As a reminder....

[conuly]

Every dollar we put into SNAP brings back at least $1.75 into the economy. So write your congresscritters (again) reminding them that we should not consider cutting this program, but expanding it to provide more money to eligible families and, perhaps, to allow additional funds for the purchase of products like soap, toothpaste, and diapers. (Where is this money to come from to begin with? I can think of a few places, but let's start by taxing capital gains at the appropriate rate.)

Comments

[lilysea]

expanding it to provide more money to eligible families and, perhaps, to allow additional funds for the purchase of products like soap, toothpaste, and diapers

and tampons/pads, so that girls don't miss days of primary school/high school due to inability to afford tampons/pads (yes, this is a thing, at least in the United Kingdom[1].)

I imagine the positive economic impact of girls not missing schooling would be MUCH MORE than $1.75 per $1.

Just think of the girls who due to pads/tampons are able to finish highschool and therefore get a job/a better paying job and therefore pay more taxes,

or the girls who due to pads/tampons are able to attend school and therefore able to get scholarships to become physiotherapists or occupational therapists or nurses, whereas otherwise they would be waitresses.

[1] Girls too poor to buy sanitary protection missing school (UK) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39266056

[conuly]

Oh, yes. That's a thing here too.

I remember an article I read last year. A nine year old kid, blood leaking through her pants, was caught shoplifting some supplies. And the asshole store manager called the cops on her.

Lucky for her, the cop that came was as horrified by this situation as you are right now reading it. He bought her a shitton of pads, some laundry soap, some food, and drove her home. (The article doesn't report whether or not he chewed out the manager for being a heartless bastard, but it does report that the kid's mom was at her second job and that they lived in a little trailer.)

[thornsilver]

I just wanted to say that I like word "congresscritters".

[conuly]

So do I! I don't remember who I picked it up from.

[monanotlisa]

"let's start by taxing capital gains at the appropriate rate"

Bravo!

And jeez, yes, that about SNAP.

[conuly]

(Would also like to start taxing churches etc. They're supposed to lose their tax-exempt status if they stump around politically, but they never do, so let's just strip that exemption altogether. What do they need to be tax exempt for anyway?)

[silveradept]

Quite. SNAP is designed to be an economic engine, and there's more than enough money for it if the rich and the corporate pay a sensible amount of tax. (And some amount of that defense budget goes to helping people.)

The Congresscritters do need a swift kick occasionally.

[conuly]

You know what? I'd be happy if we kept the same defense budget, but used more of it towards soldier's salaries. There's no justification at all for any member of the armed forces to receive SNAP or welfare.

[silveradept]

Yes. They should be paid well enough not to need it. I'm pretty sure there are some contractors who haven't been preforming well enough, or who have made enough mistakes to warrant the termination of their contracts. We could certainly pay the soldiers better from those funds. Our from getting rid of contracts the military has said it doesn't actually need.

[thewayne]

I worked for the government of the state of Arizona in the late '80s for the agency that manages Medicare/Medicaid. It was appalling to learn that people who worked FOR the state were also enrollees in the program! Turns out that at the time, Arizona state employees were the 50th worst paid state gov't workers in the nation. After I left for a much better job, they started wearing t-shirts advertising that fact and the legislature took action!

Said action raised them to 47th or 48th.

I remember one year that we got a raise of 1.75% that was funded entirely by reducing the amount that employees paid in to their retirement accounts. So it wasn't a raise, it was a reduction in a deduction with no change in base pay.

Our Beloved Leader's proposed increase in the defense budget is pretty much exclusively on high-end toys (i.e. Contractor Christmas), not on better housing, uniforms, boots, basic equipment for the grunts. And from what I understand, they need it. When Our Beloved Leader froze all government hiring when he ascended the throne, err, was sworn in to office, one program that was particularly hard hit was on-base day care for soldiers. It takes a lot of time to hire people for those jobs because of the background checks and such, and essentially all the hires-in-progress just stopped with no hope for resuming the process in site. It hurt A LOT of families.