As an engineer, I have worked for defense electronics companies -- surrounded by republicans that hate people that rely on government programs. I will make an argument that the defense department is the biggest welfare program in this country. These defense departments funded workers are mediocre at best and it takes at least 7 of them to do a simple engineering task that one may accomplish at a private company (there are quality control, documentations that really are government funded waste). These engineers, who could not make it in a real fast paced working world, also voted for trump to steal all of our money under he false guise of patriotism.
81
Why is it that all these obscenely rich or well to do be so opposed to provide meager assistance to those who are unfortunate? I am always amazed when I see people like the Koch Brothers, who's combined net worth is over 60 BILLION dollars be opposed to things like a minimum wage or basic healthcare? It seems that America has treated them very well, but yet they profess things would be better if we were crueler.
What is wrong with picture?
86
It is difficult to comprehend how requiring ABLE BODIED CHILDLESS ADULTS to work 20 hours per week in order to remain eligible for food stamps affects a single child, much less the assertion that most of the cutbacks affect children.
Leftists make the argument that there are few non working food stamp beneficiaries, which makes it unlikely that a large number of people are gong to lose benefits or that there will be huge savings for the taxpayer.
What is likely is that people who are working off-the-books and are defrauding the taxpayer by telling the welfare examiner that they are earning more than they are claiming and are therefore ineligible will drop off the rolls. It is also likely that the adult college graduates living in their parents' homes while waiting for the perfect job will resist the efforts to get them to go to resume writing and job interviewing classes and will drop out of the program. But their prosperous parents are not going to let them starve, so it's all good.
Why is it that Democrats resist any paring back of spending, no matter how wasteful, with the argument that Republicans want children to starve?
The reason Trump has higher ratings on job performance among likely voters than Obama did at this point in his administration is that leftists have told so many lies that they have significantly lost credibility.
13
Why do people vote against their self-interest? It's very simple to explain. To put it in terms an economist would understand given the choice between guns & butter they will choose guns. Every. Single. Time.
37
Having popped into the world just before Eisenhower was elected, I've lived through quite a selection of Democratic and Republican presidents. I am now sixty-five, and I am appalled to realize that Ike was probably the best of what is becoming an increasingly bad bunch.
But our country has never been run by people who are so mean as this current bunch. I am truly ashamed of them.
69
Every person I know who voted for Trump voted against their own interests.
How's your vote working out for you now?
42
Excellent Editorial, Mr Krugman!
When I was a boy going up in Chicago during the 1940's, I asked my father, my mother and my uncles and aunts who had lived through the Great Depression what I should know about politics.
They were all second generation immigrants whose parents had come to the USA in the 1880's. And their answer was short and simple: "Republicans care about the rich and democrats care about the poor". I see that nothing has changed in 80 years. What a terrible indictment on the "land of the free and the home of the brave.
62
Mr. Krugman, I generally enjoy your posts. But following on Mr. Edsall's post yesterday, I can't help thinking that you and he are intentionally fomenting partisanship and essentially trolling NY Times readers to generate more page views.
These are trying times. We need to come together as a nation, not become more polarized. I don't agree with many of the GOP policies, but maybe we can focus on viable solutions that work for all rather than just complaining.
Just saying.
10
For a number of societal, economic and personal reasons these people have been left behind. Very few will escape their unfortunate condition and they know it. Without hope they desire to inflict as much damage on any individual or group that is not suffering as they do. Thus tRUMP…their wrecking ball.
A proposed solution:
All personal income above $5 million per year taxed at a 90% rate with no deductions
Eliminate all Corporate political contributions
Limit annual personal political contributions to $1,000 per candidate/issue
Reinstate and enhance the New Deal Programs
Unprecedented investment in public education. Free public college, trade school and retraining for all
Massive infrastructure investment and repair.
43
You're right, Mr. Krugman, it's not about money but contempt for the poor.
Hannity-esque conservatives call the rich "makers" while the poor who get assistance are the "takers"--mere parasites. Never mind that many of the idle rich have never worked a day in their lives. Or that others among the ranks of the so-called makers got rich by stiffing working people and defaulting on loans like Trump, or mooching from government programs, as did Sean Hannity.
Trump is not just the king of debt. He's the high sultan of hypocrisy.
39
The people that are running America are much worse than Mr. Krugman describes. We just have to wait and see.
16
It is so enormously ironic: evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for Trump and other so called conservatives. And if you can believe Jesus, they are one and all going to hell for it!
In the Gospel according to Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus sets out three commandments:
1. Give shelter to strangers (he was, after all, a refugee and immigrant once himself);
2. Feed the hungry (you know, like food stamps);
3. Tend the sick (Jesus did it repeatedly).
I use the word "commandment" because Jesus says if you don't do these three things, you go to hell. Sounds pretty much like a commandment to me.
So what do these evangelicals support? Let's spend a trillion or two throwing out strangers. Let's starve the poor. Lets deny healthcare to tens of millions.
How did it come to pass that so many folks like Mike Pence and all these other self-described evangelical Christians are so vocal about their faith in Jesus and are nonetheless so eager to repudiate Jesus' most basic commandments?
71
How should we feel about people on food stamps who voted for a candidate who hates food stamps and said so in almost every speech he gave. He pledged to reduce aid to children, and head start programs, and on and on. It was impossible to hear anything he said and not understand that. So these people have received what they asked for, how should we feel about that? Their children will not be fed in a world that they brought on. How do they feel about that? Are they condemning Trump or are they praising him, even as they grow hungrier every day? There is a point where you can't stop people from hurting themselves especially if there are millions of people in that category. And maybe we should stop trying. Trump doesn't care about their children and apparently they do not care either. In this world of diminishing returns why is it the liberals problem to care about people who refuse to be helped? It is better to concentrate on those who can still be saved, who understand who Trump is and who have been against him all along. the rest will just have to take care of themselves.
13
Where do they think the SNAP money goes? Well, it goes into the pockets of people who produce food. SNAP was a trade-off program for farm subsidies. This will hurt farmers and grocers as well as the poor. Taken with the China trade war, this will damage farmers.
I think what Paul Ryan means is why give the poor a hammock when they are so close to getting a bed in a for profit prison.
25
You are right, this is about cruelty. This is the same government that justifies separating immigrant children from their parents at the border by comparing them to people who break the law and go to jail, leaving their children behind. The same administration that thinks people don't need health insurance. Or clean air and water.
34
Great article, Mr. Krugman! Generated a lot of interest.
5
This is not about the thinking of Trump, it is about the thinking of his supporters.
There is a deep resentment of help to others among the Republican voters.
16
It's most certainly BOTH.
9
The myth of the meritocracy is heavily at work in trump and his wealthy libertarian supporters. People who have wealth owe more to good fortune than their deserving nature. Conversely, people at the bottom of the heap are not there for lack of trying to pull themselves out of poverty.
The most pernicious myth is the idea that the cost of mitigating poverty with thoughtful government interventions is not worth the cost. That is a lie. Like so many things, it's a matter of pay now or pay ten times later.
Of course, libertarians love to point out the inefficiency of government and to be fair they have a point. The backdoor meddling of big money in government contributes to an impossibly corrupted, ineffective government.
Until we take on the corruption of legalized bribery there is little hope that we can nurture the natural decent proclivities that all humans have in common. Until then there is little hope that we achieve the laudable goals of solving the problems of endemic poverty that are rampant in a country whose high standard of living is reserved for the few.
18
"...some of the biggest victims of Trump’s obsession with cutting 'welfare' will be the very people who put him in office.
This is the saddest part of our current situation in America. The guy in West VA who killed 29 miners and is racist as heck, while not winning the primary, actually got over 10,000 votes. And many miners still think coal is coming back.
Our base of all our problems is ignorance and lack of education, and greed. The millionaires and billionaires in Congress have the education that has provided them good lives. And they still want more.
Please, America, VOTE! Know who you are voting for, and restore to us our better angels. When the least of us is raised up, we ALL benefit. When those that already have the Lion's Share are the ones making the rules, we ALL suffer.
25
There is an age old saying "people get the government that they deserve". Perhaps this is an example.
8
Unfortunately there's a lot of US who didn't vote for Trump NOR deserve the government WE got.
The only viable solution is to VOTE these crooked charlatans (Republicans) OUT.
27
SNAP is feeding approximately 16 million kids. Trump gave his buddies a huge tax cut ("You're all a lot richer" quoth the Donald) and is now threatening to cut SNAP and CHIP, the program for children's health care. Why? To help cut the massive deficits created by the tax cut! These people are beyond belief.
41
I recently saw a man holding a sign saying he was homeless and asking for a few bucks. I have the natural reactions as everyone, like "are you just a scammer?"
So what if he is a scammer, the time he spends out there in he cold says he's not making a killing. So after giving him five dollars, I had second thoughts and I thought I should actully go ask him what put him in this position and what would it take to get him out and into a job.
It was the basic stuff. Divorce, child support, trying to put food on the table because his credit rating is in the gutter, and just trying to get back on his feet. Really, this is what happens to people.
I don't know what he did with the money I have him, but I did ask what he would do with it. He had a solid, well thought out plan to get back into work. I actually don't care what he did with the money. You can't exactly live a good life scamming people out of $60 here and there. So gave him $60.
He didn't seem on drugs or alcohol, so maybe this puts food into his children's mouths. He sure didn't need it to afford a better white bucket to sit on or anything.
There ain'y nothing cool about being cold and perhaps being taken advantage of. Give it a shot. What do we have to lose. $60 here or there? Come on people!
He asked my name. I told him my name is "David, agent of God. Please be the same for others when you have a chance."
28
"Did (Trump's voters) know what they were voting for?"
Probably not. And quite frankly, I can't find it in my heart to feel sorry for them. They were fine with making America "great" by harming those brown people or those gay people or those Muslim people, so I can't really stretch my compassion to encompass them when their vote comes back to bite them in the tuckus.
21
We hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies.
1
I cannot say I disagree with anything said in the column.
On the other hand in the example of Owsley County example, raising the question "Did they know what they were voting for", I do think, as they say, election has consequences. Whether or not they know what they were voting for, they got what they were voting for so indeed, I'd say "Let them eat Trump steak'.
10
Trump and his ilk are the living embodiment of Ebenezer Scrooge before his visitation by the ghosts of Christmas. "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?"
They don't think the unfortunate should be helped; they want to see them rounded up and enslaved.
14
If we care not to care for the weakest among us, who are we?
19
Not all the money in the world can buy an easy conscience. The thought that wealth might not coincide with worthiness, nor poverty with unworthiness, troubles the rich. Restoring untroubled self-regard requires either parting with wealth or persuading oneself that those who have deserve to have, those who don't don't, and therefore that one is not, after all, an accessory to injustice. But if one refuses self-sacrifice and goes the route of self-persuasion, the very existence of welfare immediately presents an obstacle to the relieving conclusion: social transfers are only justified if the have-nots hold a moral claim over the haves superior to the claims of property. Welfare embodies such a moral claim and, to the extent it continues to exist, argues the claim's justness. Every day it continues to exist, it forces an unpleasant choice between holding onto every bit of one's property and holding oneself in untroubled self-regard. Who are these claimants that they deny me enjoyment of all my wealth with an easy conscience? If they are relieved, I cannot be. They cannot be relieved.
8
Few have bad-mouthed 45 more than me, so naturally I agree with every comment I read herein, and that number is legion.
Nonetheless, did you read David Brook's column "Donald Trump's Lizard Wisdom"? I think Brooks nailed it: Even thugs can be helpful when in their niche: "To everything there is a season," I guess.
Ideally, we'd have a Pericles as president and an Achilles as Secretary of Defense. It's deucedly hard, though, to get all the pieces of the puzzle in their right place.
Even so, I'm often haunted by Leibniz's comment that, despite appearance to the contrary, we do live in the best of all possible worlds. (Apparently, a heaven-on-earth just ain't on the cosmic menu.)
1
Paul Krugman,s column about the SNAP program fails to mention that a many of the benefits go to married enlisted military personnel whose compensation is not sufficient to support their families ,I wonder how the republican plan to address this issue
26
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
-- John Kenneth Galbraith
And sometimes a given"modern conservative" is just plain mean-spirited.
36
Trump is going to use the Supreme Court ObamaCare ruling upholding the individual mandate, to compel food stamp users to purchase Trump steaks. (Satire).
5
One big mistake in this article. In reality, Trump does not have any policy positions. Instead, he is best viewed as a troll. His positions (by which I mean the things he talks about) are a collage of offensive statements designed to get a rise out of people (by which I mean liberals and moderates). He is a media person and he knows what he is doing. His offensive rants got him a solid base and the media attention that made him president. He always chooses the most cartoonish positions available. Get rid of food stamps, ban muslims, build a wall, move embassy to Jerusalem, get out of climate agreement, scrap the Iran deal, have prostitutes urinate on the bed that Obama slept on (this last act really is the best possible symbol of his presidency).
In a way, he is democracy in action because he perfectly channels his supporters. They have long felt overlooked by arrogant urban liberals and they wanted somebody like Trump to oppress their perceived enemies. They've got him now and they cheer him on because at the end of the day, policies and Trump's blunders are irrelevant to them. What is happening now, my friends, is a power game.
12
No doubt if Trump gets his way on SNAP, these folks's lives will get harder--and in November, they will vote in even greater numbers for the demagogue and the party that is making their lives harder.
15
It's hard to get a job when your teeth are rotting and you have nothing decent to wear.
31
I am constantly bombarded on FaceBook with the picture of a supermarket cash register receipt showing a food stamp (SNAP) purchase of lobster. Usually the same piece of paper reposted countless times to "prove" that the unworthy were abusing our largesse. I'm sure somebody, somewhere one of the hundred million Americans who have qualified for food stamps sometime in their lives has purchased lobster. I have been in many homes where food stamps kept children from growing up stunted in body and mind and I can relate that there was damn little lobster served. Conservatives, despite their general profession to Christianity, have little empathy towards the "unworthy". I haven't opened a bible in years but I remember that the New Testament and Christ, it's inspiration, had a lot of material concerning treatment of the poor, the spiritual capacity of the rich, and directions on how a Christian should live their lives. I don't remember any mention of taking over government or the evils of the LGBT lifestyle. The conservative American wants to punish the poor for being poor, people exercising their freedom, and belittle those who live their lives in service of the rest of us for sub-par pay and little appreciation.
26
NOT CRUEL BUT SELECTIVE
Conservatives are charitable and take seriously their Christian duty to help the poor. They only seem cruel because they want to choose who is deserving of their help and properly, demonstrably grateful.
That explains their attitude toward entitlement programs and tax breaks. Corporations and investors deserve help because of the great work they do making our economy and society go. And they know how to say thank you (especially in even numbered years).
