I keep thinking I will take a bit of time off from the blog to do other things … like clean the sty that passes for my domestic domicile. But then I see something that catches my attention. Perhaps, if my desire to procrastinate were not so desperate, I would not look so hard for these omnipresent distractions.

My latest mental digression involved some numbers spread about by a liberal activist group about SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Most people might say what? But SNAP is reasonably big business. Last year, it provided resources to over 40 million familes at a cost of almost $120 billion bollars or 1.9 percent of the Federal budget. If you are old enough, you might remember SNAP benefits as something called Food Stamps, those coupon type things that people handed over at the grocery store. Folk my age still refer to these nutrition benefits as stamps even though this faux currency went extinct around the time that vinyl discs to record and play music disappeared.

Some historical context here. The origins of the program can be traced back to the JFK era of the early 1960s. We all know that Kennedy was rather shocked by the rural poverty he witnessed while campaigning for the Presidency in West Virginia. Thus, he was supportive of ideas floating around the Department of Agriculture at the time to subsidize the cost of food for low-income families through these funny stamps. This was more a way to deal with excess food commodities and simultaneously to prop up farm prices than anything else. Still the idea was controversial enough to warrant it being tried on a limited trial basis first. A decade later, in the early 1970s, the pilot program had yet to go national though it had expanded greatly by this time.

I have a story. Everything reminds me of a story. My future spouse joined me in Madison in late 1971 after finishing up her Master’s degree in Milwaukee. She had run out of money during this period between finishing school and finding that first job. Desperate, she went on Food Stamps, as they were called at the time, to tide her over this rough patch. She arrived in Madison with a bunch of these unused stamps. I thought, hey, let’s use this funny money to splurge (we were rather broke at the time). The thought of having some food to eat struck me as a capital idea.

It turns out that Dane County (where Madison is located) had not signed onto the Food Stamp program yet, deciding to help the county poor through the handing out of ‘surplus commodities.’ These commodities were mostly crappy blocks of cheese that had been rejected by 3rd world countries. So I said, ‘hey, let’s head to the adjacent county where I knew the stamps would work.’ Stopping at the 1st store over the county line, we used the stamps to buy steaks and luxury food items we could not otherwise afford. Ah bliss, no more peanut butter for a week or so :-).

It was not until we arrived at the checkout counter of this rural grocery store that I realized our error. The glares of the people around us at this seemingly white, young, middle-class looking couple using this ‘welfare’ program were debilitating. If looks could kill, I would have been toast. So, I did what any brave and self-confident man would do … I asked my future wife to continue our check-out while I beat a hasty retreat to our car in the parking lot (What in God’s name did she see in me?). Alas, I had contributed to the growing stigma about welfare … a social issue in which I would become embroiled over the next four decades or so.

Later, I found out that it did not take much to feed the grist mill of hate toward welfare. A few years later I was interviewing the county human services directors around the state for some research I was doing. I kept hearing a story about a doctor (I believe) whose new wife and children were getting some low-income government benefits. There was a loophole in the rules permitting that his assets and income be ignored toward eligibility since he had not adopted the woman’s kids. I agreed that this was a scandal to be remedied. Then it hit me that I was hearing the same story over and over. This one case had been blown out of all proportion and had become a singular point of discontent.

And that, my friends, is the core point of today’s ruminations … social and political stigma. The numbers that caught my eye were about survey reactions associated with the recent Farm Bill in Congress, about 80 percent of which focused on the SNAP program (old Food Stamps) with the remainder of the legislation dealing with things like crop insurance and land conservation. Though I remain a bit sceptical of numbers put out by agenda driven groups, here is what has been reported:

1. Some four out of five respondents want the government to do more to help poor families obtain nutritious foods.

2. Even more (some 87 percent), thought SNAP benefits should be easier to get.

3. At the same time, a majority of respondents believe there should be work requirements attached to the benefits.

4. These mostly liberal views persisted despite respondents guessing that recipients received was more in benefits than they did in reality. The median guess was $20 per day while the actual figure was more like $6 dollars per day.

Even if these numbers are exaggerated, they are not disconnected from what we found when welfare was a big political issue. Back in my day, respondents to surveys typically expressed the opinion that government should do more to help poor children and the poor in general … though not at a level expressed in these results. If, however, you asked whether government should spend more on welfare, the outcome would flip with most saying NO! It turns out that the public was on to something. They wanted to help … just not by giving people cash in ways that might discourage work and marriage. The old cash welfare program, as designed, had become a proxy for all the core values of society … family integrity, raising children properly, responsible sex, work and general responsibility, social cohesion, and so much more. It had become a fundamental debate over values.

It is, in fact, correct that no one is going to get rich off SNAP benefits, unless that are scamming the system. In 78% of all counties, SNAP benefits fail to cover the cost of a minimal meal set at $3.14 by the Department of Agriculture. SNAP benefits top out at $2.75 per meal. The program helps but does not categorically eliminate food insecurity. In recent years, roughly 34 million Americans have been designated ‘food insecure.’ It might well be that the recent spate of inflation at the super market has made many households more sensitive to the plight of struggling Americans. But that is just a guess on my part.

Here is what intrigues me. Irrespective of whether the survey numbers are accurate or not, I do detect a shift in attitudes. By the 1990s, when the debates about poverty and welfare had reached a fever pitch (a kerfuffle in which I was intimately involved), there was a sense of palpable anger in the land. States lived in fear that any local generosity toward the poor (in terms of higher benefits than what their neighbor offered) would lead more losers to move to their state .. the so-called welfare magnet issue which was a code word for black migration in the eyes of many. A race to lower benefits started and picked up steam. They were caught in what economists call the ‘prisoner’s dilemna’ where the actions of one state spurred reactions in others and that would cycle back to the first (endlessly).

Research in which I was involved suggested that the ‘migration’ impact of comparatively higher benefits was real but small. That did not matter. As with anything involving an emotional issue such as welfare, perception was everything. During this era, welfare had become the so-called ‘mid-east’ of domestic policy. Passions ran high and compromise seemed impossible. In 1988, a comprehensive welfare bill made it through Congress. Senator Pat Moynihan from New York (the ex Harvard professor and welfare expert) said at the time that this topic was so complicated and emotion driven that no further legislation was possible in that century. A mere 8 years later, the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children program was scrapped and replaced by a work oriented block grant called TANF or the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program.

The wild and adverse consequances predicted as a result of the Bill never came to pass. Sen. Moynihan claimed that millions of woman and children would be living on the streets. In fact, poverty among children and families improved slightly as many states used the new block grants and the attendant program flexibility to help poor families in more productive ways. In my opinion, the doomsayers were wrong because the welfare migration fears had, over a period of two to three decades, lowered the ‘real’ benefits to recipients to the point of being relatively meaningless. AFDC, in its final death throes only cost the federal government about $16 billion a year … pocket change to the feds.

The welfare wars were never really about money. It was the emotions surrounding the program that drove the debate. My mantra during those tempetuous times was that ‘I knew I was approaching the truth when no one agreed with what I was saying.’ I would be contacted weekly (at least) often much more often by reporters from around the country asking my views on whatever had hit the public or political fancy that week. It was a heady time for a policy wonk like myself but a depressing insight into the foolishness that passed as governing. But I had fun and that’s what counts.

And here is my point (at last), the passions are over. Sure, if the Republicans get full control of government, they are likely to end SNAP along with public education, government support for health care, and social security, just to start. Every last dime saved will drift upward to the economic and oligarchic elite. But we hope that will not happen. In the meantime, the poor have receded as the whipping boys and girls of society, the convenient scapegoats who can be blamed for all our ills.

I find that oddly comforting.