And this little piggy had roast beef...

Not to name names but Delegates Fast, Higginbotham, Foster, McGeehan, Kessinger, Westfall, Martin, Ambler, Butler, Queen, and Sypolt were the proud sponsors of House Bill 4001 the bill that limits West Virginians’ access to food benefits provided by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). 

These delegates must believe that not only does taking food away from people help them secure good-paying jobs, but that daily SNAP benefits are too generous.  And like all WV legislators, these Delegates are eligible for a per diem of $131 per day while the legislature is in regular session. 

So out of idle curiosity, how about we contrast their generous legislative per diem with the paltry SNAP benefits by issuing them the #WVSNAPCHALLENGE?

By taking this challenge, these delegates will see if they are able to make their $131 per diem stretch for an entire month (since the average monthly SNAP benefits are $126).  If they think people receiving SNAP are living too high on the hog, maybe they should challenge themselves to survive one month spending $4.20 a day on food. 

Just sayin'.

And while we are talking SNAP (still), hop on the bus to DC to Save SNAP! on July 10th.

Today’s SNAP Challenge (in three simple steps)

Amazingly there is good news on the Farm Bill but now is not the time to rest on our laurels.  Is it ever these days?  The Farm Bill is likely up for a vote on passage Thursday afternoon and believe it or not, the one that emerged from the Senate Agriculture committee is a decent, bi-partisan bill that protects and strengthens SNAP.  No joke!  But with the debate happening this week, and the ongoing threats to SNAP and the social safety net, here are three things you can do:

1) Pile on to the national call-in day today and tell Senators Manchin and Capito:

Bi-partisan Senate Farm Bill good

House Farm Bill cuts to SNAP bad (as we said last week)

Joe Manchin-(202) 224-3954

Shelly Moore Capito- (202) 224-6472

2) Share this video that our friends at the Food Justice Lab at WVU created about SNAP and the Farm Bill. 

3) Take the #WVSNAPChallenge Mountaineers for Progress are issuing (i.e. try living off $4.20 a day especially if think SNAP benefits have people living too high on the hog). And if you’re in the Morgantown area, check out their kick-off event. 

While we are talking SNAP, if you want a really good read (or listen), WV Public Broadcasting did a great story about SNAP benefits being denied to people with drug felonies, despite the trend in most other states to no longer subject drug felons to a lifetime ban from SNAP.  Stay tuned on that.  

Finally, say a prayer to the internet gods on behalf of our pal El Cabrero who is still experiencing technical difficulties at Goat Rope Farm.  

And still everybody's gotta eat

The U.S. House has been debating the monstrosity of a Farm Bill today and it might be worth two or three minutes of your time giving your representatives a call to ask him to vote no.  As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports, H.R. 2 would effectively remove nearly 2 million people from SNAP by imposing harsher work requirements.  Never mind that a lot of these people are already working.  And far be it from me to point out the evidence supporting any claim that work requirements boost employment remains at zilch, zero, nada. 

What we do know about policies like this is that they increase food insecurity, especially among women, people with disabilities, and seniors. 

We might be wise to look at programs that actually boost employment, like Montana's HELP-Link program which was started when the state expanded Medicaid.  The program provides Medicaid enrollees with employment services through their Department of Labor and Industry, including employment training and education.  When it comes to the proof in the pudding, 82 percent of the people who participated are now employed, and 80 percent have obtained higher wage jobs.

The Daily Mail editorial today slams the farm bill for other reasons, saying that it entails huge giveaways to "big ag" at the expense of small farmers. I reckon they're right. 

In short, there is not much to like about this thing.  Let's light up those phones! 

Here are the D.C. #'s

McKinley 202.225.4172

Jenkins 202.225.3452

Mooney 202.225.2711

Fixing the farm bill

Disclaimer: Well here goes nothing, I submit my first entry as a guest blogger on The Goat Rope, with El Cabrero making big cloven hoof prints for 谢岚 to follow.   Most humbly, 谢岚

(rough translation from Chinese: gratitude for mist from the mountains.  Pinyin pronunciation: Xie Lan).  

An oft-reported subject on The Goat Rope is Hunger Games, a really bad movie that never ends.  With Congress returning from recess today (groan), the most recent plot point involves the House Farm Bill which contains major threats to SNAP such as expanding harsh work requirements to include parents.  If you want, today is the last day you can submit comments to the USDA about these mean changes to SNAP.  谢岚 comments are below. 

If you need help “freeing the pen” as 谢岚 often does, check out Lojong for Writers.  Today 谢岚 received this pithy instruction: Don’t Make Things Painful—don’t beat yourself up when your writing doesn’t turn out as you hoped.  Good advice, thanks Atisha!

Dear Ms. Gersten-Paal:

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on USDA's Advanced Notice on requirements and services for Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWDs).

American Friends Service Committee's WV Economic Justice Program pays very close attention to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) because SNAP plays a critical role in addressing hunger and food insecurity for 357,000 West Virginia residents. West Virginia is a state that especially must rely on SNAP for the following reasons, to only name a few:

•More and more jobs in WV pay low wages and have little or no benefits.
•West Virginia has traditionally been a state with high levels of poverty and un- and underemployment.
•West Virginia's traditional industries have declined.
•West Virginia hasn't fully recovered from the Great Recession in terms of either jobs or income.