If the great 2017 tax cut was meant to boost earnings for workers, it would have written to do so. Credits for creating jobs rather than a wholesale rate cut leading to a windfall of cash.
6
Maybe it's just about malice.
12
For years I've believed the best explanation for the ever-increasing income and wealth inequality appears in "Eight Men Out," a John Sayles film about the 1919 Chicago Black Sox. In one scene. a small-time bookie receives $80,000 in cash from Arnold Rothstein to bribe the eight ballplayers. He takes all but $10,000 and uses it to place bets for himself. His flunkie looks at him and asks "What about the players?" He responds: "You know how much you feed a horse to get a full day's work out of him? Just enough so that he knows he's hungry." That's what America's wealthy elite have been testing for the last thirty years. How little can they pay the working class and still get a full day's work? The answer's the same: just enough so they know they're hungry. The morality of a fair and living wage has literally gone the way of the workhorse.
33
I wonder about the costs that the government would incur to monitor whether or not these SNAP recipients are working or not.
It's so obviously not about the money.
13
I do not believe that racial animus can be so lightly dismissed. The poor white food stamp recipients oppose food stamps for blacks getting the same thing because they do not view their own food stamps in the specific but in the general. Hypocrisy has always been the bedfellow of racism. As for the primary motive for the Republican opposition to food stamps, it validates their position of privilege as whites who have "worked for what they have", even if the work involved immoral exploitation of privilege.
16
It's nothing new. Just social darwinism. We can have a country that denies evolution and believe in social darwinism at the same time; amazing.
4
This is the penultimate paragraph:
No, this is about petty cruelty turned into a principle of government. It’s about privileged people who look at the less fortunate and don’t think, “There but for the grace of God go I”; they just see a bunch of losers. They don’t want to help the less fortunate; in fact, they get angry at the very idea of public aid that makes those losers a bit less miserable.
It is too kind, far too kind. Someone somewhere must have the power to help those whose hearts are too little to grow. Grinches in Whoville are children's stories with happy endings - this is a story of bigshot somebodies' cruelty and lowly nobodies' never ending misery.
13
“And these are the people now running America.”
These people have always been running America, whether as leaders themselves or as middle-class functionaries for the WASP establishment. They go back to the Puritans. Their Calvinist belief in predestination, election, and worldly wealth as a sign of God’s favor is in direct opposition to “there but for the grace of God. “ in their view, it is the will of God that the poor deserve to be losers, and keeping it that way is God’s work.
8
"now running America." Not for long.
8
In 1927 the film "Metropolis" clearly demonstrated an agenda that is now actually being attempted to be forcefully imposed. The rich "fra la la" thru their days above ground, while the poor- there's no middle class- are subservient robotic slaves that exist only to serve the rich, and live in underground ghetto like cities. The right would like nothing better than such a scenario, as, in the end, only the rich would have any say in policies, life, and how you die. And the poor (forget a "middle" class as they are doing what they can to eliminate it) would live only if it suited the masters.
10
There is only one thing annoying about this article: that it took until 2018 for K to say it so clearly. Did he not know it in 1995? The rest of us did. K is sooooo late to the party.
5
And the majority of people who vote for these horrors call themselves Christians. Amazing.
13
Don't you remember Jesus pulling himself out of poverty with his sandal straps? Me neither.
9
"These People" elected Trump: "Let Them Eat Cake."
3
If voters don't like what Trump is doing they'll vote him out.
2
Right on target Mr Krugman. And its not just the republicans. Look no further than the other NYT's article next to yours today. The one that says democrats earning more than $250,000 a year don't think they should pay more in taxes. Someone once said that America is the only country where the poor blame themselves, and each other, for being poor. That may be true. But there is no doubt that the wealthiest, the most well off, the Americans who have benefitted the most from forty years of Reaganism, hate anyone who is not exactly like them.
8
Yes we have seen this movie before. Here is a quote about what happened in Germany from the British philosopher Stuart Hampshire:
“Revenge was to be substituted for justice in relation to enemies, loyalty to party and to race was to replace impartiality, and favour and maltreatment were to depend on a person’s origins rather than on his character… The weak and the handicapped and helpless minorities were to be destroyed, rather than helped...Justice was to be identified with the interest of the more powerful, and the exercise of power was to require no justification and to admit no restraint…”
If this sounds familiar, it's because the same thing is happening in slow motion in America.
7
I wonder who knows more about poverty in Owsley County, KY? The 84% of the voting population who voted for Trump? Or Dr. Paul Krugman, seven-figure columnist for the New York Times?
And I wonder who knows more about statistics? Paul Krugman, or someone who realizes that the 84% of the county's voting population is going to be a far, far smaller portion of the population than the half that are on welfare, and that there's likely going to be little overlap between the two groups?
For the first one, the people of Owsley County know Owsley County far better than Dr. Krugman. They know their neighbors, they know who's a hard case and who's living a life of their choosing. That they chose so overwhelmingly to cut these programs should tell us something, namely that these programs are damaging, and they're hurting their community. For them, opposing these programs carries more weight than Paul's need to generate a column for a few grand. For them, they actually live with the threat of crime and social damage created by problematic programs like unrestricted SNAP. Paul just writes about it. He's only a few hundred miles away, but he might as well be a few thousand miles away, that's how far removed from Owsley County he is.
And what about the second question? My guess is that Paul, an esteemed economist, actually does realize that he was playing a game of statistical sleight of hand here. He just doesn't respect his readers enough to be honest with us. And that's just sad.
3
The wisdom of the voters? That's the principle you're hanging your hat on?
Many of these voters are the same ones who received health coverage through the ACA’s Medicaid expansion and voted for Trump even though he promised to “repeal Obamacare.” Do you really think they made a conscious, considered choice to lose their own health insurance?
Let’s speak plainly. You have heard of “low information voters”, right? These are the ones. Many were oblivious to the fact that ‘Obamacare’, the ACA, and the expanded Medicaid eligibility that brought them insurance were all one and the same program.
Alternately, one can fault these voters for being gullible but, in their defense, Trump lied to them. He promised to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something better and cheaper. Anyone paying attention could see that Trump had no real plan and there was no support for any such plan anywhere in the Republican Party but, again: low information voters.
9
Wow, so they oppose these programs, because of "the threat of crime and social damage created by problematic programs like unrestricted SNAP." They think "these programs are damaging, and they're hurting their community".
Access to food for poor families creates "crime and social damage" ?
And that's why these poor, Kentucky voters voted for Trump?
That's a stretch.
5
I hate to say this, but maybe we should let the conservatives just be the conservatives. Perhaps when the country starts to look like the dust bowl photo-journalism of the 1930s, then just possibly Mr. Trump and his disciples will be voted out of office. For now, they are the Republican Party. Grover Norquist's fondest dreams have been realized. And they're not done yet.
146
In real life, the Norquist pledge meant to not add ONE dime to the deficit, remember?
The only ones consistently respecting the Norquist pledge for the last decades have been the Democrats, and the only ones systematically passing bills that immediately cause trillion dollar deficits, are Republicans.
There is no Grand Old Party anymore, the GOP has become synonym for systematic lying and corruption.
29
Fine. Let conservatives be conservatives, but also let them also show a modicum of tolerance for those who don't necessarily subscribe to their increasingly racist and intolerant political agenda. Because that is just what's happening now with the G.O.P. in control of all three branches of government.
9
The practice of American conservatives to punish people began when white "settlers" decided to murder America's indigenous peoples and steal their lands. To rationalize these crimes, white settlers declared their new wealth was God's reward for their worthiness based on the validity of Christian Calvinist doctrine. Calvinism declared God only rewards the worthy with wealth and the poor are not in God's favor. This rationalization of centuries horrific crimes by white Christians remains a justification used by American conservatism to this day to promote what Krugman calls cruelty as a principle of government.
2
This is an abomination. However, as unpopular as this is to say, I would not mind seeing some specs on how Food Stamps can be spent. We COULD promote healthy food.
4
In addition to saving societal’s costs later on in terms of such things as remedial education and lost productivity of a child who never was able to fulfill their full potential, it would be helpful to remind people that food stamps are actually a boon to the local economy: every SNAP dollar that households redeem expands the economy by about $1.70, according to the Center for Budget & Policy Priorities (cbpp.org). Republicans have been trying to eliminate food stamps forever – even at the height of the Bush Recession. Some Republicans have tried to tie a family’s ability to get food stamps to a child’s success in school. They also have been trying to cut back on school lunch programs – certainly to reverse First Lady Michelle Obama’s healthy food program (which produced a record decline in childhood obesity), and now, in addition to cutting $20 billion from SNAP, Republicans are trying to pull $7 billion from the Childhood Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Put this on top of the Trump policy of pulling children away from families, deporting breadwinners and long-time migrants in conjunction with anti-immigration tactics, and you have a fuller picture: this has nothing to do with promoting economic prosperity, reducing the federal deficit or national debt: it is about having the power and using it with unfathomable and un-American cruelty.
Can't wait to read Trump's Mother's Day proclaimation.
Happy Mother's Day!
8
This is one of your best columns, Paul Krugman. You've described Trump and the Republican party perfectly.
They're people who have no feelings or empathy. They're selfish and greedy. Trump is their ultimate standard-bearer.
7
The starvation rate in the US is essentially zero and that’s what it would be if small cuts were made to SNAP. The bigger problem is obesity among the poor.
Forcing somebody to give money to somebody else because they don’t feel like working seems much more amoral to me. That is the actual problem.
7
as usual, Krugman is misstates facts and mixes arguments.
he begins by stating that trump wants the farm bill to be connected to new work requirements for SNAP recipients. Then, instead of discussing the pros and cons (or even the factual details) of those new requirements, he goes off on a personal attack of trump. Later, he tries to horrify us with the statement that 2M people will go hungry. What Krugman forgets to mention is that they will only be denied SNAP tax dollars if they fail to follow the new regs and find some kind of work, even part time. I think most americans agree that it is not outrageous or even a negative to ask our neighbors to look for work, even part time, in return for assistance. I wish Krugman would stick to facts and stop trying to scare people with hyperbole and selective facts
9
It is really quite simple. The GOP believes the poor must depend on charity and not the government. Since charity is largely under their control - either from their personal philanthropy or through religious organizations they influence - they can dictate who gets taken care of.
lff
10
If, as you say, the vast majority are working or disabled, etc., then it seems like it wouldn’t apply. And if the savings are so small, then the proposed cuts must be minor. So I’m not sure how this equates to a massive, evil conspiracy against the poor.
9
It is a prejudice against the poor, the notion that they are all lazy and would have great jobs if they just wanted to. And that notion keeps people in need of help from getting any.
11
The essential argument against the "carried interest" is that it allows service providers -- a manager of a private investment fund, for example -- to receive the same favorable tax treatment on long-term capital gains as the investors who invest capital in that fund.
That's unfair if the comparison is between such a manager and his equivalent wage-earner who manages a fund for a large organization (since the latter probably won't be compensated with a "carried interest" in the fund).
But if the comparisons is instead between a fund manager, who provides services to the fund, and a fund investor, who provides investment capital to the fund, it's not at all clear that the service-provider should get worse tax treatment. Looked at in that way, the "carried interest" advantage to fund managers doesn't look unfair.
I think it would be very easy to formulate a conspiracy theory about the true intention of the Republicans. Here's it is: the Republicans want to ensure that only the rich survive. By denying basic living benefits such as SNAP, healthcare, welfare, social security, and by denying voting rights to certain people, the poor and the non-wealthy will eventually whither and die. The rich will survive. How many Americans will be in this group? It won't only be Democrats or blacks or hispanics or chinapeople, either. They may not have this as a real goal, but if you see and understand their intentions, it is a plausible theory.
8
It seems the main gripe Republicans, both politicians and voters, have with food stamps, Medicaid, and other benefits for low- and no-income citizens is the perception or reality in a few cases that they don't work and could work, therefore they don't deserve working people's tax dollars. OK. Let's bring back the workhouses, hopefully a better, more humane version. Get rid of all the anti-poverty programs. Let every county and city set up self-contained work "campuses" with housing where any citizen who can't find or keep work that pays enough for rent, utilities, childcare, transportation, housing, and medical care can voluntarily move to and work for their board and keep. It rural areas, it could be government-operated organic farms and other agriculture. In urban areas, it could be factories and computer-based services. Of course, private businesses would complain about the "unfair competition," but tough. If private business in our capitalist system cannot provide enough jobs that pay a living wage and benefits, capitalism has failed. If it's work Republicans want from the poor, there it is.
6
These SNAP program is a giant subsidy to business. They get away with paying less than a living wage, because their workers manage to get by with gov't help.
10
While I agree that companies can absolve themselves of guilt somewhat because SNAP is available, I don't see how even totally eliminating the program would give them a reason to boost wages. (Apart from human decency, that is, but then, if decency were involved, SNAP's availability wouldn't have had any effect on wage practices in the first place.) Employees at that level generally don't have a lot of options for just going to work somewhere else for significantly higher pay.
2
I manage a small convenience store in our community of seniors who are mostly HUD recipients. Many Russian tenants receive SNAP benefits. Others who have lived and worked in the U.S. their entire lives resent these Russian tenants while the "natives" make due on limited savings and social security benefits. That is a discussion I am not comfortable debating, but there appears to be an inequity here. They have not paid taxes but receive financial assistance as those who paid in through their entire lifetimes. I started working at age 14 delivering newpapers. I owned a retail business in Manhattan for 30 years and still work managing our store at age 82. Feelings of resentment are not comfortable for me yet I resent the Ayn Rand philosophy of Paul Ryan as he applies it to the "hammock" mentality of those who are able to work. In this case, many Russian tenants are not physically or mentally able to be self-sustaining. As an humanistic society, many are queuing up at food banks even in relatively affluent Newton and surrounding areas for basic sustenance. There will be inequities but attention must be paid as Willie Loman said.
12
Trump doesn't like losers. A losers is anybody who isn't trump.
6
Both 45 and the Republicans share the same world view, that anyone that isn't a wealthy white man is to be looked down on and hurt as much as possible, in every way possible. That's the bottom line with them.
9
If you'd like to know how the Right justifies this nonsense, look no further than the guy claiming that Maine dropped its "welfare recipients," from 16, 000 to 1500 by instituting a work requirement, and then yelling the typical yell about them libruls.
https://www.truthorfiction.com/maine-welfare-reforms-have-led-to-big-wel...
What happened was that BEFORE LePage took office, a work requirement for the single, childless and able-bodied was instituted. Fair enough.
But they constitute a very small fraction of SNAP; Maine still has one of the worst poverty rates. Nor is SNAP the only "welfare," program.
I'm working on a new board game for Trumpists: it's called, "Lying, Blind, or Stupid?"
