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

SNAP crackle pop

The latest Front Porch includes  a pretty brisk debate on  (food stamps), poverty and the current budget showdown in WV politics. You can check it out here.

Meanwhile, re: ACA. Damn.

Wayne's World for Wonks

A little while back, a friend suggested that we as in AFSC and our allies start doing regular webinar type thingies on issues in play in the legislature for people who can't get to Charleston. Or for people who could get there but would rather not.

To that end, co-worker Lida Shepherd and I have started experimenting with Facebook Live. Here is our latest effort, modestly titled SNAP Smackdown. It's about some of the bad legislation regarding food assistance making its way through the legislature.

We went for a "Wayne's World for Policy Wonks" vibe, with some Saturday Night Live-inspired visual stunts at the end. Major props to Melissa McCarthy!

In case of extreme boredom, take a look or listen.

We're planning another one in a week to deal with some really bad tax proposals and are already looking for more cheap visual stunts. I'm thinking eggs, snapping turtles, toy bats to start with...

Notes from the bad idea factory

First off, if you happen to be around a screen on Wednesday, March 15 (the Ides of March!), check out a Facebook Live webinar thingie my co-worker Lida Shepherd and I are doing about SNAP (formerly food stamp) benefits, what they mean to WV, and what some people are trying to do to them. It's a 1:15. More info here.

Next up, this op-ed of mine ran in today's Charleston Gazette-Mail about the bad idea of replacing WV's personal income tax with a regressive consumption tax:

One of my favorite state legislators, who shall remain nameless except to say he’s Mike Pushkin, likes to call a certain place with a dome “the bad-idea factory.”

While I would never even dream of saying such a thing, some days I can see where he’s coming from. Like today, for example.

Senate Bill 335 is a case in point. It would replace West Virginia’s income tax with a steep boost on consumption taxes. The bill has numerous sponsors in the Senate, with the notable exception of Republican Finance Chairman Mike Hall, who knows more about the state budget than just about anybody ever has.

So what’s wrong with the bill?

For starters, it would slam middle-class and low-income families with much higher taxes while granting a huge break to those at the top.

West Virginia’s state and local tax systems are already topsy-turvy, with the poorest 20 percent paying a higher percentage of their incomes in taxes than the wealthiest 1 percent (8.7 percent vs 6.5 percent).

One reason for that is our regressive sales tax, which is basically a consumption tax. The imbalance here is even more extreme, with the poorest fifth paying more than six times the percentage rate of their income than the wealthiest 1 percent.

Eliminating the personal income tax, which is the only state tax actually based on the ability to pay, and replacing it with the proposed consumption tax would increase taxes on the bottom 80 percent, while providing breaks for the very wealthiest. Assuming revenue neutrality, middle-class families would pay over $1,000 more per year, while those earning $353,000 or more per year would see a tax cut of more than $27,000 according to an analysis by the Institute for Tax and Economic Policy.

The reason for this is pretty obvious. Middle-class and low-income people of necessity spend more of their money on basic necessities than the wealthy. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, people earning less than $70,000 per year typically spend 114 percent of their income (think debt) while those earning over $200,000 per year spend around 50 percent.

This shift in tax policy would only increase income inequality, which has skyrocketed in recent decades. In West Virginia, for example, between 1979 and 2011, the average real income in the state increased by only 3.9 percent, compared to the U.S. average of 14.8 percent. But over that time, all of the income growth was gained by the top 1 percent of richest West Virginians. Real income for them grew by more than 71 percent, while it fell for the bottom 99 by almost 3 percent. This bill would be another step in the wrong direction.

SB 335 wouldn’t be great for state businesses either. They already pay more in sales taxes than income taxes. Phasing out the income tax would likely mean a hit for them, as well.

Then there’s the border-county issue. I checked a map and found that 29 counties border another state (31, if you count tiny parts of Tucker and Summers). While small or moderate increases of excise taxes on some goods wouldn’t have much of an effect on consumer behavior, a major hike in consumption taxes would encourage people to take their business out of state or online, thus hurting the state’s economy.

Recently, Gov. Jim Justice memorably said West Virginia is like “a patient laying there, and blood is shooting to the ceiling.”

(Try getting that image out of your head.)

Sticking with that simile, SB 335 is like an unnecessary surgery that would make the bleeding even worse.

Cuts and more cuts

If you're a public employee in WV and you feel something on your back, it could be a target. PEIA, aka the Public Employee's Insurance Agency, is gearing up to make millions of dollars in benefit cuts. This could be the next major health care fight here. Or one of them anyway.

On top of that, food assistance in the form of SNAP benefits is declining around the nation as many states impose time limits and difficult to comply with work requirements. WV did that in nine pilot counties. Meanwhile, right wing groups (whose staff seems to be pretty well fed) are pushing for further food cuts in WV. I guess that'll be another fight.

Hunger games, WV style

This op-ed of mine on SNAP (formerly food stamp) benefits and hunger appeared in today's Charleston Gazette-Mail.

