got underway. “We actually got an impromptu meeting with one of Representative Don Bacon’s (R-2nd) staff members that we did not have on the books. And he actually sat and listened to us for a good 20 minutes, and we felt really heard. He actually knew a little bit.”

Ten minutes later, Barber arrived on the scene and huddled with several campaigners, including Edmisten, who had been selected to tell their personal stories of struggle “to the nation.”

“I am Sierra,” she told the crowd. “I am from Hastings, Nebraska. And I am one of many with this story,” Edmisten explained through her tears. “The first time I remember food insecurity being a real issue was when I was out of the house and pregnant with my oldest. I often skipped meals with my husband, where he would eat one day and I would eat the next.”

She continued, “In the third trimester, when they finally counted the baby as a person, we were able to eat at least once a day. After my son was born and off of formula, we were back to eating every other day for a while, so that we could make sure he could eat. This lack of nutrition, my doctor told me, was why my second pregnancy was so rough. I was on bed rest for three weeks, after I almost lost my second son, due to the lack of nutrition.

“This is uncalled for, when this is supposed to be a country of opportunity, especially when I live in our nation’s breadbasket. As a childcare worker, I also deeply care about access to quality jobs. It’s not right that so many jobs lack benefits, such as paid sick leave, retirement, and paid parental leave.

“I should not be in a hospital with my sick child, wondering if I can pay my rent at the end of the month because I can’t work while he is recovering. But I have found myself in this position multiple times. I should be worried about my son’s health, not the bills. But I don’t get that luxury. I shouldn’t be sitting in the hospital hiding my fear of losing our home from my child as he recovers. This is not the America I want for my children. We need change, and we need it now.”

“You are not alone,” Barber boomed, as he embraced Sierra.

“You are not alone, and we will not be silent anymore,” the large crowd chanted, following Barber’s lead.

Sierra was a long way from Nebraska, but she felt she had become part of something much bigger now. “It felt amazing to be able to share my story with others having the support of Bishop Barber next to me, knowing I wasn’t alone in my struggles,” she texted the Voice, before she started the long trek back home. ❖

Bob Hennelly is an award-winning print and broadcast journalist who covers labor and politics for Salon, Work-Bites, City & State, and InsiderNJ. He hosts the Stuck Nation Radio Labor Hour on Pacifica’s WBAI, 99.5 FM, and is the New York City Hall reporter for WBGO, 88.3 FM, NPR’s jazz station, in Newark, New Jersey.

Republicans war on the poor- echo from Iowa

An opinion letter from a Iowa. "If the Republicans' cruel goal is to get people off of Medicaid and food assistance, the best solution would be to raise the minimum wage to a living wage." 

Republicans are cruel to persist in their drive to dismantle safety nets for poor people. It's a shame to see Iowa, where the people are proudly providing nourishment to all America from important agriculture, would be cutting Medicaid and food stamps for the poor, many of them who are essential to the state's workforce.

Published in the Iowa Des Moines Register

Strict requirements on assistance hurts the poor

The numerous bills that state Senate Republicans are proposing to impose even stricter requirements on Iowans receiving Medicaid or food stamps concern and disappoint me.

I work with some of the people that these lawmakers are targeting with these punitive proposals. They are good people, have families, and contribute to our communities in ways both seen and unseen.

Additional work requirements (because there are already pretty stringent work and income requirements to receive SNAP and Medicaid) would do nothing more than put extra burden on people already struggling.

Doesn’t our state Legislature have anything better to do? If their goal is to get people off of Medicaid and food assistance, the best solution would be to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. 

Natalie Snyders, Des Moines

Caring for the poor - a human responsibility: echo opinion

A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.

— Proverbs 11:25

SNAP - putting food on the table an echo opinion by Dustin Pugel

Published in the Kentucky newspaper - The State Journal

(MaineWriter opinion - Right wing Christians including those who call themselves "Evangelicals" are quick to support Donald Trump but they are silent about his cruel policies opposing programs that help the poor.)