7
Like the board game, but you're going to need to add "All The Above."
2
Yes, and these same people have spent years undermining much of the values of this country. No child born in the U. S. should go hungry. I don't care what his/her parents do or don't do. Basic human values are the issue. Except for a very few, Republicans seem to have no values.
I agree with the comment below; this country's people are greedy, amazingly stupid, and far less than human.
10
when someone approaches you on the street and asks you not for money but for some food or something to eat right then your heart breaks so that you realize how very wrong we have made this world. I know we could fix this by having those we elect make laws and programs that work and yet they refuse to while spending millions on frivolous hearings and attacks on whoever can be bullied today. Billions to those with billions already. I will give you ever cent I make for as long as I live to make this stubborn ignorance and greed go away.
6
It's all rather simple. Rural whites, in general feel that they've earned food stamps and other benefits. This is especially true in areas where factories closed and other associated jobs were lost. There's also an inherited entitlement as to the longevity of familial roots attached to the "land."
While members of the same racial ancestry are more forgiving and sympathetic towards unfortunate happenstance, the same cannot be shared with the "others" amongst us. 'Those people' only have themselves to blame. Therefore animus is easily exploited to the divide and conquer political and wealth classes. It's the latter group that drives the former to enact laws that promote favoritism. Reagan's 'welfare queens' driving brand new Cadillacs are a billion miles away from rural America. It just doesn't matter if all the exact same circumstances apply equally.
The majority groups will almost always feel that they deserve whatever the society believes is fair compensation for disaster relief, at any level. It's almost always the opposite emotional reaction to the different groups.Take the political reaction to the "Hecka of job Brownie" with the corresponding untimely slow moving government response than say the tornados in the Midwest.
There are numerous differences, which combined with the stinginess to pay out large sums of money to any disaster by mostly always white conservative politicians and the disconnect is complete.
9
I live in a mostly Republican area and a mostly Republican family. I have been told multiple times that government programs are wasteful and churches and not-for-profits would do a better job managing help for those who need it. I know first hand they don't, but can't seem to convince those who believe that private help is better than public. I work for a church, we have policies set by member committees for who we help and how we are allowed to help them. It leaves me telling most people I can't help them. I always take the time to give out phone numbers for other community resources and this is also usually not productive for them. Many times, they've already exhausted all the resources by the time they walk through the church's door. Or their need is so immediate or so complicated that "$30 for electric bills -- only given in-person on the 2nd Tues. of the month at 2 p.m." doesn't meet their need. The Food Bank that hands out food on Mondays from 1-3 doesn't help when the person needs to take off work to utilize it. Or the homeless shelter for women and children isn't in their school district and is too far away to commute to and from work, because they are on a 2-year wait for a housing voucher. It's truly heartbreaking. This is the truth, a little from everyone is infinitely better than more (or even gross generosity) from very few.
22
One of the other problems with private charities has been and is guaranteed to continue is the corruption that accompanies any major fund raising from the general public. Most are honest, particularly at the start, but a few $million down the road and more and more hands take in raher than give out. Always check out the charitable foundation and church of the whosy's and what before parting with a dime.
3
The only hammock that lulls able-bodied people into complacency is an economy that disproportionately rewards capital over labor. When stock market gains outpace wage growth decade after decade, one can rest assured that the hammock is holding up well.
12
Great observation. It's tiring to listen to the privileged (those who have inherited great wealth or spend their time moving money around) lecture the rest of us on "the dignity of work."
16
I agree with the article's recommendation for sure, but I disagree with the final conclusion on motivation. Conservatives really do believe giving someone assistance demotivates them, the "hammock" mentioned by Paul Ryan quoted in the article. It is not that they are just "mean". If you demonize the other side, it makes any compromise very difficult, and Krugman can barely contain his hostility towards these conservative ideas. Better to focus on the facts (studies showing that these are largely working people, for example) vs. attacking the motives of the other opinion as mean-spirited.
1
Krugman's 'hostility towards these conservative ideas' is well-founded in the facts adduced in his article. We all know that 'Conservatives really do believe giving someone assistance demotivates them' but the facts repeatedly prove that this is an unfair characterization of the majority of welfare recipients. Read 'Nickeled and Dimed' or any number of similar books.
7
IF ONLY the GOP believed in Compromise...
2
Trump was raised a white supremacist - you only have to look at his father and grandfather's beliefs from Germany. And then Donald's barely disguised attempts to block black people from the housing blocks his father and he built with government money.
He is also a selfish narcissist and paranoid - fear of germs - ooh !
Fear of 'the other' - flying Air Force One back to sleep in his familiar surroundings each night ?
I read recently Trump supporters voted for him not so much because they liked him - but because he spoke simple, easy to understand messages they wanted to hear - 'Build a Great Big Lovely Wall and make Mexico pay for it !'
With racist undertones of 'I may be poor white trash - but at least I'm not black'
And echoes of the Civil War from the Southerners - whatever those yankees say, 'I dunno, but I'm agin 'em !' - https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/358b2d2d-5249-49b4-b819-0e420366ac31
13
It's about Calvinism. It has infected the mind of even the conspicuously Catholic Paul Ryan.
8
His mind is infected also with parts of Objectivism from Ayn Rand, but like many religious folks, he picks and chooses what he likes. Adults should reject Objectivism as what it is really is pure selfishness. Oh, maybe Ryan has accepted All of Objectivism and calls himself a Catholic.
So vile. I remember one of the trump sons expressing contempt for people who don't want to work hard. As if he understands working hard despite being sick and not able to afford medical care. Working hard and still not making enough for a basic living. Working hard and in terror of being fired if your childcare or transportation falls through.
Seriously, these people were born not on 3rd base but on home plate with Champagne being poured on their head, and express contempt for everyone who was not.
22
We all know the food stamp program needs an overhaul- Able bodied people should be required to work to receive food stamps -finally someone doing something! And it’s not all about the “money “ What I’ve learned is that when you work for something you appreciate it more ..
1
Only 18% of SNAP recipients are unemployed. The rest are working but even so are not able to afford basic food needs.
10
So then the new work requirements shouldn't be a problem for the employed.
Even I agree partially. However, the GOP appears to think that if you are unable to work you should be unable to eat.
2
To ascribe any policy analysis to Trump's opposition to SNAP is a bridge too far. He is opposed to any form of welfare because his vocal opposition generates huge applause and cheers from his base. The applause stokes his narcissistic personality. Anything for applause.
10
So true! Whatever pours gasoline on the fires of hatred. The GOP will do anything for votes and to "win." No wonder trump is their poster boy.
1
Amen, Paul Krugman
7
All life is precious to these people.That is until they pass through the birth canal then they are expected to get a job. No lolly gagging at your mother's breast for you, you lazy bums.By the way, did Mr. Ryan give back his survivors benefits from Social Security he received through college?
18
We live in an age of radical disinformation, bigotry, self centered, self serving manipulation absent concern and compassion for the vulnerable including our children led by a man elected in part because he is a thug. Attacking Obama for not really being an American set the stage for the rise of ignorance and racism as the foundation for a new regime that builds alliances with Evangelicals willing to compromise their allegiance to the Christ to advance the cause of subordinating women to the rule men who dictate choice. The comity and subtlety and compassion and concern pf Obama has been stomped on as though garbage while the new norm is grab what you want..."How fragile we are, how fragile we are..."
8
The publicans, all of whom claim to be good christians, should read Matthew 25 31-48.
10
This is pathetic, but to be honest with you, I don't give a flying you know what about these people. I cannot believe that I feel that way and then write it, but I don't. Plain and simple. I don't care what happens to these people and they can wallow in their unemployment, cheap beer and opioid addicted, cigarette smoking lives.
1
The majority of food stamp recipients are the working poor, living in a system of abysmal education and wages too low to support a single person decently, let alone a family. I have dealt with SNAP recipients, married couples with children, who between them work five low- paying jobs at big-box stores and gas stations. You may not care about “these people” (there’s a clue) but I doubt that you’ll forgo your Social Security benefits, Medicare, perhaps Medicaid, military pension and anything else going for you.
You need to understand that we are all, in our personal lives, two inches and a minute away from disaster. Try to imagine living, alone, on a net $280 a forty-two hour week
and think about the millions of Americans who actually do that. Average SNAP is worth $124 a month - it’s not much, and nobody is wallowing in anything.
10
"Then let them die," said Scrooge, "and decrease the surplus population."
8
So these folks at least are getting a cushion from the outreach workers. Because compassion cannot discriminate based on politics, these Trump-loving folks are somewhat protected from the consequences of their choice. But what about other rural white folks for whom the shredded safety net won't be enough? When these cuts really take hold, when if at all will they realize that the bulleye is on them, not just the browns and blacks? How far will that self-delusion take them? And what about non-poor Trump supporters - the smug, comfortable ones sneering at the Dems for throwing a tantrum - after all, Americans are quite happy - what happens when their programs that they take for granted are cut, including Medicare and Social Security? Will the rightwing somehow convince them that this is the fault of Democrats, given their endless ability to paint black as white? In short, when if at all will these folks face the consequences of embracing of the right wing? If the right-wing has its way in cutting everything, will this smugness and loyalty continue?
8
These are the people who have been running America (right into the ground) for a half century; which has seen US go from most respected to least respected among developed Nations.
the republican mindset seems to be as soon as they wake up in the morning they think about whose lives they can make worse.
When, or if, we recover from this disaster/nightmare we need to require civics tests before people can vote.
One of the questions should be: Did you vote for t rump?
If answered yes they should never be allowed to vote again.
And maybe we should take away their food stamps.
5
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.” - Hélder Câmara
6
its just a continuation of the Neo-Liberal framework built right into the Constitution . That according to James Madison : the super rich business owners, landowners and investors should govern the country , because they are "the more able bodied set of men" and this ensures Adam Smith's vile maxim : "all for us and nothing for them" , and the Reagan administration's refusal to enforce the 1936 Wagner Act which enabled historical levels of illegal firings of black males, especially, and setting up Fortune 500 corporate globalism and "capital flight" ,which came full circle with Bush 1's signing of GATT. So we are all way back to the government by mafia principle of "what we say goes" and it's "tough love " for you blacks and poor people once again.
All this does is perpetuate the erroneous belief among Trump's base that the source of their problems are foreigners and blacks and people who are poor just like them, that are increasing their taxes and taking their jobs away by scamming the welfare system, anything but the real source of their problems, which is : the corporate stranglehold on resources and state capital flow.
5
This is yet another blow to the humanity of America. It’s too bad these people aren’t close to any restaurants owned by President Trump. If they were they could use his own tactics and order a one hundred dollar meal and when the check was presented give them $10.00 and claim the food was sub par.
10
Umm, the racism has receded? Hate crimes are up, white supremacists openly get approving remarks from the President and his supporters love him for it, and denigration of people of color has gone through the roof. I’m not sure how you missed that
And the pettiness in politics is hand in hand with the Christian Right. Any remaining illusion that this demographic has any tenuous link to morality was finally and comprehensively burned away when they cozied up to child molesters in Alabama, embraced white supremacists, see above, and declared a serial philanderer and liar “embodies their values.” I take them at their word and the callousness and cruelty displayed toward the poor and powerless has at last been revealed to be a core value of conservative Christianity. As one saying goes, “don’t tell me what you beleive. Show me what you do and I’ll tell you what you beleive” or another: “when people show you who they are, believe them” or another “beware false prophets... by their fruits you shall know them.”
5
"They don’t want to help the less fortunate; in fact, they get angry at the very idea of public aid that makes those losers a bit less miserable.
And these are the people now running America."
And they have the nerve to call themselves Christians with a capital C.
They should call themselves Criminals with a capital C. The republican congress members use unctuous religious hypocrisy to cover their theft of the country's wealth.
6
First of all they shouldn't acronym it SNAP as in snap your fingers you'll get it. CRUEL-Conservatives Ravaging Ubiquitously Every Life of the poor more accurate. People hate the Poor because they are afraid someday that will be them. Trump's an Idiot and George Will right on- "Trump is what he is, a floundering, inarticulate jumble of gnawing insecurities and not-at-all compensating vanities, which is pathetic."
5
Cuts to SNAP also depress demand for products of the mid-west farmers who voted for Trump, who are already in crisis due to low commodity prices. http://www.feedstuffs.com/commentary/few-minutes-rosmann-commodity-price...
Top that off with the loss, at least for now, of China's critical market for U.S. soy beans, and trouble is ahead. https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-tensions-chill-u-s-soybean-pork-trade...
The magic of Trump's reverse Midas effect.
6
It seems as though anything decent and honorable is seen by Trump as an insult to him and those who associate with him. But didn't we know all this before the election? Did it matter?
A nation gets the government it deserves and the United States we knew is gone.
10
While Mr. Krugman is right to point out the petty and mean nature of the GOP, we should also remember the daily plight of those who have to live on SNAP funds.
Remember the food stamp challenge a few years back? Celebrities from Corey Booker to Gwyneth Paltrow spent a month living at the food stamp level. It highlighted the derisory level of assistance the poor contend with every day in the richest nation in history.
But wait, there’s more. Those experiences substantiated, again, the fact that the poor pay more for the same goods and services—including food—that wealthier families pay. Put “poor pay more” into your favorite search engine and you will find out how long we have known this fact. Chances are it’s: 1) most of your life, 2) all of it, or 3) longer than you’ve been alive. Choose one.
But wait, there’s still more. The poor also live in food deserts where a green, leafy vegetable is a rare sight. Tulane University describes the situation in a brilliant infographic (https://socialwork.tulane.edu/blog/food-deserts-in-america). Poor nutrition hampers more than health, it stunts childhood cognitive development. Add in shabby schools, unsafe streets, regressive taxes, and coercive police power and the cycle of poverty perpetuates itself.
Yes, we are collectively mean to the poor, but in so many other ways than just the miserly SNAP program. It’s hard to hear the evidence when you wear ear plugs made of spite.
12
• Did they know what they were voting for?
Those who did, DIDN'T.
2
I think those who voted for Trump certainly knew who they were voting for. Someone who made them feel better about themselves by putting “others” down. I refuse to treat/think about adult voters as children.
1
Let's not forget that neither party shows much concern for the poor. Obama signed legislation that cut food stamp funding.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obama-signs-food-stamp-cut
We desperately need a third party.
1
"When House Republicans originally argued for a food stamp cut of between $20.5 billion and $39 billion, the White House threatened to veto both of those proposals. During his Friday speech, the president did not say whether he was satisfied with the final $8.7 billion figure, or even mention the cuts at all. Instead, he praised the food stamp program and said that the final Farm Bill preserved much-needed benefits."
The Congress was in Republican hands when this was signed, which means that this is the best Obama was able to get.
But thanks for doing the GOP's and Putin's jobs for them.