One population that SNAP helps in particular are the thousands of formerly incarcerated individuals reentering society and others with criminal histories, with SNAP providing basic food assistance and supplementing inadequate income as these individuals seek employment. The time limit can be particularly harmful for people who have been incarcerated. They typically face steep barriers to employment such as stigma, low educational attainment level, and occupational licensing bans prohibiting them from many entry level jobs, all of which result in the need for more than three months to find a job.

Before entering prison, this population was more likely than the general population to have experienced poverty, unemployment, homelessness, and poor health. And these struggles often continue after release. Further, many may have competing parole requirements -- such as meetings with parole officers, curfews and required substance use disorder programs -- that can hinder opportunities to meet the 20-hour requirement.

While this request for comment appears to be open to suggestions on how to make the time limit less harsh via administrative action, we are concerned that the Administration seeks only to make the rule more draconian: to expand the scope of the cutoff and to eliminate the little flexibility states have to limit the damage of the rule. The Department's stance on the time limit is not one that our organization shares. We strongly oppose any administrative action by USDA that would expose more people to this cutoff policy. In West Virginia we have an underfunded workforce system and SNAP employment and training program which have proven ineffective at helping people meet the job training requirements under this rule. Put simply, there is no justification for weakening current waiver rules and exposing more vulnerable people to this SNAP eligibility cutoff.

The only action we encourage USDA to take with respect to this time limit rule that impacts Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents is to propose its elimination. Restoring SNAP's ability to provide food assistance to impoverished unemployed people would be a powerful policy improvement that would reduce food insecurity among those seeking work.

Hunger games, WV style

This op-ed on efforts to restrict SNAP (formerly known as food stamp benefits) ran in today's Gazette Mail.

I think it’s interesting that many religious traditions uphold the idea of food justice. In part, that notion means that all people should have access to the nourishment that sustains life.

In the Torah, the fountainhead of Judaism, the biblical Book of Leviticus (23:22) requires all keepers of the covenant to leave a portion of their harvest for the poor and the foreigner, a theme reiterated many times by the Hebrew prophets.

The gospels are all about food, both literal and spiritual. One of the strongest passages is in Matthew 25 related to the last judgment. In it, both those destined to be saved and those destined to be damned are pretty surprised at their status. The former are told that they gave the Son of Man food and drink when he was hungry, while the latter did not.

Neither group seems to know exactly what he was talking about. The punchline came when the Judge says that whatever acts of justice or mercy were given to or withheld from “the least among you” was also done to him.

In the Quran, it is written that “In the sight of God, harshness, carelessness or even insensitivity to the suffering of the poor, helpless and hungry is tantamount to denying the religion and the Day of Judgment.”

Even pagans seemed to get the memo. Say what you want about the ancient Romans, but they at least provided food assistance for citizens displaced from their farms when rich aristocrats took over vast tracts of land. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, souls seeking a pleasant afterlife must pledge to the gods among other things that “I have not caused hunger.”

I could go on.

I hope that state legislators recall such ancient wisdom as they contemplate legislation that would restrict SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) assistance through time limits, punitive asset tests, unrealistic requirements, and time limits.

Or at least that they’d do the math.

Whatever noble motives people championing such legislation claim, the end result will be increased hunger and food insecurity. And less money circulating through our communities. And more of a drain on already overburdened food pantries and charities.

This isn’t speculation. It’s a fact.

Last year, the state Department of Health and Human Resources piloted a program implementing just some of these measures in nine counties. These were the most prosperous counties with the least unemployment. Presumably, these would be the counties with the best possible outcomes.

The results are in. Imposing time limits and unsupported requirements on able bodied adults without dependents (so-called ABAWDs, a dehumanizing label) didn’t result in more people being better off. It resulted in more people losing basic assistance and millions of dollars being taken out of the local economy.

Of nearly 14,000 people referred to education and training programs, only 259 gained employment by participation in the program.

There was no growth in the employment of the target population. According to DHHR, “The percentage of working ABAWDs proportional to the total SNAP population has held steady since the work requirements were put into place.”

On the other hand, 5,417 people were cut off. And over $13 million dollars was taken out of the local economy. (Multiply 5,417 by around $200 per month in SNAP benefits times 12 months.)

That was money that could support over 700 full-time retail jobs for a full year at the state’s minimum wage. That unspent local money doesn’t go into some imaginary pool for the “worthy poor” or get refunded to taxpayers. It’s just gone.

And it’s money that would have created jobs, supported food producers and local businesses, been invested in local banks and loaned out to local people for homes, cars and businesses.

DHHR estimates that if these measures were implemented statewide, it would mean the loss of nearly $18 million that could have been circulating through West Virginia’s economy. That’s even more of a loss to local jobs and businesses.

One would hope that considerations of justice, compassion and humanity as expressed in our religious traditions would be considered. Failing that, there’s the hope that considerations of jobs, profits for food producers and local businesses might be considered.

Failing either, the mean spirited political bullying of the least among us might prevail.

The jury is still out. I stand with the Judge.