In the 2018 holiday season, as Kentuckians (and Americans) celebrate with friends and family around the table, we must also remember the impact policy choices are having on one of the best tools we have to ensure we all get enough to eat.

The federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, plays a critical role in improving the health and well-being of 580,000 Kentuckians, including workers, children, seniors and 23,000 veterans. According to Feeding America, SNAP provides 12 meals for every one meal the network’s food banks provide. And, though relatively modest — SNAP supplements Kentuckians’ food budget with an average of $1.36 per person, per meal — it goes a long way to help prevent hunger and its consequences.

SNAP doesn’t just provide nutrition; it is also one of the best anti-poverty programs we have. In Kentucky alone, SNAP keeps 164,000 of us out of poverty, including 73,000 children. It also helps our economy. In 2017, the federal government injected $933 million into local Kentucky economies through SNAP. And, by reducing food insecurity, SNAP keeps us healthier, too. Research shows that people who are food insecure are likelier to have a chronic disease such as heart disease, cancer or diabetes.

Despite all of these benefits, the state has erected new barriers to SNAP participation in recent months. As a result, between May and September of this year, more than 10,000 adults lost food assistance after three months of not being able to prove they worked enough hours. Many of them live in “labor surplus areas,” communities with more people who need work than there are jobs. Some face discriminatory barriers to employment or work in low-wage industries where consistent hours are hard to come by. A significant number of those losing coverage were likely unclear about the new paperwork requirements they had to meet.

As time goes by, the number of people who cannot surmount the state’s new barriers is likely to rise, leading to more and more people losing nutrition assistance. Until this year, the state routinely waived time limits for communities facing economic challenges. It should return to the practice of doing so.

At the same time the state is kicking people off SNAP, Congress is working to finalize the Farm Bill — landmark legislation that is passed every five years and funds SNAP and other priorities. With many Americans and Kentuckians left behind in the slow recovery from the Great Recession, it’s crucial that lawmakers pass a Farm Bill that protects and strengthens SNAP — along the lines of what the Senate passed earlier this year — and avoid the harmful cuts to SNAP included in the House version. U.S. Rep. James Comer and Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky serve on the conference committee that will decide the fate of SNAP soon. They should recognize the vital role SNAP plays in the commonwealth among their constituents and in our economy.

Many Kentuckians (and Americans) will donate food, serve in soup kitchens and take meals to neighbors in the coming weeks. Many will give even when it feels difficult financially to do so. This generosity strengthens our communities, but we can’t fight hunger through charity alone. We also need our lawmakers, both state and federal, to protect and strengthen SNAP. 

As we give thanks this season, let’s ensure all families can put food on the table.

Dustin Pugel is a policy analyst with the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.

Food stamps help working class people

Tougher work rules for food stamps *won’t* help poor people — or save much money

Los Angeles Times opinion editorial ~ echo:

Unemployment is at a record low. The U.S. economy has logged nine straight years of slow-but-steady growth. Yet somehow, 40 million Americans need help from the government just to put food on the table. Although that figure is down from its post-recession peak of 47.6 million in 2013, it's still far above where it was in 2007, when only 26 million Americans were enrolled in food stamps (formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).

Congressional Republicans are right to believe that there's something terribly out of whack here. 

How can so many Americans have jobs yet so many still qualify for food stamps? But their solution — adding tougher work requirements to the program — rests on a faulty premise that people are gaming the system, rather than the reality that so many of the jobs added since the recession are low-wage.

If they succeed in imposing the new eligibility rules, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will force 1.2 million Americans out of SNAP by 2028 — most of them parents with school-aged children. What a callous and wrongheaded response to the complex problem of poverty in one of the richest countries in the world.

The work rules are part of the $868 billion farm bill being debated in the House this week, which has split predictably along partisan lines. "We are focusing on empowering people," House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said this week while defending the proposal. And he may well believe that. It's a persistent, if flawed, article of faith among conservatives that public assistance can do more harm than good because it encourages dependency on government help. Under this line of thinking, if poor people were given the right incentive to get off their rears and do an honest day's work, they would be better off in the long term. 

