Walker's "Starve the Kids" program for under and unemployed parents, a GOP money saver!

Scott Walker's plan to require a Dickensian 30 hours a week rule to get food stamps and housing benefits is unrealistically strict for a reason; Republicans want to destroy the public safety net system and basically create slave labor for undesirable low wage jobs. It's politics of resentment + politics of demoralization.

Welcome to Walker's world, where withholding food and housing is no longer a sick immoral decision, unimagined in a more civilized society.

Food stamps represent a kind of "basic income," something I've written about many times here. And while some countries are already experimenting with a basic income, the U.S. is attacking the safety nets themselves, killing any possible move in that direction. Check out this interactive map detailing each Wisconsin county. There's more below on the concept of a basic income, but first...

Goodbye to Free or Reduced School Lunches? For a while, my own kids got a reduced lunch, and it was an economic lifesaver for us. Walker's new work requirement of 30 hours has nothing to do with pushing anyone into full-time better-paying jobs, but everything to do with cutting state spending, and it's not just me saying it. Walker's idea fits right into the new Farm Bill reform plan, that analysts say will devastate the working poor:

23,400 children in Wisconsin losing access to FoodShare benefits. That's about 8% of children who are now enrolled in the food stamp program in Wisconsin, and many of them would also likely lose free or reduced-price lunches in their schools as well, according to a memo from the Legislature's nonpartisan budget office.

The GOP's "it was meant to be a temporary" Program BS: Since successfully selling minimum wage jobs as something that was "meant to be temporary," which of course is no longer true, Republicans are now using that same line for food stamps. But wait, maybe negative income growth and the loss of benefits in the workplace changed what was "meant" with both minimum wages and food stamps?

Republicans have said that the FoodShare program is meant to be a temporary form of assistance ... it's a good time to encourage parents to get jobs, they say.

Qualifying for food stamps also includes school lunches:

A new memo from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau and requested by Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, shows 23,369 children could lose their subsidized school lunches because their families will lose benefits through the state's food stamp program known as FoodShare.

The 2018 Farm Bill income limit is 200 percent of the federal poverty level, but in Wisconsin it's 133 percent, meaning those in the state-fed gap have to jump through another "small government" hoop to get the paperwork to manually sign up instead of being automatically enrolled.

In my line of work, I talk to people at every income and non-income level, and I just don't see people trying to game the system at all. Many are struggling with health or family issues, and some just don't have the mental capacity to navigate a very complicated system designed to frustrate the even the smartest applicants. They simply do without and suffer the consequences.

I think the reaction below says it all about Walker lack of competence to govern and solve problems. These are all strictly ideologically driven goals that have no real application in the real world:

A spokeswoman for Gov. Scott Walker did not immediately respond to questions about whether his administration plans to create ways to ensure families who are still eligible for free and reduced-price school lunches through the National School Lunch Program to receive the aid. A spokesman for the state Department of Public Instruction also was not immediately able to comment on efforts the department is planning if the proposed changes become law. 

This is now a government that's not serving the people, but that's oddly working against them:

Likely save $9 billion in that time through recipients losing benefits The LFB analysis released Tuesday also projects 75,720 FoodShare recipients, or 11 percent of the total number of recipients statewide, would lose benefits under the bill's proposed changes.

Walker's new food share rules are open to abuse, like the incentive to drop as many recipients as possible..?

Require pay-for-performance standards in the state's contracts with private groups that help run the state's FoodShare and separate Welfare to Work, or W-2, programs. Create an up to $20 million fund to pay private contractors ... could use the money to pay vendors for reaching big cost savings or improvements in performance. 

Who would withhold housing for the poor? Walker:

Implement work requirements and drug testing for public housing programs.

I pity the corporate executive who loses their job. Walker wants them to "look" poor, by forcing them to sell their home and car:

Put asset limits on FoodShare and W-2 programs to exclude people with homes valued at more than $321,200 and personal vehicles worth more than $20,000.

And because the poor have extra money sitting around they don't need right away...

Create health savings accounts for Medicaid recipients.

A basic income should have been the next step in slowly reforming some of our social safety nets, but everyday Republicans are in power, new ideas like these are shelved for a 70-year-old agenda:

A basic income, a government-guaranteed paycheck that would allow people to buy food and housing. That would not only help the individuals but would help keep economic wheels spinning and generate tax revenues. Both Marxists and libertarians have proposed basic income schemes. Milton Friedman was an early proponent. 

A new NPR/Marist poll finds that 1 in 5 jobs in America is held by a worker under contract. Within a decade, contractors and freelancers could make up half of the American workforce ... without the constraints, or benefits, of full-time employment ... They must handle saving for retirement and their health insurance on their own.

The public safety net — the budgets for fire departments and social services — is already strained. 

In 2017, Finland introduced a type of universal basic income scheme ... with a single ($879) per month stipend, payable to all Finns, regardless of their income, tax-free.

Young people living for free with their parents might suddenly feel rather rich. And that would mean employers currently offering unpleasant jobs with low pay might need to increase their pay rates or go out of business. Basic income would give workers the freedom to not be forced into the jobs that no one wants — think about garbage collectors — or to let people grow richer by taking on those onerous tasks. It might force society to revalue unpleasant but necessary tasks, and reward them.

Americans don't like Food Stamp Shaming, and Hate Citizens United/Money is Speech.

A few big time polls came out today, gauging public sentiment about big time issues, and low and behold, Republican politicians are not on the same page as their voters. You’d think Republicans would lose a few more elections if that were really true.

Food Stamp Shaming and Food Restrictions: Most Americans think poor people shouldn't feel ashamed for using the safety net, according to a new YouGov poll. Just 14 percent of survey respondents said they thought people should feel ashamed for using welfare, while 62 percent said people shouldn't feel ashamed. Republicans were more likely to favor shame than Democrats, 20 percent to 9 percent.

Don’t celebrate yet. Republicans have managed to make Americans suspicious of poorer Americans, enough so to warrant drug testing without suspicion, which is pretty unconstitutional.

Two-thirds of Americans surveyed in the new YouGov poll supported welfare drug testing.

And like the public’s lack of support for ObamaCare, even though they like the details, two things; Republicans have successfully messaged food buying restriction on the poor, a form of shaming, something they’re really against; but the public doesn’t like the food restrictions when they’re confronted with the actual choices:

Sixty-four percent in the YouGov poll supported government restrictions on what people can buy with public benefits, but only 28 percent said they supported prohibiting food stamp purchases of steak, seafood, cookies, chips or energy drinks.

Poll Says We all Hate Citizens United: Boy, if you talk to “stand with Walker” Borg-ites, they’ll agree money is speech. But away from the nut job activist, not so much:

A new NY Times poll was just released that targets the insane amounts of money being funneled into politics ever since the Roberts Court decided corporations were people and the results are staggering. 

NY Times: Americans of both parties fundamentally reject the regime of untrammeled money in elections made possible by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and other court decisions and now favor a sweeping overhaul of how political campaigns are financed, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll.

The findings reveal deep support among Republicans and Democrats alike for new measures to restrict the influence of wealthy givers, including limiting the amount of money that can be spent by “super PACs” and forcing more public disclosure on organizations now permitted to intervene in elections without disclosing the names of their donors.

And by a significant margin, they reject the argument that underpins close to four decades of Supreme Court jurisprudence on campaign finance: that political money is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment. Even self-identified Republicans are evenly split on the question.

Is this getting ridiculous or what? Photo ID for Food Stamp Purchases?

Yea, let’s keep dumping on the poor lower paid worker using food stamps. It feels so good.

They've always said, “busy hands are happy hands,” and nowhere is that more evident than in our own “small government” republican legislature (it’s small “r” republican now because they’re not a legitimate party anymore, just a bunch of taxpayer supported petty bullies too weak to make in the private sector).

And GOP voters continue to betray their “small government” credentials (assuming this myth was ever true in the first place), by not asking why they’re seeing an array of convoluted regulations when government was supposed to get out of the way. 

I've got a feeling it has more to do with conservative voter envy over "the lifestyles of the poor and downtrodden." These dummies are still getting mad over “large screen plasma TV’s,” despite the fact no one’s made a tube TV for decades. Here's another retreaded unoriginal idea from the right wing:

Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum, says the proposal is an effort to crack down on waste, fraud and abuse and to make programs like FoodShare more efficient. But detractors say it would shame those living in poverty, with no discernible benefit.

