When charity

Becomes entitlement

Generated by me, via Nightcafe.

With the recent “government shutdown”¹ the SNAP² entitlement³ is under scrutiny again.

Formerly called the Food Stamp Program⁴, SNAP is a Federal program administered by the United States Department of Agriculture with absolutely zero Constitutional authority.

I’d like to get some stuff out of the way. First off, SNAP is charity. Period. It’s charity, administered by the government, so it’s charity done in the worst, most expensive way possible, but it’s still charity.

Second, not only is it charity, it is charity designed from the start for the supplemental purpose of bribery for votes. Period. Yes, we’re “feeding starving families”, but the entire cynical thinking behind this program included the knowledge that grateful families would vote⁵ a certain way.

Third: It is broken, and is not sustainable. Period. Why is it broken? Well, many reasons, but I’d argue that the two main reasons are the facts that absolutely no-where in the Constitution is “charity” an enumerated power of the Federal government; and that “The behaviour that society tolerates is the behaviour that society gets”.

As a society we have tolerated the attitude that SNAP is an entitlement, rather than charity. As a result, it has become an entitlement.

As a society we have tolerated the rampant abuse of the SNAP system. As a result, the rampant abuse has become endemic.

Yes, it has. Is the rampant abuse as bad as the opponents of government organised charity claim? No, but that’s a low sodding bar.

Is the rampant abuse as rare as the proponents of government organised charity claim? Not bloody hardly.

I’m a 26-year veteran of County law enforcement. Since 1993 I have faithfully reported abuse of the SNAP system, and the only time I have seen a State agent do anything about SNAP fraud was when I was a jail shift supervisor, and my officers found a Lone Star card on the person of a unlicensed purveyor of recreational pharmaceuticals, said card not being issued to him.

In accordance with Texas law we seized the card and reported it to the State of Texas. Couple of days later the female who was actually the beneficiary of said card called up and demanded that we release the card to her. We informed her that since we had seized it from a drug dealer we were holding for an HHS agent to pick up.

She continued to call — getting more and more abusive, indecent, and profane — and I continued to refuse, until one day we had an HHS rep in the lobby. She demanded the card, I gave it to her, along with a report, she promptly turned around and handed it to what I assume was the female it was assigned to.

Said female ran her cakehole at me, and then departed. As the lobby door closed behind her, I looked at the agent and commented, “She’s trading that card for dope. That’s fraud.” The agent looked down her nose at me, and responded — icily — “We don’t starve children, Sergeant.”

You tolerate the behaviour, you get the behaviour.

In 26 years I have met multiple multi-generation welfare families. I have arrested dope dealers with multiple Lone Star cards in their possession. I have been on surveillance and watched people trade foods purchased with SNAP funds for tobacco, weed, and harder drugs.

To the best of my knowledge no-one that I ever reported for abuse or fraud of SNAP benefits ever lost those benefits.

If you tolerate abuse and fraud of your government-sanctioned charity, you get abuse and fraud of your government-sanctioned charity.

You want to fix it? It damned well isn’t an enumerated power of the Federal government — take it the hell away from the Federal government. Where it should never have been to begin with. Take it away from the State governments while you’re at it. Federal and State governments are the absolute worst, stupidest, ham-handed, pork-barrelled, most inefficient, and bureaucracy-heavy way to do anything. The Feds can’t even run a brothel and make a profit, what moron thought that the Fed.gov was a good idea for charity?

Besides, we can’t afford it anymore.

Much as I dislike organised religion, hand charity back to the religious institutions and local communities. If you’re hungry and desperate enough, you can go — hat in hand — to the local food bank or church, and get a box of staple foods.

Is it humilating? Yes.

Will they hold you accountable? Damned sight more so than the State and Feds.

Will you get tired of beans, rice, yellow cheese, and canned tuna? Probably.

Will you have to look the bishop, priest, or the food bank ladies in the eye every week? Yes.

Will you have to rely on the kindness and largesse of you neighbors? Yes.

Will it re-stigmatise getting welfare and charity? Yes.

Good.

Ian

1. Is the government still taxing you? Yes? Then they aren’t “shut down”.

2. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

3. Yes, it is an entitlement.

4. Name changed to “avoid the stigma” associated with using food stamps.

5. If you don’t believe this, you aren’t paying attention to the current debate.