That's a nice story, but no more accurate than that of apocryphal welfare queens who drive luxury cars and wear designer jeans financed with overly generous public assistance checks.

We agree that people should be encouraged to work and helped to overcome the barriers they may face to employment. But it's worth bearing in mind that food stamp recipients already are required to hold down jobs or attend work-related instruction if they're capable, as mandated in 1996 as part of a larger restructuring of welfare benefits under former President Bill Clinton. About 44% of the households relying on food stamps have at least one person employed, according to 2015 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The current rules limit individuals without kids who are 18 to 49 years old to three months of SNAP benefits every three years unless they are working or enrolled in a government-sponsored training program. This group accounts for only about 17% of SNAP beneficiaries — the rest are minors, people caring for young children, seniors and disabled individuals. (College students and immigrants in the country illegally are not eligible for benefits, no matter how poor or hungry they may be.)

The new rules would extend the work requirement to those up to age 59 and to parents of children as young as 6, while increasing the number of hours of work required per week from 20 to 25 by 2026. The CBO estimated that about a third of the recipients who would be covered by the new work requirements already, would meet them, and most of the remaining group would be exempted. Nevertheless, a large number would still drop off the rolls, the CBO projected.

Would the House GOP proposal result in more people gainfully employed? Maybe. But the added bureaucracy and hoops that recipients would be required to jump through — such as having their eligibility checked every month — would certainly raise the program's costs and reduce participation by needy Americans whose work hours may fluctuate wildly from month to month.

So what problem are House Republicans trying to solve? There's no evidence of massive fraud in the system; instead, the government reports a fraud rate of less than 1% — one of the lowest rates of any government program. Its administrative costs also have been relatively low.

Nor is anyone getting rich on food stamps benefits. 

Enrollees receive only $126 a month on average. To be eligible, applicants must have income of 130% of the poverty line or less, the equivalent of $2,213 a month or less for a family of three. That is hardly enough to pay for rent in Los Angeles, let alone buy food. And the new work rules, which could hurt so many legitimately needy people, wouldn't even save the government much money. The CBO estimates the new work and reporting rules will save $9.2 billion over 10 years by forcing people out of the program, but would cost an added $7.7 billion to provide more government training programs for those who need them to remain eligible, as well as to administer the new rules.

There is indeed something wrong when so many Americans need help feeding themselves and their families. But it is not something that can be fixed by imposing new, unproven and, frankly, miserly work rules on poor Americans.

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Tax cuts for the rich will stigmatize the poor

OPINION- Several words came to mind when I considered the budget that Trump and Republicans passed. One of them was "sanctimony."

Opinion by John R. Crisp published in the New Jersey Herald.

Sanctimony used to be synonymous with holiness, but in modern usage, it refers to "affected or hypocritical holiness." So sanctimony is to holiness as self-righteousness is to righteousness, that is, the hypocritical version of a desirable attribute.

Thus, in the Trump's *tax cuts for the rich* budget, the generous act of helping other people get enough to eat provides an opportunity to criticize and patronize the poor for their bad food choices and to congratulate ourselves for making better choices than they do.

Under their plan, citizens who get food support from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) would receive half of their benefits in the form of a "Harvest Box," which would contain foods selected on the basis of their supposed nutritional value, as well as on their economic benefit to American farmers.

According to the New York Times, the "Harvest Box" was conceived by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue as part of a program to cut food assistance by $214 billion over the next decade. Perdue described it as "a bold, innovative approach to providing nutritious food to people who need assistance feeding themselves and their families -- and all of it is grown by American farmers and producers."

Budget director Mick Mulvaney was enthusiastic about the idea, comparing it to the Blue Apron grocery delivery service.

In practical terms, "Harvest Box" has a close-to-zero chance of approval. The idea was immediately dismissed by the Republican chairs of the agriculture committees in the House and Senate, and it was never seriously discussed in hearings. No one even bothered to calculate the logistical challenges and costs of putting boxes of food into the hands of the 46 million Americans who used SNAP last year.