The only thing stopping republicans right now are federal laws preventing these onerous added layers of “special scrutiny.” It’s all about equal treatment under the law. If charge or debit card customers don’t have to show a photo ID, why would someone on food stamps?  These idiotic ideas would be on the fast track if the GOP ever turned programs like this into state run block grants, free of government fairness “strings.”

Rep. Jesse Kremer is a sick paranoid.  

Penalize the poor, deduct $3.50 worth of food. 

"It sickens me to see all of the fraud and abuses … From some of the tenants in our rental homes that make more than I do and can't afford rent to the people using Quest cards at Potawatomi or using these benefits to purchase steaks for their dogs because dog food is not covered. They are there as a crutch and a lifeline, not a lifestyle."

Let me see if I've got this right; government always screws things up and can’t do anything right, but it can do a great job running big government food stamp pantry outlets?

Kremer also wrote in his "term paper" … limiting the use of QUEST cards to privately-run food pantries overseen by the government. " 

Heck, republicans want to create a federal regulation requiring the photo ID for Foodshare. The argument is this: It would crack down on the sales of cards on social media or the black market. But that's a lot of BS too: 1.3 percent in 2009-11.

And this will blow your mind: Talk about irresponsible public policy. Kremer is willing to make this malicious change, knowing the law is flawed and unworkable:

The central problem is that an EBT card is issued to the head of a household, but all members of that household are allowed to make purchases with it, per federal law. Kremer acknowledges that the ability for other household members to use a card presents a problem for his bill. "The way we’ve drafted the bill is it would still be head of household getting the card with the photo ID on it, but everyone else in the household still would have to be able to use that card," Kremer said. "So it’s kind of, yeah, a double-edged sword. It works in some cases and won’t in others."

But screw it, right Kremer, because that's just too much work to try and solve.

But we know what this is all about really. And this feigned "we're just worried about fraud" thing has gone beyond credulity:

A 2013 move to put photo IDs on EBT cards in Massachusetts prompted complaints from the USDA that the state was using the requirement to improperly cut benefits and similar concerns were raised when Maine implemented the requirement in 2014.

Scot Ross, executive director of the liberal group One Wisconsin Now, flagged the bill as an "appalling" move … He said Wisconsinites are struggling financially in large part due to policies passed by Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican legislative majority. "Shaming a mother in poverty who's trying to feed her kids isn't going to make her less poor. Basing policies on ridiculous allegations isn't going to solve any real problems," Ross said. "Jesse Kremer needs to provide the evidence to back up his call for this despicable policy, and if he can't, the first thing he should do after apologizing to the people of Wisconsin is resign."

Walker Drug Testing takes food from needy, creates more government bureaucracy, shreds Constitution, thinks he should be president?

Remember Scott Walker’s recent slip admitting we’re not all “born equally free and independent?” Taking the state constitutional wording…

"All people are born equally free and independent, and have certain and inherent rights...."

Walker tweaks just how equal with…

"…it doesn't matter what class you were born into … here, opportunity should be as equal as possible. As equal as possible!"

He said it like it was right there in constitution, repeating it, with emphasis.

Now we’re finding out that a person’s “freedom” can be tweaked too. Unemployed? You just lost your constitutional protection against an unreasonable government search. Like Walker said.

"With this budget, we are addressing some of the barriers keeping people from achieving true freedom and prosperity and the independence that comes with having a good job and doing it well."

And Walker will make sure those barriers are in place and enforced. Walker stuck in a lot of qualifiers too. Let's unpack that; drugs are a barrier to freedom, and until you are drug free, have a “good” job and you’re doing it well, you aren't technically "as" free. Am I playing word games and reaching a bit?

Like the ACLU wrote in the Florida case: 

“…offensive assumption that public benefits recipients use drugs at higher rates than the general public, and imply that the privacy rights of poor people and communities are worth less than those of the gainfully employed…”

Any conservative pocket constitutionalist, who still has a version that includes the 4th Amendment, might want to read it again. Simply put it protects against unreasonable government searches.

Junk Food for Kids Lunches, but not for Low-Income Food Stamp Recipients.

Many Republican dominated states have taken aim at what can only be called big government control over what people on food stamps can buy. They say it's something about not wasting taxpayer money on the purchase of junk food.

