Left and Right of Food Assistance

The Democrats are seen widely as the champions of food stamps.  Because their platform is partially built around helping the needy and attempting to uplift those who are struggling.  The largest program for food assistance is SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).  It provides monetary assistance to lower income families to help ensure that they get the food that they need.

The liberals will generally fight to increase funding for the program citing statistics showing that there are 48.8 million food insecure people in the United States, of that 16.2 million are children.  With more funding, at least in theory, fewer of those people would be without food.

The conservatives look at the rapidly inflating cost of SNAP and argue that the nation cannot afford it.  The liberals propose that the funding come from other programs.  They contend that feeding those who are hungry is too important to skip.  To the Democrats, SNAP is essential.

For many liberals the inflation of food assistance spending stems from a bad economy.  Because the economy has been doing poorly people have lost their jobs.  Because they lost their jobs they need to use food stamps to ensure that they are still eating.  The key point of the liberal plans for food assistance is that it is something that the government cannot scrimp on.  The cost may be temporary while people are out of work or it may be longer term if people have trouble finding long term, gainful employment.

Either way, the liberals believe that the program should receive all of the funding it needs.  The money to fund the program can be found.  The typical proposal is what the conservatives usually call a “Robin Hood Tax.”  The taxes on the wealthiest Americans is increased and then used to fund programs that help the poor.

By collecting this extra revenue the liberals hope to find the money that is needed to fund the ever growing number of people who receive food assistance from the government.  By finding a way to cover more people the goal is to reduce the number of people who are food insecure in the United States.

The conservatives lean in the other direction.  Rather than attempting to increase funding to cover more people, they hope to reduce the government’s role.  While most will admit that it is impossible to get rid of the program that so many of their constituents benefit from, they will argue that there are better ways to handle it.

Most conservatives will argue that it is important to address the root causes of the food insecure families in the nation.  Rather than providing a way to get food through government assistance, they hope to help those individuals find jobs that will give them the income needed to provide the food themselves.

This would allow the government to reduce the deficit and reduce its role in everyday life.  If you were to boil the conservative plans down to the bare essence, it would be to focus on jobs and allowing the free market to ensure that the food is easily accessible.  The biggest argument made by those on the right is that by propping up the people with food stamps they are removing the incentive to fix the problems that leave them needing the assitance.