Years ago — another lifetime, really — I was having dinner with my historian then-husband and one of his colleagues, along with her husband. We were at the Union Oyster House in Boston, drinking and eating and spending freely. I mentioned a friend, a single mother who had left her alcoholic husband, moved in with family and was back in college, trying to better her life and her daughter’s. I said I was very glad that there were programs available to help her.
My husband’s co-worker, looking sour and disgruntled, started to complain about government handouts and how she wished she could get her master’s degree on the government tit, so to speak. And then she went after women on welfare in general, loudly expounding on her already nasty speech by explaining that anyone who has a second kid while on welfare or receiving food stamps should just be cut off the rolls.
When she finished I explained that my brother and I grew up very poor, the children of a single mother. “Which one of us shouldn’t have eaten?” I asked. She just stared back, but the hand holding an oyster shell halfway to her mouth started to shake. I never saw that couple again socially; I found them despicable.
And now we are, as a nation, deciding who should and should not eat, and we are doing so just in time for the holidays. The president, by executive decision and without going through the usual channels, is cutting hundreds of thousands of people off the rolls for SNAP benefits. This is just the first round of planned cuts, and to that I say: “Bah, humbug.”
According to the New York Times, this move will save the country $5.5 billion over the next five years. The targets are able-bodied single people who have been receiving help for more than three months.
Some of you are thinking, “Good, they are just moochers anyway.” And some are. There will always be a certain amount of graft in any system, but for the most part, no one is looking for a handout who doesn’t really need one. You can call someone “able-bodied” who does not have transportation and can’t get to a decent paying job. You can point your finger at those lacking education, training, medication or help for mental illness, and anyone who has ever had bad luck. A great majority of this country is only a heart attack or car accident away from that kind of luck.
The White House likes to crow about low unemployment, but those figures never include the underemployed and those who just gave up and are no longer being counted. According to a paper issued by the Council of Economic Advisors, about half a million people sleep on the streets every night in this country. I am sure some of those people would be deemed “abled-bodied.”
It just isn’t a level playing field out there, and the very least we can do is help someone who needs a meal. And trust me, a family surviving on SNAP benefits is not eating high on the hog. My brother and I can tell you, however, that government surplus food made all the difference in our small family. My mother figured out ways to make the disgusting canned chicken taste palatable and frankly, the welfare peanut butter and cheese were some of the best I have ever had. And we were grateful to have all of it until things got better.
I can’t help but think that anyone struggling to find work, or get their life back on track after a personal catastrophe or trauma, should be encouraged to do so, not castigated and starved. Trump has never missed a meal in his life. His father handed him a fortune. He is blithely spending our money on a wall that is going to cost trillions and has already been proven to be scalable. This holiday season, one can only wish that the money being spent on the wall were instead going to help the poor and disenfranchised manage their lives, find training and medical help, and get on their feet.
Trump, who has ben laughed off the world stage and is known for crude and salacious comments, would best be served by reading the eloquent dedication on the Hubert Humphrey Building in Washington, D.C.: “The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”