But wait a minute. Aren't Republicans trying to reinstate serving junk food in school cafeterias, food that's also paid for by taxpayers? Not only that, they say districts can't afford the more expensive healthier food. Oh really, and the poor can with their limited amount of food stamps?

Again, Republican ideology is trying to have it both ways, with the help of the news media that hasn't said a peep about this amazing contradiction. Here's what our new big government Republicans are saying about school lunches:

As the opening bell sounds for the 114th Congress, don’t be surprised to see GOP lawmakers take on school nutrition … included provisions to allow states more flexibility to exempt schools from the Department of Agriculture’s whole-grain standards if they can show hardship and to halt future sodium restrictions 

But those same high salt foods are the target of our hypocritical GOP food stamp Nazi's. One Borg-like follower, tax attorney Jay Miller, summed it up nicely this way:

(Some) argue that having the government regulate food-buying decisions is condescending or paternalistic. They are using food stamps, i.e., government funds, which cost taxpayers over $60 billion per year. Given this investment, the government has an obligation to ensure that the program - which is designed to improve, not harm, the health of low-income people - fulfills its purpose.

But school lunches are exempt? Beautiful. Miller assumes low-income people can afford healthy foods, but congressional Republicans whine taxpayers can't afford those same foods for school lunches? 

...sparking complaints among schools and Republicans who argue the rules are too prescriptive and costly.

Here's Millers diatribe that mirrors every other Republican lawmaker trying to have it both ways:

Whether it is cirrhosis of the liver, lung cancer or diabetes, the government should not be an enabler (Except when it comes to school kids?) 

When it comes to food stamps, however, the government seems to be saying that candy or chips are of equal nutritional value to grapefruit or fresh spinach. 

And to make things worse, food stamp recipients will have to wait for local convenience stores to start stocking the expensive health foods because demand will eventually force them to carry it: 

We know that purveyors of fried chicken, pizza and burgers line the commercial streets of the inner city, whereas merchants offering healthier products rarely can be found. But if government were to mandate that food stamps could be exchanged only for such products, the marketplace would respond by making them more available there.

Our meddling big government food watchdogs want to save us from ourselves, except in schools, where taxpayer money usurps the health of our children:

Although government can't stop people from engaging in self-destructive behavior, it shouldn't abet that behavior, either. Where, as with food stamps, government's goal is to combat hunger, it ought to avoid policies that substitute one health problem for another.

Scott Walker pushes Unconstitutional Drug Testing for Food Stamps. Other Big Government tests not far behind?

Funny thing on the way to a Republican one party police state, those standing up for their constitutional rights were denied food stamps. Think how far Republicans can push drug testing for whatever they eventually feel needs a little tough love.

Even worse, Americans don’t understand what Republicans mean when they insist on changing federal programs to state controlled block grants; no federal strings attached to the block granted money, which means the GOP can require any test they’d like to penalize and choke off benefits. Cruel? They’d tell you to get a job, the kind they know will never be created through tax cuts.

Let’s take a look at what’s already happened with drug testing that ended up costing taxpayers in Missouri $25,000 for each of the 20 positive tests…don’t complain, it’s the principle that matters. WSJ:

In Missouri, over an eight-month period, 636 drug tests were administered, yielding 20 positive tests at a cost of $500,000, the Kansas City Star reported in December. Two hundred people refused to take the tests and were denied benefits, the Star reported.

200 people might have refused the drug test as a way to protect their constitutional rights. Ask any tea party member of a 501(c)(4) if they would take a drug test to exempt themselves from paying federal taxes?

812 people applied for assistance, according to figures from the Tennessee Department of Human Services cited by The Tennessean. Four who refused to participate in the process were denied benefits. Six who answered “yes” were tested, and one failed. In all, five were denied benefits.

Scott Walker iisn'tlooking out for the taxpayers, he’s using that empty excuse to push is ideological doctrine that sometimes saves money, but most of the time wastes it (like the Medicaid money).

And look at the chart showing the rise, fall, and rise again of food stamp assistance. Come on, this is an easy one. 

The rise and fall coincides with the economic job swings seen in the Bill Clinton years through Bush and the Great Recession. Businesses large and small were wiped out and those that did survive changed their business model to a bare bones full time staff with part timers brought in only when seasonally necessary. The chart has nothing to do with freeloaders or drug addicts.