No, instead of a serious policy proposal, "Harvest Box" feels more like a mean-spirited opportunity to stick a finger in the eye of people who are short on resources. It supports the myth of the "lazy poor," whose poverty serves as testimony to their innate irresponsibility and untrustworthiness.

"Harvest Box" is an impractical version of other efforts -- such as imposing work requirements and drug testing on recipients of public assistance -- to generate more responsibility and better behavior in the poor. Accountability is a worthy goal, but efforts such as these serve to stigmatize and demean the poor while shifting blame for their plight in their direction rather than toward public policy that works to their disadvantage.

And such efforts always ignore data. For example, according to Forbes magazine, 77 percent of SNAP recipients are children, elderly or disabled non-elderly. And non-disabled adults between 18 and 49 who are living in a childless home can receive only three months of benefits during any three-year period, unless they are already working 20-plus hours per week.

In short, SNAP serves people who are having a hard time getting enough to eat in the richest country in the world. Sanctimonious restrictions on such programs may make us feel better about our responsibilities and obligations, but they also make it easier for candidate Mitt Romney to categorize 47 percent of Americans as "takers." That simply isn't true.

Here's the point: 

As long as the increasingly small segment of our society that holds an increasingly large share of the money and power can keep the middle class's anger and blame directed downward toward the poor rather than upward at rich, and as long as they can (wrongly) keep the rest of us convinced that the poor, rather than the rich, are draining our culture of its resources ~ 

Republicans don't need Russian agents working among us to sow hatred, discord and social fragmentation.

Tragically, we're quite capable of doing that, ourselves.

Cutting Efficiency - Congress Must Have Important Things to Do!

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75748.html

Our US Congress needs to deal with real problems, which is precisely why it's plain wrong for their efforts to waste time cutting efficient programs.

In the link to the Politico op-ed,  Kevin Concannon* described the positive impact of the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), our nation's successful food stamp program. He explains how working people who largely live on minimum wage jobs, or less, are helped by food assistance.  What's more, the SNAP program is efficient.

Concannon described meeting a lady working in a hotel gift shop who explained how her family relied on food stamps assistance, because so much of her working class salary was needed to pay bills.

Moreover, SNAP is a well managed program with 96 percent of the resources efficiently utilized. In other words, very little goes to waste when money is invested in food security for people living in poverty or just one paycheck removed from being destitute.

Yet, the US Congress used valuable tax payer paid for time to cut funding for SNAP.  I dare to speculate, some of the deliberation about the cuts were done while Congress and staffers were eating.


"That’s why it’s so puzzling that the House Agriculture Committee passed more than $33 billion in additional cuts to SNAP — at a time when the program has never been more urgently needed by Americans, and its operation is highly efficient," writes Concannon.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75748_Page2.html#ixzz1toHwi7yc

Among the wasteful programs that could, instead, be cut is the elimination of completely unnecessary American military installations in Japan. In fact, Japan doesn't even want the US military to be in their country, at all.  There are already US military bases in Korea, where our security presence is necessary for national defense.

Cutting just one US military base in Japan would likely pay for the entire SNAP program with money left over to improve compliance surveillance.  One could easily make the case that US tax money does a lot to help food security in Japan, because funding one base certainly provides millions of dollars in salaries for everyone working in the facilities.

Food security is never an issue with the US Congress, who enjoy salaries well above the national average- and certainly substantially higher than minimum wage.  Money to support SNAP, to help the working poor, comes from the same tax source as Congressional salaries.

One reason social programs and food security programs like SNAP are considered by Congress is because the beneficiaries are completely terrified to write as advocates for their own needs.  I've seen this desperate recoil response time and again while working with Maine Care beneficiaries. For the poor to say anything to advocate for their needs puts them "on the radar screen", so to speak, and a target for cuts to medical care or housing subsidies.

It's time American tax payers stop paying high salaries to Congress while the elected officials, who we pay for, waste time cutting programs for the poor.

*Kevin Concannon is the undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services at the Department of Agriculture.