Trump Enforces Food Stamp Req's
It’s an uncomfortable truth that the Trump administration has been a force for prosperity for blacks and other minority citizens. It’s also an apparent truth that Trump’s rhetoric, faith in the markets, and fiscal policies have accelerated our economy and increased our median earnings, especially among minority households.
What’s not so apparent in the cacophony of Ukraine-noise, is that a lot of our growth is due to the administration’s practice of deregulation. Trump, in January 2017, signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to cut two regulations for each new regulation issued. According to the White House, he has outrun that goal by slashing over eight regulations for each new one.
It’s these kinds of policies that highlight the administration’s desire to methodically divorce government influence from the economy, and let the market’s own hand move itself. It’s these moves that begin to reign-in endless government spending and ever-growing social programs. The White House also claims that the process has saved $50 billion in regulatory costs and saved each American household an average of over $3,000 annually. The direct costs associated with government regulation and the subsequent lethargy in the economy are inseparable, as the Heritage Foundation comprehensively outlines.
One such program that has recently been “slashed” is food stamps, or SNAP. No, contrary to what The Nation will tell you, the Trump administration is not “deliberately casting millions of Americans into hunger” — we’re not living in Soviet gulags.
The administration changed no laws in enacting this policy. The rule now merely dictates that the employment eligibility required for receiving SNAP be enforced. That’s all. The new policy is simply an enforcement of the requirement that in order to receive food stamps for longer than three months, one must participate in an “employment or workforce activity.” Effectively, the policy removes the ability of governors to waive the working requirement for certain counties.
Media outlets are reporting that between 688,000 and 750,000 people are having their “access limited” to the program. The move is expected to cut $5.5 billion from federal spending. Despite political protests that villainize the decision, the number of people to be affected is less than 1.5% of total SNAP recipients.
The USDA cites that under Trump, 6.2 million people have already voluntarily moved off of (or grew out of) food stamps since he took office. That means that over six million people once in poverty rose economically enough to either no longer require food stamps or out-earn the maximum eligibility requirement (which is 130% of the federal poverty line). When examined in the context of this information, the new rule is nothing but a small, constructive action that cuts off a tiny amount of people abusing the privilege of receiving a portion of other people’s earned income.
It is important to note that the initial 1996 act that outlined the food assistance program noted the purpose of the work requirements attached to aid were to, “[promote] work over welfare and self-reliance over dependency, thereby showing true compassion for those in America who need a helping hand, not a handout.”
This is an incredibly relevant point in 2019 when all of the mainstream left is interested in peddling handouts, government assistance, and an array of subsidized (or free) services at the expense of others’ labor. The continuous actions from the Trump administration not only prove a level of fiscal responsibility but promote a sense of earned self-worth and personal responsibility against those interested in abusing a helpful federal aid program made for those that have temporarily fallen on hard times.