Confused

I am quite confused by the editors’ of the Washington Post’s most recent editorial, titled “What the SNAP fight is really about”. Ostensibly, the editorial argues in support the SNAP program (we used to call it “food stamps”) but it does a darned good job of arguing that the program is so fatally flawed it should not be sustained in its present form. Here are the opening paragraphs:

SNAP is a safety net, not a jobs program. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is supposed to keep people from going hungry in the world’s richest country. It’s not designed for stimulating the economy or propping up stores, truckers or farmers. Nor should it be a bargaining chip for ending a government shutdown.

Every reasonable person agrees that no one in the United States should starve, which is why it’s a genuine problem that SNAP funding is scheduled to lapse on Saturday, prompting stopgap measures by a bipartisan mix of governors and a lawsuit brought by Democrats to force the Trump administration to tap emergency funds.

As you can see, the self-contradictions have already begun. They become even more apparent in the succeeding paragraph:

At the same time, there are legitimate debates about the best ways to feed the needy, how many should qualify and how much they should get. In the 1970s, 1 in 50 Americans received food stamps. Now, 1 in 8 do. On average, these households get $322 a month. Are 42 million Americans really in such danger of suffering malnutrition that the federal government should spend about $100 billion every year to help them feed themselves?

What I suspect this reflects is an argument among the editors. Some of them want SNAP subsidies to be restored as quickly as possible; others recognize that the program itself is deeply troubled and needs work. They resolved the internal conflict with this editorial.

I completely support programs to aid the truly poor. Most of the truly poor either live on Native American reservations or are black people living in the rural South. According to the USDA SNAP recipients have the following demographics composition: 35% white, 25% black, 15% Hispanic, 4% Asian, 1% Native American, and 17% unknown. Of black SNAP recipients 84% live in major metropolitan areas. The truly poor don’t receive the attention they need because they don’t have enough votes.

I should add that one major reform to SNAP that should be made immediately is that SNAP benefits should not pay for the purchase of soda pop or candy as is the case at present. Every time I see a kid hawking candy and pop on a street corner I can’t help but wonder if their merchandise was purchased using SNAP benefits.