8
I see that the excuses centrist Dems are offering for Obama aren't getting much better. Obama signed off on the food stamp cuts during the worst of the great recession, but elite, liberal NYers weren't feeling any pain so who cares, right?
And let's also not forget that those with a dream for a third party, also played a big role in helping to elect the person sitting in the White House right now...Thanks for NOTHING!
1
Christians, God bless ‘em, love this President. Wonder which Bible they have been reading.
5
Conventional analysis of the impact of tax legislation on inequality makes a profound error. Many use the terms pretax inequality and after-tax inequality. This terminology misses the causal relationship. A hundred years ago, looking at pretax inequality and then estimating how much the tax code impacts inequality might have been logical. That assumes there are some significant nontax factors that are causing inequality, and tax law can then increase or decrease the degree of inequality. There is, at any given point in time, a degree of pretax inequality. However, almost all of the variability of pretax inequality since at least World War I has been a function of the cumulative effect of tax and other legislation. Thus, tax policy is the only significant cause for changes in the levels of inequality today.
One does not have to be a Keynesian to see that shifts in income to those with a lower marginal propensity to consume will cause an increase in savings and a relative decline in consumer spending. The wealthy clearly have a lower marginal propensity to consume.
Warren Buffett said, "Through the tax code, there has been class warfare waged, and my class has won,It's been a rout."
It is the compounding effect of shift away from taxes on capital income such as dividends, capital gains and inheritances each year as the rich get proverbially richer which is the prime generator of inequality..."
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4164735
4
I'm just speechless: He attacks his totally unqualified Homeland security head for not ripping apart enough babies from their mothers arms at our southern borders, to demanding a cut to the food that feed our own countries hungry , poor kids and to his own "base"at that .To then throwing out the Iran deal and putting the world on the brink of yet another nuclear showdown with an erratic country and leader , whilst using the negotiation with another despot as part of his disgusting political grandstanding ,to his then spewing even more vitriol against our brave men and women in FBI or CIA or NSA on Twitter, then rounding up his week: by grifting our tax money to fly his huge deriere to yet another right wing SS rally tonight.
It has come to me that :
It really is up to the women and of this country and those that support them, to win these midterm elections for the right and moral party of the Democrats to take back the only power we have to fight him untill 2020.
Everyone of us can do something to help , by registering a young person,campaigning , and making sure you can say to your grandkids I did all I could to stop our countries demise at the hand of this crooked regime.
7
'Trump steaks' - you mean bacon?
1
“More? You want more?!!!!”
Mr. Bumble is the role model for the whole Republican party.
1
Maybe in the end this will be a good thing. Until the idiots that voted for Trump actually feel the pain of the wood that he’s putting to them will they even remotely be able to ponder making a different choice at the polls.
They say you can’t fix stupid, but maybe you can a little bit if you use a big enough stick.
4
The image of the "welfare queen" (usually portrayed as black) has been a popular one on the right. It is another grievance narrative: that somebody too lazy to work is living better than you on your tax dollars. It's consistent with many of the grievance narratives popular on the right: "illegals" stealing jobs, "china persons" stealing your kid's spot in college, transpeople stealing your tax money to pay for their surgeries. So on and so forth.
It's fiction, and I think on some level most people know it's fiction. I often suggest to people who complain about welfare queens to quit their job and get on this luxurious gravy train themselves. After all, by their own account, they should be living better with everything from ObamaPhones to free plastic surgery. They have declined every time, usually claiming they are too honorable to do it. Too honorable, indeed.
4
Some men get off on strangulating women, they're called sick. Others get off terrorizing the poor, they're called Republicans. It really IS that simple.
5
No, PK, Trump is a racist.
4
Noam Chomsky calls the Republican Party the most dangerous organization in the world.
Mr Krugman is obviously right. But he's making good-faith arguments to an organization like the Republican Party that is fundamentally dishonest.
This is like trying to reason with a teenager. And I wonder if it's the right political strategy to be reasonable and decent. Maybe some of you parents out there have some other strategies? How do you teach your teenage boys not to act like idiots?
2
One dynamic that seems to be driving this is that rural whites seem to know in the back of their head that they can vote for retrograde, racially antagonistic policies that hurt the hated "other", but that Democrats will blunt the boomerang effect of the cuts they want for others really coming around and hitting them.
Maybe it's time for the Democrats to say "Ok, West Virginia and Oklahoma, we hear you loud and clear that you do not want these services. It's time for your communities to deal with the consequences of your choices."
Maybe that is what they need to abandon Trumpism.
6
I'd have to agree that anyone who thinks it's a good idea to take food out of the mouths of the poor is correctly characterized as a loser.
4
I have a “modest proposal” to offer Donald Trump. How about using the monetary offerings that Michael Cohen received for the benefit of your stable genius from Russian oligarchs, AT&T and Korean airlines to feed the poor? Better yet, let’s have all your appointees to government offices and your cabinet members return the first class tickets, free trips, overpriced phone booths and furniture to pay for SNAPS
It doesn’t take a stable genius to see that moneys gotten by I’ll means can be returned to the general coffers for the general good.
That still won’t absolve you, Donald J. trump of your sins of treason against the USA, but I’ll leave that solution in Mr. Mueller ‘s apt hands.
2
Let's not forget where most of that SNAP money goes, into the pockets of Walmart, Amazon and other companies that pay their employees a pittance and they have to rely on food stamps.
3
Trump spells the decline of white Anglo Saxon Protestantism. Grand papa Trump came from Germany and ran houses of ill repute in the Wild West . Papa Trump, claiming he was a Swede , marched in Nazi parades in Yorkville and launched his housing business . From these WASP roots comes the Donald. We can see that the genetic strain becomes debased
with each generation. And they create rivals : down and out dirt farmers and believers in shaking , unemployed opioid druggies , Yuppies , oligarchs , populists , me too’ers . And these rivals will tear at each other . Who wins is not clear but the rule of the WASP is over and the ship of state heads for new pastures and fields of green.
3
Hmmmmm....what would Jesus have to say? Just asking
3
And Jesus wept.
4
Blunt truth: For the right wing, conservative, Republican or whatever you call this way of thinking, the poor and the elderly can't die off fast enough.
4
Robert F. Kennedy is so dead it hurts.
1
Owsley County? Alf Landon got 83% of the vote! Hillary did better than Jack Kennedy.
1
Sock it to 'em Kruggers!
1
As TRump's already-ample girth swells on his large meals paid for on the public dime, and he travels every weekend with government employees at public expense to advertise his various resorts, it's touching to see how his thoughts turn to small children having trouble finishing their homework and crying themselves to sleep due to hunger. As he bloats up on two scoops of ice cream while his guests are only served one, he makes a perfect portrait of the Ugly American.
4
"Let them eat cake."
1
I am glad I do not have to be as mean as a Republican.
3
Let them eat Coal. Right, GOP ???
4
Can't wait for Paul Ryan to drop from his "hammock" of government employment.
3
If you ask what sense does it make for the President to inflict his own base, here is Timothy Snyder on sadopopulism: https://youtu.be/oOjJtEkKMX4
1
Housing? Health care? Education? Why not food too? Take these away! Make America ..... unhoused, unhealthy, uneducated and now unfed. And unwelcome and unwanted as well to the immigrants who made this a (formerly) great country.
1
A man who can, as policy, separate children from their parents as they ask for asylum (they are NOT entering the country 'illegally'), even very young children, can do anything. And a Congress and a People who would allow him to do that, to cheer him on, to call him Dear Leader, Jr., are capable of anything.
Anything.
Where are we headed, America?
4
Republicans enjoy hurting people, and they have to hurt people who have no power, otherwise their victims will hurt them back.
Mr. Krugman... I follow your columns every week and you are on target... so painfully on target
Why Trump happened?... why the Republicans are so mean?
3
Just another look into the black holes that are the hearts and souls of those champions of family values.
Apparently the social safety net that saved young Paul Ryan from destitution morphed from a hand-up for him into a hammock -- but only for others.
Oh, and on the Southern boarder, "Hey, you kids, get offa my lawn!"
1
Trump's evangelical base: Making Jesus proud every day.
3
Short sighted article. Disagree with the principles set forth. Two thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, including the people in the story picture. Concentrated calories are everywhere. Giving anyone money for nothing makes them angry, more dependent, less happy and in a position of wanting more. They become lazy, yes lazy. It is not in their interest or society's interest to keep doing this. It appears that the dems do it solely to get votes. Yes pay people and bribe them with freebees to get votes. The same reason they won't close the borders, to get votes. The dems are selfish, destructive, self serving, unpatriotic and short sighted. This opinion supports the bad behavior.
2
selfish for trying to help others, simply the most Christ-like undertaking any true Christian is obliged to do and should wish to do. Huh. You a good Christian on the right?
1
Have you ever met anyone on food stamps? Many recipients of SNAP are unable to “work” because they are responsible for caring for sick relatives. Some are working minimum wage jobs. According to your calculations, they should starve. You have bought the myth of the welfare queen.
Good column.
Onward Christian Soldiers !
As a friend of mine wrote recently about this column, there is a hidden lesson in this piece: it speaks to the incompetence of the Democratic Party as well as the self righteous moralism and venality of the Republican position on the food stamp program. Too bad too that Mr. Krugman's economic data points are lost on the Republican side and seen only as part of a fake news scam coming from the left.
Dr. Krugman, I mostly agree with you but not here. The good folks of Owsley County knew precisely who they were voting for. And why.
Donald Trump, on the campaign trail in 2015-16, went after Mexicans, Muslims, immigrants and, of course, “strapping young bucks” and “welfare queens.” Owsley County, like much of Trump Nation, voted for the hate. One can almost hear them in their beer halls and whist parties snickering, “he hates ‘em, too.” Making America White Again.
Now that they see that there’s not enough compassion in his tiny, puny heart for them, they may begin to wonder just who’s “draining that swamp.” They listened, for generations, to the right-wing summons to tribe from GOP presidents from Nixon through to Trump. They all, substituting words, delivered the same damning message: “watch out! They’re coming for yours.” Scary stuff.
Many Americans place a stigma on SNAP recipients. I have a masters degree and we ate off food stamps for almost a year until I found a full-time job. It’s scary knowing that sometimes government is the last thing between starving and eating. And we never ate T-bone steaks—they cost more than the modest allotment we were given.
Whites along the Appalachian spine may discover that hunger is no respector of race. Will their savior dip into his vast reserves to, like Jesus, feed the multitudes?
I hope they don’t hold their breath. Oh; and are Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell getting ready tag days for those who put them in office?
Hmmmm?
2
There is something fundamentally obscene about mr. Trump.
1
What can we expect of a low life like Trump?
1
"Oh, and there’s strong evidence that children in low-income families that receive food stamps become more productive and healthier adults, which means that the program is actually good for long-run economic growth."
Evidence and fact based objective analysis is long gone now from a GOP drowned in the polluted flow of propaganda from the trump grifters.
The red state deplorables and racist white trash and the money first coaltion that he has forged into a solid block of regression -enflamed by populist demagoguery with fox News is now entrenched in our political sysytem.
Build those blue walls higher and let them rot into irrelevence as the educated progressives move on with the rewarding and highly remunerative byproducts of education and progressive behavior.
AND the greedy rich as always will of course prosper!
1
i believe mitt romney was caught with his pants down voicing his opinion about the 47%.....during his second attempt to win the presidency.
it's a long dishonourable history for the alleged party of Lincoln.
2
It wasn’t enough for those faithful “Christians” to take away the health care of the poor, the GOParty of Satan wants to take away their food as well.
Seems more like social Darwinism (if they believed in science) than Christianity.
Can a GOPer please quote me the Bible verse about Jesus saying to deny the poor food and health care?
2
Good. Opprotunity for Clinton foundation to start spending money to feed the poor as opposed to throwing out those lavish parties.
1
In Michigan, Vox reports, Republican plans are afoot to exempt rural white welfare recipients from Medicaid workfare rules, while ensuring that urban black welfare recipients are punished by them. See: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/3/17315382/medicaid-work-....
If your view of the world is filtered through Fox News, you obviously believe that SNAP, or food stamps, are just for poor blacks and hispanics-the "others". This belief falls in line with the analysis that indicates whites with limited education voted for Trump because they fear that the "others" are getting the better of them, and Trump will put a stop to it. Perhaps when his fans begin to lose their benefits and have to go hungry, their love for Dear Leader will dissipate.
1
You have failed to account for the ability of the scoundrels in state government to find a way to protect their rural, white Republican base. Check out Michigan, for example:
https://www.bridgemi.com/public-sector/racial-accusations-embroil-michig...
1
Pure evil cloaked in so-called "Evangelical Christianity."
1
And yet the people of Owsley County would re-elect Trump in a nanosecond. That's how nuts things have become.
1
I thought the search for Reagan's Welfare Queens was over now that Sean Hannity has been uncovered
2
It is not right for a Christian to thwart God's Will. He meant for people in need to be poor and hungry. It would be a sin to feed them. The Beatitudes and the other fake teachings of a fake Jesus are some sort of forgery inserted into the real (old testament) Bible by liberals.
Certainly race plays a large role, but this is class war as well, with religion getting the assist for the big score against the poor.
1
It has been documented that employers who do not want to raise wages assume that their employees can get food stamps. So it is the employer, not the employee, who is taking advantage of the government. (Many of us also know about "corporate welfare", which means that many rich people do not pay their share of taxes.) Many of our policies also create the problems we complain about...the orphans we create by separating families, the factors we are ignorant about in other countries that encourage requests for asylum, etc. Just because the people running the current administration are ignorant, does not mean that the rest of us have to be.
Maybe employers should be taxed to offset the costs of their employees that receive social assistance.
Why are my tax dollars going to trump supporters? It is high time they took care of themselves.
#calexit
1
It seems to me to come down to biases. Rich people are "good," and you can tell they're good because they're rich. Poor people are poor BECAUSE they are "bad."
Rich kids should inherit their parents' riches and be able to use the proceeds as they see fit. No lulling into hammocks for them. Even if they engage in reprehensible behavior, they are still seen as "good" as long as they dress nicely, drive new cars and live in expensive houses. If they happen to be people of color, they probably don't deserve what they own and have simply taken advantage of affirmative action.
Poor people cannot be trusted with anything because they will automatically waste or misuse it.
A worthwhile look into the soul of the GOP principles.
No Christian values here.
How could they not have known what they were voting for? They voted their inner bullies. They just didn't think the big bullies they aligned themselves with would turn on them personally, because they were white.
2
They thought the people down the road were the lazy scammers abusing the system. And of course the people down the road saw the people up the road as the lazy scammers abusing the system.
1
Funny, isn't it? To motivate rich people, you have to provide them with benefits, while to motivate poor people, you have to do the opposite and deprive them of benefits.
2
just pass a law to rename them “food vouchers”
1
Sparing you all the easily recalled examples, the Republicans are factually a party of death.
1
Of course it seems like these people are voting to cut themselves out of food stamps, health care and other government assistance. But perhaps they understand that the chances of their vote actually deciding an election outcome is exactly nil. So they think, why not just go ahead and vote my dark little racist heart.
They voted for him, they knew what he represented. You can't help people who don't want to be helped. If the poor white folk keep voting Republican, they get the government they deserve.
I wonder if Dr. Krugman has ever tried to survive on Food Stamps or an EBT card or a SNAP program.
This article takes a self-righteous, indignant tone defending a miasmal swamp of Federal Programs that are riddled with corruption and abuse......simply because they have been institutionalized by New Deal America for over 80 years. DONT CHANGE! seems to be the desparate plea from Dr. Krugman. No Rain! No Rain! No Rain! came the chant from the crowd at Woodstock(fifty years ago).
2
Gee, what are Roseann and Dan going to do now?
1
"...Food Stamps or an EBT card or a SNAP program."
Umm, those are three names for the same program, but thanks for playing.
(cue the Price is Right loser horn audio)
1
Behold our descent into madness.
Putin is lifting a glass three times a day in glee.
1
Trump and his party are a mafia mob. Their tax bill was passed under pressure from their criminal donors who are looting many billions from the US treasury. Taxes for many have gone up because the bill limited the state, local and property tax deduction to 10,000. A few in the middle class will get crumbs, which have already been eaten away by 3 percent inflation and higher gas prices. Karl icahn, s corporate shark and trump supporter worth 21 billion, got a ‘financial hardship’ waiver from scott pruitt, another thug to bypass epa rules. Flint’s water is still poison, almost two years after michigan went to trump. Trump is taking away the milk bottle and health care from kids. When will the poor and middle class vote against trump’s party of thugs and con men to save themselves ? Or has america become a country of mostly rich and selfish people who dont care about the less fortunate in the world , like trump and his party ?
Don the con; Don the huckster, Don preying on the weak and ignorant -- there you have the "president." And this person is supported by those he will hurt without thinking twice.
The sad part is, he can keep making fake promises, keep lying, keep attacking those who disagree or try to offer an alternative, and the people who voted for him will just continue to be fooled.
It's disgusting, as is this "man" child.
1
One of my friends lost his professional job during the Great Recession and it took him over a year to find another one. he had always worked, paid his taxes, etc. After a number of months of being jobless, he applied for food stamps to help feed his family of four. Fortunately he found a position eventually, but he was very grateful for the program that helped him, his wife and children.
Several times he has shut people down for repeating the cruel Republican line that somehow food stamp recipients are "lazy" or "unmotivated" to find work.
I was proud of him for looking out for his family.
I have a friend who voted for Trump. He has spent a lot of time in the last few years receiving unemployment compensation. I asked him why he would vote for a political party that would cut off his unemployment checks. He replied, “if Republicans are elected, I will have a job.” Trump promised to create jobs. Hillary ran on a platform of breaking the glass ceiling and making history by electing the first woman president. Trump’s policies won’t create jobs, but desperate, uneducated people believed him. Why vote for Clinton? Unemployed people could care less if the president is a woman.
1
Ah yes, the old twin pillars of the GOP electoral strategy:
Traditional values, a.k.a. 'Straight whites males are the only people who built this country, and are inherently superior to everyone else.'
And
Government doesn't solves problems, government IS the problem, a.k.a. 'I've got mine, so everyone else can go to hell.'
1
It really is sad that the current GOP lives by the ideology of "it's their own damn fault" as well as the Paul Ryan / Ayn Rand philosophy.
What I think is so hypocritical is that as "representatives" for their constituents, they do absolutely nothing to help those in the most dire need. They believe that the government needs to stop helping them, but cannot offer any viable alternatives that will help them live a decent life. I know not all GOP are this way, but it sure seems like they are spreading like a virus reaching epidemic proportions.
1
This column is so fraught with exaggeration, hysteria, deception, and so infused with hatred...it sucks the air completely out of the room. There's just not an ounce of credibility in it.
My intention was to write a rebuttal to all of Krugman's prevarications and misstatements...but it's just not worth the effort. And besides, the readers who come here to slavishly lap up his pablum, wouldn't know the difference anyway.
But just one point: the State of Maine instituted a work requirement for all able-bodied welfare recipients. It was not onerous--but required a small bit of work from recipients in order to continue receiving benefits Within the span of 2 years, 16,000 recipients dwindled to under 1,500--which for those of you who like math, is over a 90% reduction. So...all those desperate souls Krugman wants to conjure up...suddenly weren't so needy and desperate--once they were required to get up off the couch.
And therein lies the difference between Liberals and Conservatives. Both want to help the needy--it's jut that the definitions vary wildly. Liberals believe the vast majority of people are helpless & destitute---and need some sort of public assistance (food stamps, heating assistance, public housing, etc), and Conservatives peg the number in the low single digits. We find out what the real numbers are...whenever "the poor" are asked to do something for what they receive.
It's the great liberal scam--giving stuff away in order to get votes.
3
Do a little research about your state & you’ll find out that the big reduction in welfare recipients is mostly fiction!
3
Paul Ryan and other “welfare queens” a/k/a long term politicians are shameless as they feed and prosper at the public trough. But Ryan as the full throated embodiment of this politician deserves singular mention. In his adult life, Ryan has never held a job or received a benefit, including an overly generous pension, that wasn’t tax payer funded. Now he will slither off to private life and receive the rewards of his avarice with a multi zero payday funded by the right wing oligarchs for whom he did their bidding. There will be a special place in Hell for Ryan and other cold hearted pols like him.
1
I can only agree. It’s part of the overall destruction derby—international affairs, environmental protection, consumer protection—that Trump and his GOP cronies are wrecking upon not only our country but the world. There will be a huge price to pay. But what the hell, by the time the dust settles on the wreckage of this huge systemic assault, the perpetrators will be long gone.
1
I recommend Betsy B. 's post. I, too, have an experience with a grocery store. My grocery store of choice hires mentally challenged folks as baggers. But, lately I've noticed that they are disappearing. Has the program under which they were hired been discontinued? And, more importantly, what are these former baggers going to do without a job? They are certainly able bodied, so are they going to be denied food stamps? These are questions that should be asked, but are questions that Republicans, undoubtedly, has no interest in asking.
(I'm not being coy in not giving out the name of the grocery store; I simply am not sure of the circumstances. If their jobs were, indeed, eliminated due to efficiency problems - and the mentally challenged employees were slower than the others - it couldn't be too much of a problem because I drive past another store because my store's check-out line is actually faster.)
Mr. Krugman, thank you for this thoughtful essay. I agree with you that this cruel perspective and behavior is somewhat about money, somewhat about stereotype, and is becoming a part of a different kind of government and society. In addition, I believe that with Trump this is about power and control. People who are nutrition challenged, near homelessness, and under-educated are people who can be controlled by authoritarian figures, beaten into a form of submission so that the very strongman who wields this power becomes the strongman who can then maniputate them with promises of a better day. This to me is the most fundamental element of the danger of Trump. It is all about power and control.
2
Our conservatives seem to think that our poor aren't desperate enough, since some industries still must bring in immigrant labor to meet their need for backbreaking, low-wage work. Seems the long game is to end support so our poor can get back to their supposedly rightful place picking lettuce for peanuts, so we won't have to let in any more "others".
1
Thank you Paul for speaking plainly. This is what any Democrat who has any illusions of becoming president needs to take to heart.
Like my maternal grandmother once said, and this should be taken to heart by said candidate:“They do what they know”.
As in, voters only hear what they already understand. Stay simple and positive and maybe we can make this world a better place.
3
The narrative that Mr, Ryan and his ilk embrace is one that discounts the inherent randomness of human existence while elevating the importance of individual choice. More importantly, these spawn of Ayn Rand reject empathy as a transcendant human value. This largely, Republican trope masks the underlying fear and weakness that compels people to view misfortune as inherently self inflicted. Feeling and understanding the suffering of others requires requires strength that few of us can easily embrace. Lets look to the future and make America grateful again.
2
The GOP embodies kiss up/kick down. It informs everything they do -- it's why they pamper the privileged, enrich the rich, and protect the powerful. It's also why they hurt the hurting, hinder the vulnerable, and afflict the poor. And they do all of this while loudly trumpeting their so-called Christian values. Disgraceful.
8
Is it possible that the people who support Trump have the same kind of nativist attitude about people who are not like themselves?
They regard such people as lesser, and regardless of their own plight, they just tune into Trump and go after anyone he taunts.
Their bias and their circumstances override the truth of the matter, in that Trump puts his own supporters in the same group as those he and they want to put down.
1
Owsley County, KY - "Did they know what they were voting for?"
If they really believed any of Trump's promises about jobs or the economy, then they really are gullible small-town rubes, in full stereotype.
But they knew what they were really voting for, and why. They would see immigrants, minorities, and liberals punished out of spite rather than vote to lift themselves out of poverty.
6
Social Darwinism is alive and well -- if you are poor you must be inferior and deserve to be punished for it. The Historian Richard Hofstadter wrote insightfully about it many years ago and it continues in various manifestations . How many people believe there success is primarily based on luck -- few. Most consider themselves extraordinary instead of extraordinarily lucky . No one else is as hard working or as talented or as deserving of the piles of money they have inherited or been paid . So let the little people, or as over heard in an elevator, the "po people", suffer, they are just not as good as us.
2
As I have heard, Paul Ryan's family enjoyed government welfare programs when he was a kid. It offered him a ladder to opportunity, and to his current success. However, he is determined to pull up the ladder behind him. He has committed egregious insult to his proclaimed religion by having the audacity to fire the Catholic House Chaplain for daring to offer prayers in support of the poor. Ryan, and his cohorts are fully corrupted by power. Thankfully, he is stepping aside giving us an opportunity for change. VOTE 2018!
1
And 100% of Trump voters thought he was a successful businessman. The fact that a lying, thieving conman has risen to the top post in the nation only increases his mystique. Conservatives, many Christians among them hold fast to the doctrine that "The Lord helps them who help themselves". That of course can be read two ways; 1) Pull yourself up by your bootstraps or 2) Elbow and trample your competition to get to the trough first. I pretty sure the phrase isn't scripture and seems antithetical to the teachings of Jesus but the so called Prosperity Gospel is very popular nonetheless. Maybe it's just me but the bent of the nation seems to be keep 'em poor, keep 'em hungry, keep 'em fiscally illiterate, siphon money to the top. How Conservatives view that as a recipe for national success is a mystery to me.
1
As long as those people continue to watch fox propaganda and believe the lies of old bone spurs, they will continue to be misinformed and continue to vote for economic policies that hurt them. But they can feel good because they can buy guns, which they'd be able to do anyway, keep other people from getting abortions, listen to the preachers telling them their reward will be in the next life.
As long as they continue to allow themselves to be misinformed, they will wallow in misery.
Jefferson told us that a democracy requires an informed electorate but these people choose not to be informed.
1
I think it’s pure avarice: wealthy conservatives look at programs that help the poor and think “those pennies should be going to me!”
Nope, Mr. Krugman, dismantling the social safety net is principaled: Big Government is the enemy except to police a particular tribal dichotomy based on--usually--subliminal disgust of the colored Other. A cover for policies supportng the 1%'s capital aggrandizement.
Thus, pay for the biggest military around to maintain America's failing world hegemony, rail about porous borders, and sell the extra heavy military equipment to local police forces to keep down those legions of "strapping young bucks" (á la Reagan).
The rest, including even the Postal Service? Starve it until it's small enough to drown in the bathtub (G. Norquist). There's a principal, a guiding light, a Pole Star. The bathtub drain.
1
Edit that last sentence to read "And these are the people now ruining America," and you have it even more precisely.
Last evening, when my wife and I stopped at a pharmacy here in São Paulo to fill some prescriptions, we were approached by a man carrying a very young child. He asked politely if we could help him buy some diapers for his baby.
Ideologs can say that this man and his family, down on their luck, shouldn't receive 'handouts'. That will make them more dependent.
But you know what? I happily bought that family a month's supply of diapers.
It takes a personal interaction with poverty to just decide to share what you are fortunate enough to have with someone in need.
Dr. Krugman is absolutely right that today's white well off 'conservative' doesn't wish to confront poverty and people without diapers for their babies, while on their way to the country club cocktail party.
How many food stamps or diapers could be funded by the million dollar costs of each of Trump's visits to his Florida club?
1
Many of the evangelicals that support Trump are not providing assistance or help to the poor, but they own private planes, have multi-million dollar residence, sometime in several states, they dine in the best places, vacationn in the best places and all off the donations of their members. They have a particular disdain for member that cannot contribute hundreds every Sunday. These are the same people that abhor abortion, but does nothing to help or support infants born to drug addicts or even care to mention the existance of babies born unwanted , neglected and abused.
1
Krugman’s column is Exhibit A in the case of the Democrats Coming Unhinged. As President Trump piles up one victory after another, as the lives of more Americans of all races improve under President Trump’s brilliant policies, as the vaunted and unstoppable Blue Wave totally collapses, the Democrats are coming totally unglued.
2
Republicans have another reason beyond petty cruelty to rail against food stamps. Few things whip up their base more reliably.
Petty cruelty sells with a sadly large percentage of the population.
1
Trump is a symptom, not the cause, for this uncharitable and immoral attitude towards the working poor, elderly, children, and the disabled. This is straight out of the GOP playbook and has been since FDR. Stop writing articles ab out Trump Trump Trump all of the time and start holding the complicit GOP congressional members responsible for propping him up and allowing his illegal and unethical activities to continue. And vote Democrat!
3
Lentucky voters, those in other red states and counties, showed once again that they will vote against their own interests if a candidate validates their inchoate anger. In this case, they would rather they and their children starve than think.
1
There has been a steady coarsening of the American people. Conservatives have always bought into the idea that welfare is fine for the rich, for factory farm subsidies, and other services for the upper classes. Many millionaires & billionaires who inherited family fortunes made by their parents or grandparents see themselves as entitled to taxpayer largess in a multitude of forms. After all, they "earned" their money by picking the right womb to be born out of. This obscenely heartless lack of empathy for those below them in the class structure is only matched by their willingness to see those above them receive breaks. It's as if much of the country now worships Mammon.
Every country treats its richest well. The true measure of the humanity, compassion, & empathy of a nation is measured in how they treat their less fortunate fellow citizens."
"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity, nothing exceeds the criticisms made of the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed."
-- Herman Melville
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."
-- FDR
"The Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need but not for every man's greed."
-- Mahatma Gandhi
"The comfort of the rich depends entirely on an abundance of the poor."
-- Voltaire
2
I agree with Krugman. The SNAP program works. Why rock the boat?
1
The Republicans are now the red pill party of social stratification and false economic philosophy. The Mark of Trump.
But... who could have imagined that the Speaker of the House would conspire in the obstruction of Justice (and the FBI)?
Trump and his horrible party hate blacks, hispanics, immigrants and poor people. It is a continuation of newt gingrich’s so called ‘welfare reform’ policy of the mid 90s. In ‘94 I took wic coupons to a store to get milk for my poor twin neices, while i did my own shopping. I fully paid for my own groceries but used the coupons to get free milk for my neices. I will never forget the look the cashier gave me(why can’t these people work ?). From then on i just paid and got the milk for my neices. In a year or two the parents, who were struggling to raise the twins, got themselves jobs and they all did ok after that. They graduated with honors from an ivy league college a few years ago. Although i myself chose to work and never depended on government assistance when i had no income in the 80s, relying on extended family instead, i support california’s efforts to assist the poor and provide a path for upward mobility, having seen it works. The beneficiaries will pay millions back in taxes someday. The ignorant poor rural whites who vote for trump and are loosing their food stamps can only be pitied.
"A hammock" eh? I'd like a private meeting with one person who thinks that a program like SNAP leads to a life of luxury and disincentive. Just five minutes down at the shed.
3
And coincidentally, hammocks actually aren't eligible for purchase with an EBT card.
I find it interesting that Paul Ryan is a Catholic, an institution that is "all about" helping the poor. Where is he coming from?
People wonder why many poor people do not vote and the answer is simple. By the time an income disadvantaged individual navigates the endless, stupid paperwork, classism, racism, sexism and avoiding the multiple effects of poverty, they are too exhausted to vote. Imagine searching for a better paying job, when you cannot properly compete with the well connected because your education was filled with religious nonsense or your schools were insufficient. Imagine trying to feed yourself and family members when the 'welfare' provided is insufficient.
Interesting, I would hope that one of the members of the 'welfare' class held the cure for cancer or some other horrible disease and the rest of the Republican/Conservative/DJT US were made vividly aware of same.
Trump not only lacks empathy and compassion for others, he manifests and "sells" anti-empathy and outright cruelty to the citizenry of this country, and in the same manner he hawked Trump ties, Trump steaks, his bankrupt casinos, Trump U, and his Trump "brand."
The pathetic thing is it is this inhuman trait and Trump's preference for punishment over kindness and human decency that appears to endear him to his avid base, who, like those gullible Trump U. student hopefuls, are being fleeced by Trump and right-wing anti-humanitarian, misanthropic policies and practices every day they are in charge.
I just heard that Louisiana has run out of Medicaid money, so the state says it may not be able to fund the poor souls in nursing homes. That is not a solution, that is only compounding a problem that never should have occurred in the first place.
So, with Trump, the GOP, and the Kochs and other far right big wealthy donors in power, we are getting to see Ronald Reagan's fabricated bogus philosophy in action: Government is not the solution to our problem, it is the problem."
"Obscene" is just the "right" word in all its meanings to describe today's right-wing politics and Donald J. Trump's disgusting behavior.
From Merriam-Webster:
a : abhorrent to morality or virtue;
b : containing or being language regarded as taboo in polite usage
c : repulsive by reason of crass disregard of moral or ethical principles an obscene misuse of power
d : so excessive as to be offensive
There are two strands to the conservative antipathy for welfare programs such as SNAP. The first is racial; despite the fact that most welfare recipients are white, for conservatives the stereotypical welfare recipient is black or Hispanic and definitely out to scam the system. The second strand is the Victorian mythology of the deserving and undeserving poor. For conservatives, poverty is a choice, not an economic quagmire. Yes, there are sometimes cases where people, through no fault of their own, fall on hard times, and they deserve our compassion, but the vast majority of poor people simply don't want to work, and anyone who wants something for nothing should be punished, not rewarded. I think the mythology of the undeserving poor is a vehicle by which the wealthy assuage their consciences for having so much while many of their fellow citizens have so little.
Every time I learn of this despicable attitude against the poor, I believe once more that anyone who takes such a position should be required, yes, required, to leave all their worldly good behind and be sent out to the world of low paying jobs, a family of 2 to 4 children and be forced to live as the poor do for three months. No doubt in less than a week they would be calling friends to bring supplies - clandestinely, of course. As I often say, Republicans hate women and children. Just can't figure out why.
"... petty cruelty ... running America."
This says it all.
When Trump and the GOP actually get their true wish and start cutting Social Security, Medicare, and federal pensions maybe then voters will start to understand just how hate-filled and greedy they are.
Sooner or later we have to face the new reality: the vast majority of the rich, and wannabe rich, value only that which makes them richer. Hungry children and dying seniors do not enrich their pockets.
1
"Able-Bodied" does not have the meaning that it had years ago when being able-bodied meant a 'strapping young buck' could find work. (It is sad but necessary to remember how recently such blatant racism could be openly expressed.)
The current economy requires perhaps 85% (a number I made up) of available workers to provide all goods and services required. Competition for those jobs is often based on interpersonal and technical skills derived largely from education.
There are a large number of people who, while they may be able-bodied (if the consumption of sugar and refined products has not yet taken its toll) do not have the education and skills to be gainfully employed.
The economy is changing and attitudes and platitudes of the Reagan era no longer apply.
Making America Great Again will fail miserably and tremendous damage will be done before those who reject the liberal elitists will understand and admit to that.
1
".....this means that some of the biggest victims of Trump’s obsession with cutting “welfare” will be the very people who put him in office."
The Germans call the feeling that I am now experiencing "schadenfreude".
Don't blame leftists, and environmentalists for the loss of coal jobs, blame certain Republican coal CEO's who figured out a way to replace humans with machines to dig out coal.
1
The irony is that the US is the most "religious" wealthy country on earth, yet has one political party whose policy goals are the antithesis of the tenets of the major religions. The GOP has embraced the "prosperity gospel" - if you are successful, it is because you are deserving in God's eyes". It is a false doctrine, but it justifies harshness toward the poor and disadvantaged because after all, being poor and disadvantaged is that person's moral failing. It also ignores the basis of the major faiths: that all people are created in the image and likeness of God.
2
Right. Let's force people who may not even have a car to go out and work 20 hours a week.
First, they have to find a job. Then they have to hope that they get scheduled for 20 hours a week. Lots of part-time retail and fast food jobs have hours that vary from week to week. What happens when they can only get 15 hours a week, two weeks in a row?
What if they don't have a car? What if there's no public transportation? What if they get sick and can't work one day? Will they have to get a doctor's note (more time, more transportation woes, more money)?
Maybe some of them can get a job dealing with all the paperwork this is going to create. Should create some new jobs, too.
2
Trump despises "welfare" for those who didn't have the advantages he was born with, but conveniently ignores the immense federal welfare bestowed on him and other commercial real-estate developers through generous tax loopholes for which he lobbied strenuously - tax dodges unavailable to ordinary workers. One should also note the pass-through deduction, inserted into Trump's new tax bill, one that will further benefit businesses like - surprise, surprise - the Trump Organization.
5
SNAP, LAWFUL IMMIGRANTS, and the CLINTON reform
Since the the Clinton 1996 reform, many LEGAL immigrants have been effectively denied SNAP, for the first 5 years. The details is too complex to explain here, but I speak from personal experience, as I a working with poor immigrants in my spare time. I find it next to impossible to get them onto SNAP before 5 years of legal residence in the US.
Why is this never discussed ?
===========
SNAP Non-Citizen Guidance - USDA Food and Nutrition Service
Quote :
"Prior to the 1996 welfare reform legislation under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), most non-citizens lawfully
residing in the United States were eligible for SNAP benefits on the same basis as citizens. With the enactment of PRWORA,most lawfully present non-citizens lost eligibility even if they had been in the country when the law was passed on August 22, 1996. "
The enormous complexity of now getting LEGAL immigrants on SNAP is explained in
https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/snap/Non-Citizen_Guid...
1
Oh, c'mon, Paul.
That teacher who got an extra buck fifty a week in her check was all over the news.
Ryan and Trump should be very proud of themselves; and I'm sure that teacher will be forever grateful to them.
3
Dr. K,
Considering the paramount importance of the agricultural industry to the U.S. and World economy and the almost certain prospect of a steadily increasing World population reaching 10 or 11 Billion people by the end of the 21st Century, I can't imagine that the Secretary of Agriculture or the Chief Economist would endorse policies cutting back on SNAP. This innovative subsidy has brought stability to an industry that is very sensitive to weather, water and climate. Think of the "dust bowl" during the depression and the recent drought in California.
I have an equal concern that our trade, immigration and "cheap food" policies are being jeopardized by stances on the new trade and temporary policy announcements. With our temperate climate, large expanses of good top soil and very well developed but aging transportation system the U.S. has a significant comparative advantage in the global food market.
It concerns me that we are not thinking enough about the soil "chemistry", land use, and water and the ill advised policy of using good soil nutrients to grow biomass for conversion to liquid fuels like gasoline and diesel fuels. See The False Hope of Biofuels http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/30/AR200606...
Our evolution as humans is very dependent on the nutrients created by the living microbes that are gnawing away at the various minerals to create the food chain that eventually lands in our own bodies by the food we consume.
1
It would be an interesting follow-up to see what percentage of SNAP recipients are Fox News followers. Propaganda and ideology may still win out even if the cupboards are bare. While we may have 'full employment' by most traditional standards, many of those already working are underemployed, in a hole, and digging it deeper. What exactly would an additional 5% of the population do in the workforce and how on earth would they be paid enough of a living wage?
Krugman's excellent review of our government's perspective showcases why the US is so woefully unprepared to effectively deal with 21st century economic realities like automation displacement, income disparity, transition to clean energy, and mass migration. We can't even have a rational and fact-based adult conversation about these things anymore.
4
Krugman has been wrong on every major economic issue over the past 4 decades. He's just bitter that Crooked-Hillary didn't win and he didn't become Treasury Secretary. Another reason to thank God President Trump won!
2
There is a major disconnect between people who receive food stamps and also vote for politicians who advocate their reduction or elimination. The right has been adept at raising fears and inciting rage to harvest votes. Why has the threat of loss of a vital safety net not resonated with rural right-wing voters? Is it that they would rather face this loss and many others than vote for a progressive, or is it a massive failure of communication on the part of progressives? The future of our country depends in part on resolving this conundrum.
2
How many of the hard right conservatives who want to cut SNAP benefited from government programs supporting business, or got government-supported student loans or grants, or came from families that relied on Medicaid, welfare, food stamps or other lifelines? I'll bet it's a very substantial number. They should be outed.
3
Social Security helped Paul Ryan's family after his father's early death. People like him see what comes to them as an entitlement from God, and what goes to others as a cause of jealousy.
1
In the United States friendship is fine but business is business. In the nation I would like to live in business is fine but friendship is friendship. In our nation the single most important activity is the pursuit and acquisition of money and he stuff it can buy.. So dominating and pervasive is this activity it stands like a colossus infecting almost every citizen and institution at birth with no effective counterforce to restrain its metastasizing destructiveness. The logical extension of this is that the United States is not a national community but an economic community in which corruption is so ingrained in our ethos that the only option is to legalize it. The current iteration of the Republican Party and Donald Trump (with several exceptions) are the embodiment of this force hiding behind the respectability of an ideology of "conservatism" they neither share or understand. As for those below the poverty line, those who voted for Trump will learn too late and those who didn't vote at all actually did vote against their interests.
4
Or not ...
One commenter writes:
"The only way the ... 1% can get away with paying less than a living wage is by depending on taxpayers to make up the difference. And we do."
The US government is roughly $20 trillion in debt. Simple, indisputable fact.
Whatever may be the 1%'s misdeeds, those misdeeds are not being paid for by today's taxpayers. They're being paid for with money borrowed from future generations -- who never seem to complain (perhaps because they haven't been born yet).
When the government writes a check, the check is nearly always "good." But it's not necessarily "good" because the government's bank account has been filled with tax revenues. To a great extent ($20 trillion, to pick a number), the government's bank account has been filled with borrowed money, the proceeds of government-bond sales. That's necessary because the government spends far more than it takes in.
But don't those bonds have to be paid off some day?
One would think so, but no. When a government bond comes due, it's indeed paid -- but it's paid with the sale proceeds of yet another bond; that's called "rolling over" the first bond. Predictably future generations will continue this time-honored practice: pay off the debts they've inherited from us by issuing more bonds that will have to be paid off way down the road, by THEIR children and grandchildren. And so on.
That's called kicking the can down the road.
What do you think all those millions of acres of US public land are worth, Threecents?
And yet the CBO estimates a record monthly budget surplus of $218B for April 2018. What to make of that?
VOTE November 6, 2018. It's the only to put an end to this nasty nightmare.
4
We ended the 8 year nightmare in 2016. We now have a President that loves his country and pushes policies that benefit US citizens and businesses.
1
“Let me be upfront here: There’s something fundamentally obscene about this spectacle.” Wow, PK, what courage to be so up front!
“… this is about petty cruelty turned into a principle of government. “ Yes, we’re painfully aware.
“They don’t want to help the less fortunate.” They sure don’t. Yes, it’s been evident for decades.
“And these are the people now running America.”
Yes, it’s been totally obvious that an extreme rw party now dominates our 3 branches and most states. We’re constantly and nauseatingly aware of that.
Our rw GOP is more rw than the rw parties in other advanced countries, where at least health care for all is a centrist policy, while here we still haven’t got it. Er, what do the Democrats have to say about that?
Yes, Paul---What does the party of opposition have to say in reply to all these fundamentally obscene and petty cruelties? Let’s get specific on policy from the other side, since a crucial election is coming.
4
A concerted FOX and Sinclair television and conservative talk and religious radio ad campaign needs to let the population of poor white SNAP users know what they are losing and why.
2
For the fake Christians that support Trump's GOP it is not "There but for the grace of god go I". Instead it is "Here I am, because of me and God thinks it is great"
Like the time Jesus fed the five thousand after checking their paperwork proving they had been looking for work.
7
No truer words were ever said. Amen.
2
Hey Paul
I will bet President Trump does not pay any attention to your column. That is the most important contribution of your column. Think about it.
1
Trump doesn't even pay attention to the fawning drips who surround him. The fawning is all that matters to him.
The Rich are too poor and the poor are too rich!
Trump's con relies on gut punching, add the Republican servitude to the billionaire (and pretend billionaire) class and you get this grotesque predation upon the neediest by the most gilded!
2
As for "let them eat Trump Steaks", well, it turns out the secret ingredient in Trump Steaks is baloney.
5
They're running America, and proclaiming to be Christians, too, while being about as uncaring, un-Christian, un-any organized religion I have ever heard of. Does Mammon have a church now?
1
Am I my brother's keeper? Let's ask one of those prosperity gospel grifters. But first make him pay income taxes. One cannot live on manna alone.
1
"Owsley County, Ky., where a majority of the population gets food stamps and Donald Trump received 84 percent of the 2016 vote."
I just HAVE to ask the following rhetorical question: How STOOOOOPID are those people?
4
Hmmm, work requirements seemed to work great under Clinton. Guess liberals will just pretend that didn't exist.
2
Petty cruelty? We're talking about Donald Trump, right? The same guy who SHREDDED his head of DHS because she's not separating children from their parents fast enough when they cross the border? To be angry because families are NOT being shattered? That Donald Trump?
Let's not forget Michael Wolff's book, relating how Trump would egg on a guy to talk about his sex preferences, not realizing Trump had the guy's wife on the phone, whom Trump would then attempt to seduce on the basis of what a bum her husband was. Shattering a marriage just pump up his ego and get another bedpost notch.
That's the kind of cruel and heartless immoral monster that is now the President of the United States.
Frankly, I hate to be as cruel as Trump, but when 84% of Owsley County voted for him, and 50% are on food stamps, and he's going to KILL the food stamp program, I have not one shred of sympathy for them. But I'm not heartless. I save all my sympathy for the poor people who did NOT vote for Trump and are going to face starvation because of him.
Yes. I do judge.
2
Wolf's book was proven to be chuck full of lies and distortions. That's why it disappeared out of the mainstream media so quickly. Just more Fake News.
It is a throwback to the 19th century. The poor in the workhouses must not be too comfortable, or they will be too lazy and eat us all out of home and hearth.
1
Ahh, the big question in the room-did they, those that voted for the con artist, know what they were voting for.
Perhaps when buyer's, or in this case, voter's remorse, sets in and the real bite of trumpism is felt, some may regret that vote. However, there are those who believe that Trump is an honorable person, warts, porn stars and all, and will defend him as they drink his swill.
Trump unleashed the mangy dogs of the GOP, those mangy dogs that hate anyone that is any color other than white, those who are not native born and are poor. One only look at the shameful con job that Trump/Ryan/McConnell cabal sold their supporters call a "tax reform bill" that in the long run will benefit few.
So, I offer, as Dr. Krugman states, let those who voted for Trump, who still support Trump and stand to lose a lot buy some of those Trump steaks, chase the steak down with Trump vodka while dining in a Trump casino having flown there on Trump Airlines. Oops, those products and the casinos no longer exist do to the grand business acumen and management of the founder.
2
So easy to take out lunch money out of mouths of poor Americans and give it to the very rich. Shame on you republicans.
1
So easy for politicians of every persuasion to do the bidding of lobbyists and pilfer the treasury for every special interest group under the sun. Shame on politicians and the people who elected them.
Where's Robin Hood when you need him?
Republican policies are better known as enslavement. And this time it is based on one's economic class.
It all begs the question how could we ever believe ourselves to be an exceptional people and country?
2
What would Jesus do? I can't believe the answer to that question would be to take food away from poor people. Jesus didn't demand work requirements before he fed the poor. When the supposed Christians who elected these Republican misers wonder how our country has lost its Christian values, they should look in the mirror.
3
"Jesus didn't demand work requirements before he fed the poor."
Jesus didn't demand that government should help the poor - he commanded us as individuals.
1
It's astounding that we have a president who is so blatantly callous and cruel to working-class Americans--and yet many of these same Americans make up his base! C'mon, America, wake up to this ugly reality and remove this self-seeking monster and his ilk from office in forthcoming elections!
3
Haiku
Let them eat Trump steaks;
Since the GOP loves guns...
Let them eat their guns.
1
Well said, Paul.
1
Roman Catholics think!
Did Jesus say the way to heaven is pious and dutiful devotion to liturgy and/or a high level of wealth?
Did Jesus per se preach a prosperity and elitist Gospel?
Did Jesus demand political tunnel vision that ignores all negative ramifications to many in so many ways, negativity that obviously would ensue, simply to win a point of debatable theology?
Let's see what Pope Francis says:
".. in the name of Christ [I] remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor. I exhort you to generous solidarity and a return of economics and finance to an ethical approach which favors human beings.”
"[Yes we have to protect the unborn.] Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection."
My point is this: Do you REALLY think Jesus would vote for the GOP/Trump? Really?
If you are intellectually honest you must say NO!
Then why are you?
4
Jesus tasked us to help the poor. That was an individual task. He did not say that government should be used to force you to help the poor. I though liberals hated the idea of church and state together.
1
I wonder if the 84% who voted for trump will vote for him again when they, or people they know, go to the polls starving to death.
1
Thank you, Paul Krugman, for once again highlighting the cruelty inherent in our system from the "top" down. Please read this book which I picked up at the library and have just finished. It explains exactly WHY we are where we are: "The New Human Rights Movement" by Peter Joseph. Historically, politically, it is all about money. We don't have a government, we have an economy--and worse, government exists to serve business and the goal of business is to suck every last dollar out of every pocket to amass for itself. Trump, Washington, Wall Street--part of a Monster. The People? We are here to serve the cannibals.
1
"Thank you, Paul Krugman, for once again highlighting the cruelty inherent in our system from the "top" down."
How much do you think Paul would be willing to give up out of his own paycheck to help one person get SNAP benefits? How about ten people? How about a 100 people? I don't know the answer to any of those numbers, but I do know that at some point he would say "enough!". But Paul has no problem justifying spending more of other people's money.
1
This is purely and simply a way for conservatives and their ilk to cull the population. They’d like to permanently get rid of all the poor whether black or white, in addition to the sick and elderly - less for them to share resources with. I will never understand how anyone capable of rational thought could support these people. Seems to me all the evildoers are conservatives.
2
America has an economy of 100% economic crime. See recent stories of Michael Cohen, if you do not believe me. Michael Cohen is the heart and soul of the GOP. The GOP is all about stealing money. The GOP has no other agenda, except perhaps senseless war with Iran.
3
Thank you, Dr. Krugman. The chorus of your fellow columnists urging us to appreciate Trump's "lizard wisdom" and the importance of engaging with the other side this morning was getting a little difficult to bear. Thanks for reminding us what the Trump agenda is at bottom - "fundamentally obscene."
3
As a former tax accountant I can tell you first hand that there is no industry that gets more welfare from the US government than the real estate industry. Successful real estate business people and people that have capital to invest in real estate through partnerships, LLC's and REIT's get enormous tax benefits through depreciation of property. They frequently also benefit from direct payments from HUD for low income tenants and may also benefit from low interest loans backed by the government for creating a certain number of units of low income housing units. They basically print money and if an investment goes bad they walk away with limited liability. On to the next real estate investment or development.
Trump's luck in entering a family business that has provided him access to capital from banks. Combined with corporate welfare from the US government is what has made Trump so rich and not that he is an exceptional intellect or a visionary business leader.
It is also clear that Trump is leveraging the Presidency to benefit his personal business interests.
I never understood people who get a helping hand from the government turning to their fellow citizen and saying that they do not deserve any assistance from the government. I include Trump and Paul Ryan in that category people.
9
If the Right and religious Right see food stamps as coddling then how do they see public water fountains. There are three basic required elements to life, air ( which they are trying to destroy ), water ( which they are trying to poison ) and food ( which they are trying to withhold ). If they would deny food to a hungry person then they would deny water to a man in the desert. And air, " It has always been the aim of royalty and aristocracy to lower the individual liberty and independence of the common people. A baron and a minute-man could not breathe the same air ", John Boyle O`Reilly. They follow that to give a man a fish is to feed him for a day but to teach him how to fish feeds him for life. I can follow that except they don`t believe in teaching. There support of public education is falling faster than a bomb with the same end result. The only teaching they believe in is teaching someone to pray. Well then when I find myself starving I pray someone gives me a fish.
1
It's illogical and immoral to withhold food assistance from people without jobs unless Congress, Trump, and American businesses work together to ensure that there is a living-wage job available for every single worker in America. Including those who, due to caretaking, disability, or health, must work from home.
Once that's in place, then -- and only then -- can we talk about taking food away from people who aren't working.
3
Speaking of the lottery ...
"And as we all know, the lottery is basically a tax on people who are bad at math."
Correctly or not (probably correctly), lotteries are typically thought to be a tax on the poor, who are disproportionately the buyers of lottery tickets.
I had no idea just how true that was until I experienced it personally -- twice. I don't buy lottery tickets often, but my wife and I bought one several years ago in San Francisco when the top prize had risen to (as I recall) about $60 million. The odds were in our favor, I figured, though I didn't win.
What struck me about that incident was that not a single person in the grocery store where we bought that ticket was actually buying groceries. 100% of them, including us, were buying lottery tickets! I'd last been into that store about 20 years earlier, before the lottery was created in CA, and customers back then were buying food. Not the second time, though: Either they were buying their food somewhere else, or they were using their food money to buy lottery tickets.
1
My guess is that the final rules will treat rural SNAP recipients different from urban recipients. Trump’s base won’t be effected by the reduction in benefits. While the SNAP savings won’t be as great, the racism will go over well with the base.
3
Not to make excuses for people voting for those who shoot themselves in the foot but those people have a misplaced respect and loyalty to those in State and Federal offices, much like the parents of people who protested the Vietnam war. They believe the government operates in their best interests because they said they would and they talked the talk they understood.
Did Sean Hannity reveal he was buying foreclosed properties with Hud loans? He showed huge screens with maps of where people were in dire straights, expressed his sympathy, compassion and blamed the Obama administration. Fast forward to 2018 the rent increases, evictions were owned by Hannity and his exploitation was revealed.
The average person is consumed by survival, paycheck to paycheck. They need to be educated on how the pervasive practice of an LLC can impact their lives. Sean Hannity's credibility would have been seriously damaged at the time, at present a blip on a screen.
No Republican is going to flat out state the generosity towards the wealthy would be paid by slashing, SNAP, CHIP or any other social programs.
Bernie Sanders was able to express the truth in the same manner the Republicans express lies, with compassion, empathy, conviction and passion for his ideals.
The difference is he didn't present himself as anyone's Daddy or Savior, like the Republicans have mastered, no person should.
.
2
The truth is that with foodstamps and "welfare", all taxpayers are subsidizing large corporations and businesses like Trump's that pay less than a living wage. The only way the Walmarts, Trump's Mar-a-Lago and all other businesses owned by the 1% can get away with paying less than a living wage is by depending on taxpayers to make up the difference. And we do.
Corporations don't pay their fair share in wages, most offer no benefits, they have eliminated pensions and have broken the backs of unions. Now the 1% corporate-speak is to go after the very social programs that allow them to keep their employees poor and willing to accept slave wages. It's unconscionable.
5
"Corporations don't pay their fair share in wages, most offer no benefits, they have eliminated pensions and have broken the backs of unions."
What, exactly, would you consider a "fair share in wages", and how did you arrive at that number?
Private sector pensions have increased prices for American goods - the auto industry is a great example. Government pensions are in the hole for untold trillions of dollars. Look at Illinois and California to see what state pension plans have done.
1
The myth that low-income white adults are what put Trump in the White House needs to end. While it is true that he won the vast majority of low-income white voters, his base has and always will be the petit-bourgeois, i.e. the upper middle class. Trumpism and all its xenophobic hatred, idiocy, and lack of objective reality is coming from the suburbs who by and large do not care about food stamps for anyone.
7
I believe the plan is to penalize the urban poor while shielding the rural (i.e. Trump) poor. As Nicholas Bagley & Eli Savit have reported in these pages, Michigan structures their program to relieve high-unemployment counties from the work requirement. Urban areas, with rich and poor living in close proximity in the same county, often don't have high unemployment on a county-wide basis. Get to work, you slackers!
1
Trump voters blame public policies for decimating their local economies with gov't environmental regulations and policies that drove jobs to China. Of course, if anyone has spent any time in the last 80 years in these rural out of the way communities, they have never been really healthy booming economies for the majority of people. Nostalgia for what never was is a powerful fantasy.
The best times these people had were when the men went off to the big wars returning with more education, pensions and skills. Pay was steady and better when the federal gov't set the contracts with companies and paid the bills. The war machine is an engine that drove some measure of prosperity in the rural backwater.
Thinking these Trump voters will come to see that Trump hates all mankind is not possible. The president is elevating their spirits with his carnival barker personality. He strokes their egos to make them believe that with the sweep of his pen, like a faith healer with the bible, he will free them from the disability of social dependence.
When Trump takes away gov't programs, the poor white voter who has such faith and is so dazzled by him, will give a hallelujah and stand without the crutch. Of course we know they will fall when the cameras are off. The show though will fool the faithful.
4
The whole conception of Walmart came to Sam Walton when he was a Seabee in WW II and saw how airdropped manufactured goods created enduring cargo cults among islanders practicing rituals to keep it coming.
There is nothing quite like the entitled person who looks down his or her nose at the less fortunate and wants to punish them.
4
The strange thing is most people I have had contact with who are receiving a form of welfare, feel they have a legitimate claim to it but feel others are just cheating the system.
I know a person that has been on disability for almost 30 years believes everyone else doesn't deserve them. In addition he continually passes on conservative biased articles about welfare cheats.
3
'I got mine, you get yours' has been a pervasive cornerstone of the right for a very long time. It's the catchall, knee jerk response to everything from income tax to healthcare, Medicare to immigration. No collective memory or acknowledgement of the leg up offered or received. No self awareness, no willingness to contemplate any external factors lending to their good fortune. It is easier to believe that hard work separates you from everyone else, and never entertain something as random as luck. But with brazen cruelty and manipulation, the separation between the haves and have nots has mutated into 'I got mine, and I'm pulling up the ladder behind me'. Sad.
6
Why do Republicans hate food stamps? It's simple. They hate hand outs--someone getting something for nothing unless it is for big corporations or small businesses and tax cuts in all forms. Also, they feel entitled because God gives more to those deserving to be rewarded, which, of course, they are and the poor are not.
2
Both Devin Nunes and Chuck Grassley receive farm subsidies even though neither works in agriculture.
7
It is now clear that we are in the age of Trump. His style of mean spiritedness, his wealth and lack of consideration for the plight of the suffering are nothing less than breathtaking. He clearly believes in social darwinism and much of his base have similar ways of thinking. What is most shocking in this day and age is a return to the idea that survival should be a matter of conflict with winners and losers, thus those who can accumulate the most wealth are clearly the winners that should survive, those that can get the best medical care the only ones to be allowed to live.
