FEEDING THE GREEDY STARVING THE NEEDY
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX
With the federal government operating on little more than fumes, and with
our budget deficit ballooning, a group of “tax and spend” Republicans pushed
through a bill that increases farm subsidies by about $50 billion over the
next decade. The legislation guarantees a more stable income for grain and
cotton growers by raising subsidies for them. It also provides new subsidies
for growers of peanuts, lentils, and dry peas. When President Bush signed
the legislation last week, he called farming our nation’s “first industry”.
The farm bill, though, was the first payoff in an already highly charged
midterm election year, providing special benefits to the wealthiest wheat,
corn, cotton and rice growers in 10 central and southern states.
Many of us have visions of small family farms when we think of farming,
and those who pushed the farm bill through did little to discourage the
notion that these subsidies are going to homespun farmers in the heartlands
of America. In fact, nearly 80 percent of federal farm subsidies go to
corporate farmers who hardly need them. This farm bill is public assistance
at its worst, but few call it for what it is – welfare for wealthy farmers.
The only good thing about the farm bill is the fact that it includes the
Food Stamp Reauthorization Act of 2002, providing a nutrition safety net for
working poor families. But House Republicans are trying to take away some of
what the Farm Bill provided by providing “flexibility” to states in the ways
they administer the food stamp program. One proposal would allow five states
to block grant the Food Stamp program at any time during the 2003-2007
period. Block grant states would be required to provide some food
assistance, but they could distribute food stamps in any way they wanted to,
could cut benefits to any group, including legal immigrants, and impose
limits on the among of time people could receive food stamps. The problem
with block grants is that they provide states with a fixed sum of money, but
the need for food stamps varies with economic conditions. In the name of
flexibility, block grant states are gambling on economic stability and
putting the nutrition status of its most needy residents up as collateral.
Republicans are also pushing for a“superwaiver” program that would allow
states to get around federal rules in a variety of low-income programs like
food stamps, childcare, and TANF. States who apply for waivers would be
allowed to move money from one program to another, which defeats the purpose
of setting aside funds specifically for nutrition. Both block grants and
“superwaivers” undermine the food stamp program and potentially make it more
difficult for poor people, especially the working poor, to feed their
families while they subsist on low-wage jobs.
It is ironic that debate on TANF (temporary aid for needy families)
reauthorization follows the swift approval of a different kind of TANF
program, temporary aid for needy farmers. The President could not have been
more delighted to provide public assistance to his corporate friends; he
takes a more parsimonious view toward public assistance when poor families
are to be the beneficiaries of federal aid. Instead of boosting the funds to
go to poor families, the President proposes increasing work requirements
(thereby decreasing training opportunities), spending millions to promote
marriage and abstinence, but little more to support training and education.
The legislation that President bush proposes would eliminate an aspect of
current law that allows people to count vocational education as work. While
farmers are subsidized to protect them from market fluctuations in the price
of their corps, there are no employment subsidies available for people at the
bottom. Indeed, while the farming wage is rising, thanks to federal
subsidies, the federal minimum wage has not increased since 1996!
Why treat farmers with kid gloves, while knocking poor folks around with
boxing gloves? The agriculture lobby is bettering financed and more powerful
than the poor folks lobby. Members of Congress get bragging rights when they
limit benefits for welfare recipients, a group of people that it is easy to
vilify. They also get bragging rights for helping farmers, mainly because
many of us retain an outmoded notion of struggling family farmers. The real
deal is the farm bill was a giveaway to corporate farming interests that had
only the redeeming value of food stamp reauthorization to save it. Now
Congress wants to take that small benefit away in its wrangling about welfare
reform. At President Bush’s urging, they are feeding the greedy, starving
the needy, and getting away with it because poor folks don’t have the money
to fund a lobby to protect them.