The Good Old Days

(Photo: U.S. National Archive)

Tucked away in the final quarter of Rep. Paul Ryan's budget manifesto is yet another proposal for dismantling the legacy of the New Deal and Great Society programs that have been on the right-wing's hit list since they were first enacted. The target this time (p. 41) is food stamps or, as the program is now known, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Over the past 47 years, no thanks to the 92 percent of Republicans in Congress who voted against it, the program has prevented massive hunger in America.

Ryan wants to turn SNAP into block grants to the states and let them come up with "innovative approaches to delivering aid." Some of us are old enough and were poor enough in the pre-food stamp era to be on the receiving end of innovative approaches, most of them county-run distributions of inadequate amounts of "surplus" food.

Ryan's block grants would be funded at only 80 percent of the current level of SNAP spending. That means cuts of $127 billion between now and 2021. To achieve that would require dropping millions of low-income Americans from SNAP rolls or cutting their benefits or some combination of both. Ryan doesn't specify. This "reform"—astonishing what gets that label these days—would also impose new restrictions on recipients, including time limits on how long they would be eligible to receive food stamps.

Ryan's argument for wielding the ax on SNAP is the same as for other safety-net expenditures—"relentless and unsustainable growth" that is contributing to the nation's long-term debt. Just one problem. As Dottie Rosenbaum writes here and here at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, that argument is baloney.



(Caricature by donkeyhotey) Paul Ryan

There is no demographic pressure on the SNAP program as there is with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The rise in SNAP recipients and costs is due to economic conditions. Food prices rose, the recession put millions of people out of work and millions of the formerly middle class into poverty, and the federal Recovery Act provided a temporary boost in SNAP benefits now slated to expire in 2013. Between December 2007 and December 2009, as 8.4 million people lost their jobs and others were forced into part-time work, SNAP's caseload rose by 45 percent and its spending by 102 percent. Although it's expected that the number of recipients will continue to rise slightly throughout 2011 and 2012, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that this will plateau as long as the economy improves, and then begin a downward trend as unemployed people find jobs and lose their need (and eligibility) for food stamps.

Because of its flexibility, the SNAP program has functioned exactly as it was designed to do during the recession and its aftermath. It was pure Keynesianism, putting money into the pockets of people who desperately needed it and who spent it immediately, helping to keep businesses going that otherwise would have been pinched or might have gone bankrupt:

SNAP benefits can be redeemed at any of the more than 200,000 retail outlets in communities across the nation that are authorized to participate in the program. Almost 80 percent of SNAP benefits are redeemed within two weeks of receipt, and 97 percent are spent within a month. Because the benefits quickly reach families and communities in need, and because recipients are highly likely to spend the money quickly, economists view SNAP as one of the most effective forms of economic stimulus during an economic downturn. Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, estimates that for every dollar the Recovery Act spent on the temporary increase in SNAP benefits, the Gross Domestic Product increased by $1.72, making it the strongest stimulus provision that Moody’s assessed. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the multiplier at $1.79.

Most SNAP benefits go to families with children, to seniors and people with disabilities, 93 percent of them households below the poverty line, now set at $22,350 for a family of four.

It's no surprise that those who would be hurt worst by cuts in SNAP benefits would be those who can afford it least. And they've already taken hits.

Although some changes have been made in the intervening 15 years, half of the across-the-board food stamp cuts that were a consequence of the 1996 welfare reform law are still with us. There also remain tighter eligibility restrictions for documented immigrants and for out-of-work childless adults. "Once the temporary increase in SNAP benefits from the Recovery Act ends, a typical family will again receive less in SNAP benefits than it would have under food stamp law in effect prior to 1996," Rosenbaum writes.

But, as with so much of Ryan's plan—the Republican plan—previous cuts just aren't enough, whether of taxes for the wealthy or of social spending for everybody else. These guys won't be satisfied until we're back to 1925 in so many, many ways.