The Government Needs To SNAP Out Of It!
“If another country was doing this to their kids we would be at war.”- Jeff Bridges spokesman for the No Kid Hungry Campaign of the organization Share Our Strength. The government should spend less money on military and other programs and more money should be put into the SNAP program. “In fiscal year 2015, the federal government is projected to spend around 3.9 trillion dollars. These trillions of dollars make up around twenty-one percent of the U.S. economy, as measured by the Gross Domestic Product.” (Federal Spending) I read this and asked myself, “Where do all these trillions of dollars go?” I continued to read and found out that the U.S. Treasury divides all spending into these three main groups. The three groups are mandatory spending, discretionary spending, and interest on debt. Mandatory spending is federal spending that is spent based on existing laws. While discretionary spending is a part of the budget that the president requests and Congress allows or disallows based on the price. Interest on debt is the interest payments the federal government makes on its accumulated debt. The pie chart I found shows the breakdown of 1.16 trillion dollars in discretionary spending. (Federal Spending)
“If another country was doing this to their kids we would be at war.”- Jeff Bridges spokesman for the No Kid Hungry Campaign of the organization Share Our Strength. The government should spend less money on military and other programs and more money should be put into the SNAP program. “In fiscal year 2015, the federal government is projected to spend around 3.9 trillion dollars. These trillions of dollars make up around twenty-one percent of the U.S. economy, as measured by the Gross Domestic Product.” (Federal Spending) I read this and asked myself, “Where do all these trillions of dollars go?” I continued to read and found out that the U.S. Treasury divides all spending into these three main groups. The three groups are mandatory spending, discretionary spending, and interest on debt. Mandatory spending is federal spending that is spent based on existing laws. While discretionary spending is a part of the budget that the president requests and Congress allows or disallows based on the price. Interest on debt is the interest payments the federal government makes on its accumulated debt. The pie chart I found shows the breakdown of 1.16 trillion dollars in discretionary spending. (Federal Spending)
As you can see the military clearly gets a lot of funding. Way more than it should because we aren't at war anymore, and we’re spending money on making new technology for war that we don't need. Addressing current issues like food insecurity in America should be a top priority. I wonder what would happen if you cut the military spending down to thirty to forty percent? Then added that fifteen to twenty-five percent to SNAP. Thats a huge increase that wouldn’t fix the problem, but it sure will help a lot. “Mandatory spending is largely made up of earned-benefit or entitlement programs, and the spending for those programs is determined by eligibility rules.” (Federal Spending) An example of this is when Congress created the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). What happens is Congress determines who is eligible to receive benefits from the program. Congress doesn't increase or decrease the budget for SNAP. They review the eligibility rules and may change them in order to include or exclude people. “In fiscal year 2013, the federal government spent about $82.5 billion on SNAP. About 92 percent went directly to benefits that households used to purchase food. Of the remaining 8 percent, about 5 percent was used for state administrative costs, including eligibility determinations, employment and training and nutrition education for SNAP households, and anti-fraud activities. About 3 percent went for other food assistance programs.” (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) The 82.5 billion dollars isn't enough. I know it sounds crazy to say, but when you have 50 million Americans that are food insecure it’ll add up. James McGovern U.S. Representative, Massachusetts Co-Chair, Congressional Hunger Center went on a food stamp diet for a week because he thought the food stamp benefit was inadequate. the average food stamp benefit is three dollars a day. He went into the super market, and it took him a long time because you have to add up every penny, and it has to last you for a week. His side effects from lack of food were being tired and cranky. He couldn't drink coffee because it was too expensive. For him it was an exercise that ended in a week. For millions of other people in the U.S. that’s their way of life. Every day is a struggle just to eat. “The assistance programs in the U.S. are hard to qualify for. It’s like you're starving or you don’t get any help. What defines starving? If you don't eat for a day are you starving? In their eyes no, but in your eyes and the way you feel of course.” - Barbie Izquierdo (A Place at the Table) Barbie use to make nine dollars an hour at her job before she got laid off. As a single mother raising two children nine dollars an hour wasn't enough. She went to the welfare office to apply for food stamps. Barbie sat in the welfare office for eight hours to be told she was two dollars over the income limit. After she was laid off Barbie was eligible for food stamps from the SNAP program, but her food stamps only last her and her two children 3 weeks out of the month. For one whole week it’s a struggle for Barbie and her family. “Forty-seven million Americans rely on SNAP for food every month, and that, sometimes, the recipients still do not have enough money to get them through the whole month. And this was before the passing of the Farm Bill. Once passed, the Farm Bill cut two million recipients from SNAP and gave less money to the rest of the recipients. If these people did not have enough money before the $8.6 billion budget cut, then what were they supposed to do now?” ("Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program." Wikipedia) It’s ridiculous that the government even thought that it was ok to cut 8.6 billion dollars to people that are starving. If everything goes to plan and Obama chooses to spend 55% of the countries 1.16 trillion dollars on the military in 2015, we’ll be spending 638 billion dollars on the military program while our people go hungry. That amount of money going towards the military is ridiculous. Why do we need that much money to go there? If you take out 10% of the 638 billion you're left with 464 billion dollars for military spending. That means you would have 174 billion dollars to put some where and we need to give it to SNAP. 174 billion dollars would do wonders for the SNAP program. The U.S. currently spends 640 billion dollars on its military. Out of every country we spend the most. The next closest country in military spending is China with 188 billion. What the fuck are we doing? We don't need to spend our money this way! We should be worrying about people in our own country not being able to eat, and when they do eat they eat shitty food like processed food because healthy food isn’t readably available, and processed food is cheaper than healthy food. If we took the money that we spend on SNAP now ($82.5 billion) and switched it with the military spending ($640 billion) we would drop from first to third in military spending. It’s almost laughable how stupid we are. Were spending a shit load of money on the wrong things. In the late 1970’s hunger was almost ended and as of now its up to fifty million Americans. We talk about “change” and “making our country better” but if people can’t eat how do you expect them to be better.
Work cited:
"Federal Spending: Where Does the Money Go." National Priorities Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 June 2014. <https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/>.
"Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 19 June 2014. Web. 24 June 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program>.
"Center on Budget and Policy Priorities." Sorry --. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 June 2014. <http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2226>.
"A Place at the Table." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 24 June 2014. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1736049/>.
Work cited:
"Federal Spending: Where Does the Money Go." National Priorities Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 June 2014. <https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/>.
"Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 19 June 2014. Web. 24 June 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program>.
"Center on Budget and Policy Priorities." Sorry --. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 June 2014. <http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2226>.
"A Place at the Table." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 24 June 2014. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1736049/>.