I’m pretty sure that being poor isn’t nearly as much fun as people who aren’t poor think it is. At least that was the case in the time I spent below that line and I’d just about bet the farm that’s still the case.

The best description I ever found of what it’s like came from the late writer Earl Shorris, who described poverty as living in a “surround of force,” which makes you feel like a hunted animal, always reacting or getting ready to react to the next threat, with little chance to relax or reflect.

He put it this way: “The poor, those who lose in the game of modern society, are thrust into a surround of force. Inside the surround, they experience anomie: panic is limitless action within a surround, but the surround ruthlessly limits the freedom of its objects by enclosing them.”

Bruce Springsteen summed it up pretty well too: you “end up like a dog that’s been beat too much till you spend half your life just covering up.”

Another person who got it right over 100 years ago was the American writer Jack London in his 1902 book “People of the Abyss,” about urban poverty in London. It describes the fragile condition of several individuals and families trying to scrape by, only to be undone by a mishap that those with more means would scarcely notice.

An accident, an illness, a downturn in the economy and the game is up. The words “And then the thing happened” run like a sad refrain through the book.

A lot of things have changed since then, but some things haven’t. Then or now, if you’re living on the edge, the least bump in the road can set off a downward spiral.

That’s one of the main reasons I’m concerned that as many as a million Americans — and several thousand West Virginians — are in danger of losing basic food assistance through SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps.

(The benefits these people rely on aren’t all that generous to start with. If you don’t believe that, try living for a month on a $2-per-meal budget and see how that works. You’ll also see why food pantries get busy at the end of the month.)

Some states with low unemployment rates are imposing strict SNAP time limits and work requirements on working age adults without dependents due to federal mandates. People who don’t meet them can lose food assistance for three years. West Virginia isn’t required to do so, yet it is imposing the same restrictions in nine pilot counties which are home to around 47,000 such adults. These changes are well-intentioned at the state level. I’m all for getting more people back to work and/or participating in education and training. Who isn’t?

However, unless we get this right, this could hurt people who are looking diligently for work but haven’t found any yet. As one advocate from South Carolina put it, “It doesn’t matter how hard you’re looking. If you fill out eighty applications a day, if you don’t have the eighty hours a month then it doesn’t count. You’re going to lose your SNAP benefits for three years.”

It could also impact people who have jobs but can’t find steady work at 20 hours or more per week. According to Shawn Fremstad of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, “We’ve seen a long-term trend toward more precarious job conditions for low-skilled workers. Even if you get a job, you’re not guaranteed more than 20 hours a week.” While there are provisions to allow for volunteer hours to make up the difference, many people may not be aware of this option.

SNAP changes could also impact people who have physical or mental disabilities that haven’t been officially recognized as such or who have other obstacles such as lack of transportation. And it could take millions of dollars away from local businesses and further stress already over-burdened local food pantries and charities.

“Making people hungrier isn’t going to make them find work faster,” as Rebecca Vallas of the Poverty to Prosperity Program told the Washington Post.

The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources is doing a good job of screening and working with this population, but as of last week, over 4,000 were in danger of losing food assistance.

Fortunately, there are ways of making SNAP work requirements work for everyone which may be worth consideration. In Franklin County, Ohio (think Columbus), for example, local food assistance programs and the Ohio Association of Food Banks have come together to create a Work Experience Program which actually meets one-to-one with those affected.

“Our findings indicate that many of our clients struggle with accessing reliable transportation, unstable living conditions, criminal records, education, and both physical and mental health problems,” they report.

The understanding gained by actually talking to people there led to better understandings and outcomes that help them “navigate through many of their challenges, giving our clients a better chance at improving their lives and supporting themselves.”

That’s a worthwhile goal and one that I think people of good will could agree with across the political spectrum.

I’d like to see the state take the time to get it right.

Good news, bad news, repeat

To start on a positive note, the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion in particular is shaping up to be a success story in WV. Aside from the fact that around 170,000 West Virginians are covered by Medicaid expansion and another 33,000 have gained coverage via the exchange, now hospitals are reporting huge savings. The Charleston Gazette recently reported that 25 hospitals have reported a $265 million drop in uncompensated care.

On a negative note, changes to food stamp aka SNAP benefits could result in thousands of West Virginians losing them.

On a positive note, my beloved Cabell County Schools is expanding free meals for students. On the other hand, Cabell is also ground zero for substance abuse, with over 900 overdoses reported last year.

Half empty or half full?

Chew on this

SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps, play a huge role in helping families keep food on the table. Nationally, 1 in 7 people rely on them. In WV, it's 1 in 5. Here's a fact sheet that lays it out.

SPEAKING OF FOOD, HOW DID EARLY HUMANS GET SMART? Maybe by eating bugs.

SHOCKING. Here's a look at how natural selection helped the electric eel power up.

URGENT BUSHY TAILED VAMPIRE SQUIRREL UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED