January 21, 2020,
The Trump administration’s move to curtail nutritional support for hungry Americans highlights the moral consequences of our undemocratic election system.
The Food Stamp Program, created in 1939 to address the growing hunger crisis that remained despite the end of the Great Depression, was the first federally regulated solution of its kind. A series of similar successor programs followed, each with different conditions and regulations for recipients. The current incarnation is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
While variations of the SNAP program have existed, policy development in recent decades has reflected a consensus on the core issue: food stamp programs are widely needed to sustain nutritional equity for the lowest-earning Americans. Both the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama nearly doubled nutrition assistance spending during their terms in office, and these increases saw a rise in the beneficiaries of this program. In 2008, the SNAP program had reached a new high, benefiting 28 million Americans, while just last year 40 million Americans received nutrition assistance.
But this is all about to change.
On December 4, 2019, the Trump Administration finalized a new rule creating more stringent requirements for SNAP recipients. Previously, states with unemployment at or above 2.5% had the ability to waive work requirements for SNAP recipients. The new rule will raise this number to 6%, meaning that fewer states will be able to waive work requirements for SNAP beneficiaries. This change is predicted to impact 700,000 Americans’ SNAP coverage.
But this rule, set to take effect April 1, 2020, is just one of three in the works. The other two would place caps on families’ utility allowances and change the way that states automatically enroll citizens in the SNAP program when they are receiving other federal benefits.
If the Trump Administration keeps on course, and all three changes take effect, the total number of affected individuals will rise to a staggering 5.3 million.
Most Americans do not support decreasing government support to people in need. According to a Pew Research Center poll from just last month, 40% prefer increasing such support, 33% believe current levels of support are “about the right amount,” and only 23% favor cuts.
The Pew study also shows that support for government assistance falls along lines of party and ideology. Among all respondents, increased support outpolls cuts by a 17-point margin. Republicans and Republican-leaners, however, prefer cuts to increases by a margin of 26 points. And among conservative Republicans, fully 54% favor cuts. As it happens, our election system disproportionately advantages Republicans, and conservative Republicans in particular. The actions of our government reflect that systemic bias.
As the hard-working-rugged-individualist narrative goes, “hard work equals opportunity.” To this end, the SNAP program should be as easy as ‘hard work equals more nutritional assistance’ (as the Trump administration reasons). But the simple truth is that it’s not so simple. Instead, Americans need adequate nutrition so they can work well. Moreover, many SNAP recipients are already working; for many, this is not enough. Republican support for the Trump Administration’s proposals, then, will only prove to damage the economy. This is problematic, not only because it reveals the egregious abuses of our election system, but also because it hurts the very constituents congressional Republicans are supposed to be representing. Bloomberg reports that a large number of those who will be adversely impacted by these new work requirements are those low-income families in the very states that voted for President Trump in 2016.
The majority of Americans support for SNAP, the adverse economic impacts of cuts, and the blatant disregard for constituents’ wants and needs, raises an important question. Why are any of these cuts happening in the first place? The answer is not the Trump Administration.
Yes, President Donald Trump’s administration is partly to blame—as polarization and disinformation always will be. Holding one administration responsible for a problem that has a legacy of decades-long disagreements is, again, too simple. It is this single-handed narrative that puts Americans at risk for ignorance when it comes to the real problem. Presidents, of different political parties and policies, will come and go, but inequity is more deeply rooted in an electoral system that does not abide by the wants of its people. While two-thirds of Americans oppose cuts to SNAP, every American supports their vote being counted equally.
Conflict between the desires of the American people and the actions of our government: The inescapable consequence of an election system that ignores the voice of the people is a government that defies the will of the people, and in some cases even denies people their basic needs. This is evident in the Trump Administration’s decision to tighten requirements for SNAP.
Learn more about democratism’s plan to unrig our election system through a Democracy Decree. And sign the petition.