The New York Times    
      
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------   
      
    September 22, 2013   
      
      
     Free to Be Hungry   
      
      
               By PAUL KRUGMAN   
      
    The word "freedom" looms large in modern conservative rhetoric.   
    Lobbying groups are given names like FreedomWorks ; health   
    reform is denounced not just for its cost but as an assault on,   
    yes, freedom. Oh, and remember when we were supposed to refer to   
    pommes frites as "freedom fries"?   
      
    The right's definition of freedom, however, isn't one that, say,   
    F.D.R. would recognize. In particular, the third of his famous   
    Four Freedoms - freedom from want - seems to have been turned on   
    its head. Conservatives seem, in particular, to believe that   
    freedom's just another word for not enough to eat.   
      
    Hence the war on food stamps, which House Republicans have just   
    voted to cut sharply even while voting to increase farm   
    subsidies .   
      
    In a way, you can see why the food stamp program - or, to use   
    its proper name, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program   
    (SNAP) - has become a target. Conservatives are deeply committed   
    to the view that the size of government has exploded under   
    President Obama but face the awkward fact that public employment   
    is down sharply, while overall spending has beenfalling fast as   
    a share of G.D.P.   
      
    SNAP, however, really has grown a lot, with enrollment rising   
    from 26 million Americans in 2007 to almost 48 million now.   
      
    Conservatives look at this and see what, to their great   
    disappointment, they can't find elsewhere in the data: runaway,   
    explosive growth in a government program. The rest of us,   
    however, see a safety-net program doing exactly what it's   
    supposed to do: help more people in a time of widespread   
    economic distress.   
      
    The recent growth of SNAP has indeed been unusual, but then so   
    have the times, in the worst possible way. The Great Recession   
    of 2007-9 was the worst slump since the Great Depression, and   
    the recovery that followed has been very weak. Multiple careful   
    economic studies have shown that the economic downturn explains   
    the great bulk of the increase in food stamp use. And while the   
    economic news has been generally bad, one piece of good news is   
    that food stamps have at least mitigated the hardship, keeping   
    millions of Americansout of poverty .   
      
    Nor is that the program's only benefit. The evidence is now   
    overwhelming that spending cuts in a depressed economy deepen   
    the slump, yet government spending has been falling anyway.   
    SNAP, however, is one program that has been expanding, and as   
    such it has indirectly helped save hundreds of thousands of   
    jobs.   
      
    But, say the usual suspects, the recession ended in 2009. Why   
    hasn't recovery brought the SNAP rolls down? The answer is,   
    while the recession did indeed officially end in 2009, what   
    we've had since then is a recovery of, by and for a small number   
    of people at the top of the income distribution, with none of   
    the gains trickling down to the less fortunate. Adjusted for   
    inflation, the income of the top 1 percent rose 31 percent from   
    2009 to 2012, but the real income of the bottom 40 percent   
    actually fell 6 percent. Why should food stamp usage have gone   
    down?   
      
    Still, is SNAP in general a good idea? Or is it, as Paul Ryan,   
    the chairman of the House Budget Committee, puts it, an example   
    of turning the safety net into "a hammock that lulls able-bodied   
    people to lives of dependency and complacency."   
      
    One answer is, some hammock: last year, average food stamp   
    benefits were $4.45 a day . Also, about those "able-bodied   
    people": almost two-thirds of SNAP beneficiaries are children,   
    the elderly or the disabled, and most of the rest are adults   
    with children.   
      
    Beyond that, however, you might think that ensuring adequate   
    nutrition for children, which is a large part of what SNAP does,   
    actually makes it less, not more likely that those children will   
    be poor and need public assistance when they grow up. And that's   
    what the evidence shows. The economists Hilary Hoynes and Diane   
    Whitmore Schanzenbach have studied the impact of the food stamp   
    program in the 1960s and 1970s, when it was gradually rolled out   
    across the country. They found that children who received early   
    assistance grew up, on average, to be healthier and more   
    productive adults than those who didn't - and they were also, it   
    turns out, less likely to turn to the safety net for help.   
      
    SNAP, in short, is public policy at its best. It not only helps   
    those in need; it helps them help themselves. And it has done   
    yeoman work in the economic crisis, mitigating suffering and   
    protecting jobs at a time when all too many policy makers seem   
    determined to do the opposite. So it tells you something that   
    conservatives have singled out this of all programs for special   
    ire.   
      
    Even some conservative pundits worry that the war on food   
    stamps, especially combined with the vote to increase farm   
    subsidies, is bad for the G.O.P., because it makes Republicans   
    look like meanspirited class warriors. Indeed it does. And   
    that's because they are.   
      
      
      
   BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn   
      
   ... Freedom's just another word for nothing left to eat.->Republican Version.   
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