What Trump does not care about is the fate of the losers , they are expendable…and Trump clearly wants his base to believe that losers are taking the food out of his supporter's mouths. His base has been lead to believe that undeserving people are stealing what they perceive to be rightfully theirs…clearly a way of thinking that is ripe for exploitation , and one that clearly Trump exploits …even when he is totally wrong and even more ironic ,when it is his own base that stands to lose !
1
Paul, these are the people who have been running America for awhile now. They are the people who would have been running America regardless of whether Hillary or Donald won
3
Would anyone who attended Trump U be willing to admit it? Would people anywhere tout it as a qualifier for a job?
Will anyone who served in the Trump Administration be willing to admit it? Will Trump Administration officials ever tout their "service" as a qualifier for a job?
Staking anything on Trump is very bad steak. Everyone who enters the man's orbit is poisoned, many who voted for him most of all.
There is only one possible good thing that can occur as a result of Trump and Republican's actions against the poor. That Trump voter who has used SNAP to feed her children or the child of a disabled parent may well realize how much worse off their loved ones are under this new policy. Accordingly, they may vote much more wisely in the future. This assumes however a logical approach to voting, not a willingness to ascribe to the hate-filled rhetoric of today's Republicans.
1
Dear Paul,
The first issue is that SNAP should not be a part of the Agriculture Department. If we're going to continue with this charade of the Constitution as justification for a welfare state, then put SNAP in the Health and Human Services budget.
You said, “ No, this is about petty cruelty turned into a principle of government.” OK, Paul, how would YOU personally change the rules about eligibility for SNAP and the amount of assistance received? More important, where would YOU draw the line at which no one is eligible for SNAP?
We should construct a cruelty index for Presidential Administrations. The Trump Administration and the obscene creatures it has put atop its agencies would undoubtedly excel. Even the imposition of work requirements on food stamps is not the worst, for my money: so far, I think the winner might be the vile Jeff Sessions edict to take infants away from allegedly illegal immigrants. But there are plenty of other possible winners.
Trump is what happens when a semi-literate easily fooled bunch of deplorable lowlifes exercise their right to vote. Had enough? Then, do something about it. I still find it astounding that less than half of all eligible voters do so. The fault lies not in our stars, it lies with US. The United States has been living on borrowed time since the end of WWII. That lucky streak finally ran out in 2016. The American people, apathetic as all get-out, are getting exactly what they deserve. The Electoral College has outlived its purpose a century ago, and yet, it is nearly impossible to get rid of. Why? Because the American Electorate could care less. Americans love to blame the government on everyone and everything except where it belongs, with the people. In a democracy, the government is a reflection and a representation of its populace. And that thought is what should make all Americans sad and embarrassed. Pogo was right, it is US.
DD
Manhattan
3
I'll bite. I live in NYC. I voted for Trump. I guess I'm semi-literate. Maybe, just maybe, I'm knowledgeable enough to know we are a republic, not a democracy. Aside from that, I'm perfectly content with our system checking the voting power of it's citizens for the sake of our longevity. I think things are great and getting better. Oh yeah, due to our system, my vote didn't count. But hey, at least I'm happy. Sorry you can't get past this.
1
@Ryan R
Sorry. But you're the one who can't get past the fact that your own personal happiness isn't worth a hill of beans if so many others have to pay for it in full.
And it's not a true democracy when everyone's vote doesn't count.
Well said, Dr. K!
You hit the nail on the head about Trump's approach to government's providing help to the needy. He hates that somebody may be getting over on someone/getting away with something.
Sounds like classic projection to me.
1
It's not merely that they despise the poor - they manipulate them too. Those people are voting against the kind of government that could make their lives better because they have been told for years that "government is not the solution to our problems; government IS the problem."
They vote against the programs that help them because they've been told they let those shiftless, lazy black people live in luxury while they have nothing. You can't dismiss racism as a factor when it's deliberately used for political ends by the rich - who are often quite racist themselves. (Trump being the prime example.)
But here's where the rich and the poor that voted for Trump come together: they both need someone they can look down on and scapegoat to justify their own status.
You are quite right about the race factor. If one looks back at the speeches of George Wallace while he was governor of Alabama, one can see that his underlying message to whites, especially poor whites, was that as long as they supported Wallace they could be assured that there was someone lower on the ladder than they, i.e., blacks! The important task of Trumpians is to fan the flames of division. Until every American fully grasps that we are united as ONE and indivisible, the message of division will work beautifully.
Money is not the same thing as value. Our money culture is now headed toward its logical conclusion. The mad scramble of the bean counter culture is just now beginning. The legacy of a nation interested in building structures which really deliver value is not yet over, but we can now see the end is in sight.
Opposition to safety net programs, including SNAP, comes mainly from middle class working people - Trump's base. These people are barely making ends meet and see that those just below them are getting government support. The conservative narrative is "hard working Americans are paying for the lazy".
We have basically become a country of "where's mine" while the oligarchs make off with the loot.
2
I generally enjoy Professor Reich's columns. But I detect a problem with this one, even though I am sympathetic to his conclusion.
The CBO estimates that around 2 million people will be denied aid. But then he notes, accurately, that most adult recipients are already working.
If there are 40 million receiving benefits and 2 million will be denied, that is 5%, meaning that 95% qualify (they are working).
Personally, I think need is need and folks should get the aid they need Poverty is no motivator. Those who will be denied aid, my guess is, that they are either in areas where unemployment remains high, they have other issues that mean they cannot get a job (perhaps they cannot pass a drug test, etc etc).
However, if one concedes that work should be a requirement, then this new policy is a solution really looking for a problem.
Lastly, Professor Reich, why is it that poor people need punishments to motivate them while rich people need incentives for motivation?
For those who are able bodied, the govt. should be providing new skills job training for those supposed glut of jobs available. And the corporations that got huge, huge tax cuts should be required to increase wages and bring oversea-tax evading-corporate headquarters back to US shores to pay their fair share of taxes.
5
I don't know whether this is true, or unfair to Krugman:
"Paul Krugman ... has been wrong on everything he has said over the past 10 years."
Krugman was famously wrong, of course, when he predicted on Election Night that Trump's election would be followed by an immediate recession.
But I don't read Krugman's column often enough to know whether he's been badly mistaken at other times. Judging from comments on his columns that I do read, he has both many critics and many supporters.
Krugman's views are assigned great weight in part because of his Nobel Prize in economics, which was awarded to him for a paper on an obscure but important topic in international economics. Even though he's since opined mostly on economic matters unrelated to that, his opinions are given considerable weight because someone who's been awarded the Nobel Prize in one area is presumed to be smart and/or knowledgeable in others too. (Indeed, some Nobel Prize winners have actually been awarded a second Nobel Prize in an unrelated area -- such as Linus Pauling, who received NPs in both Chemistry and Peace).
Usually that's correct: the NP winner indeed is a really smart person whose views on other matters should count for a great deal too.
Sometimes it's incorrect. With Krugman, the jury is still out.
Even his critics (I have no view on him) should give Krugman credit for sticking to economics in general. Other Nobel laureates (Pauling comes to mind again) have ventured far outside their field.
Exactly what information in THIS article do you believe not to true?
It's okay for Trump's voters to lose this benefit. They deserve to lose it, and should feel honored to be doing their part to make America great again.
The real question is how to preserve those who still vote for America and for their own interests. How do we keep them from being left behind?
4
There was an age when Life, Saturday Evening Post, Time, Newsweek, the NYT and other publications wrote about poverty in America and what was working or not working to fight it. In that age religious groups and professors taught their flocks their moral duty to remember those in need. The nation still needs that information and instruction. The urban/rural divide in America can only be overcome when those in need make common cause based on facts. There was a time when farmers, iron workers, coal miners, poor whites and poor blacks voted for Democrats - even rich ones like FDR, JFK, RFK and Jay Rockefeller. They did so because they knew whose side they were on. That kind of trust must be earned -- by asking for their votes and demonstrating to them a sense of moral urgency as to their plight. This column is very timely. Thank you Mr. Krugman
3
I am continually appalled by staunch Republicans who achieve public recognition for participating in food for the needy campaigns. Wouldn't a change in political agenda have a more lasting effect?
3
"In fact, over the next decade the entire SNAP program, which helps 40 million Americans, will cost only about a third as much as the tax cut. No, it’s not about the money."
It is about the money. The rich want as much money for themselves as possible. A tax cut that gives them an extra $10,000.00 is good. A reduction in SNAP that takes $0.05 from the poor is also good. You need to look at where the money is going, not the amounts.
3
Other writers here have noted that SNAP money goes to the Waltons, whose stores in poor areas would otherwise not be profitable.
6
This is why I have so little respect for rich people who discount how public spending adds to their own income and at least partly offsets the expense of paying taxes.
This kind of article is like a personal history. I grew up on Aid to Families with Dependent Children and Food Stamps. This little girl that the government fed, housed and clothed throughout her youth has served the country in the military and am now am in the top 25% of earners in America and pay more in taxes from 1 year than my family spent in 5 or more (I don't remember the exact amount we took in each month). I'm sure there are others with similar success stories. Like letting 10 guilty go free to avoid 1 innocent in jail (something we USED to believe in), we should look at these the same way. Better to support 100 layabouts than to cut off the chances to youth who might one day be a leader in this nation of (supposed) opportunity.
16
In grad school in the 70s, I did a research paper on food stamps, based largely on info from the USDA. I was surprised to discover that USDA framed the program as a way to augment its agricultural price supports (buying commodities like cheese, eggs, milk, etc., and offering them to the needy). They said they wanted to support the food industry more broadly by increasing what they called the "aggregate demand" for food. Hence food stamps, which could be used for most any food product. Was USDA just trying to make an aid program for the needy more palatable to anti-welfare members of Congress? I can't say. But Krugman is right in his analysis here. Food stamps are critical for millions, and are a minor expense compared to SO many government programs.
12
My wife and I once received public assistance a long time ago. We were young, in college and pregnant. A very sharp social worker realized that we qualified for a few programs, and we accepted.
Fast forward to today, we have a beautiful family and we are both very successful professionals.
People don't go on "welfare" to get rich, welfare stops you from falling through the cracks and allows you to regain your footing.
21
Maybe we should have a work requirement for dividends. Or drug testing. Maybe any time that a company gets tax breaks for opening up a new headquarters somewhere, all of the executives should be means- and drug-tested. If they make over, say, $1 million a year, they should be barred from receiving tax breaks.
Dr. Krugman is correct that the president and members of his lickspittle party, as George Will called them, seem to be bent on the squeezing and humiliating the poor. And however right Dr. Krugman is, there is a massive swath of the population that may well be adversely affected by these efforts but who will still support them. This is what you might call not the America Dream, but the American Delusion. We all think we are going to be rich, somehow, someday.
Here in the Washington DC suburbs, you could work two full-time jobs — a day shift at Target, say, and a nightshift at a fastfood restaurant — and still be in poverty and in need of government assistance. You might have to go into a food pantry if you didn't have SNAP and lay out the most personal details of your life just to get your kids dinner.
It's good for business to squeeze the poor—just ask the car-title and pay-day loan companies.
16
In Mr. Krugman's world of pure good (food stamps) versus pure evil (imposing work requirements on able-bodied food stamp recipients), is he advocating that food stamps be provided to people based entirely on income, unconditionally? In a world of 3.9% unemployment, which is considered "full employment" by most economists, why shouldn't an able-bodied adult be subject to work requirements as a condition to receiving money from the government? Recall that the welfare for work requirement imposed by then-President Clinton is widely considered a major policy success. It helped to reduce welfare roles in a similar time of low unemployment. In short, the issue Krugman emotes about in his latest anti-conservative diatribe is nuanced and not, as he implies, one of good vs. evil.
1
Decent argument, except for the fact that the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour(!) is the same now as it was during Clinton's welfare reform over *20* years ago.
That and the fact that more than half of the people receiving SNAP benefits, *already work*.
So if it makes you feel any better, when you shop at Walmart (or any other huge corporation paying poverty wages), the prices you pay are lower than they would be if your tax dollars weren't subsidizing that corporation's payroll, so that, 'ya know, their employees (and their employees children) can afford to eat.
8
Most SNAP recipients are employed, disabled or children. Your "world of 3.9% unemployment" is testament to how statistics can be manipulated to obscure realities that in this case include those listed as "not looking" for employment because there is no employment or the legions of underemployed.
2
It's precisely BECAUSE "full employment" means that there are no more jobs out there than there are already today, that yes of course, we shouldn't let fellow citizens who fell through the cracks starve or die at home.
If not, what's the difference between a civilized country and one opting for savage capitalism ... ?
2
The cruel policies of the privileged white men in our government approach criminality, no more so than when taking food from children, the elderly and disabled.
Yet, these supporters came as a byproduct of the right wing media stoking bigotry, blame, suspicions and resentments and providing their target audience of the under- educated, rural poor a way to thumb their noses at the "elites". Interestingly, Voting against ones own best interests requires suspension of disbelief, as does religion
9
Let them eat tweets.
8
Paul
A wonderful article. No comment in response is needed except "thank you."
8
As my late grandmother would say, "They gonna find out, real soon."
7
The obscenity of denying food to those who can't afford it is rivaled only by the obscenity of denying medical care.
12
Weren’t we the country that “feeds the world”? Call me any name you want, but it hurts my heart to think anyone in this country goes hungry.
9
How else do you pay for Buffett's $29 billion or Adelson's $675 million without cutting food stamps?
5
I’m sorry for those who voted for Clinton and will lose benefits. I don’t have much sympathy for Trump voters nor those who didn’t vote or cast protest votes. If you make your decision based on negative campaign ads or — worse still— unverified tales from Facebook— it may turn out badly, even for you.
5
It was a Clinton that "ended welfare's we know it," right? Once bitten, twice shy and all that.
You make veer between wanting to cry and being angry at these people who voted for Trump.
2
Well, Trump's opponent did threaten to put coal miners out work.
1
I can only hope the Republicans who seek to cut SNAP benefits get the opportunity to understand their value personally.
They have been preaching baloney for quite some time and a just God would see to it their diet was reduced to the Joe Arpaio Sandwich: one slice of bologna between two stale slices of white bread served with a Flint Water chaser.
Immiseration through incarceration for all of them!
3
I've been saying for years that Democrats should adopt a single sentence as their mantra and campaign slogan: Republicans want you to die.
I've seen nothing in the intervening years that would make me change one word of that sentence. If anything, the current occupant of the White House and his sycophants have made it even more obvious.
10
Republicans want you to die.
I've been saying the same - and adding: And please do so out of sight where it won't cost them anything.
"En effet,"Prof. KRUGMAN, I've eaten a Trump steak and they are pretty good, although a trifle more expensive than a similar prime sirloin or entrecote enjoyed at the Homestead, Ruth Christ's, Bobby Rubino's or Gallaghers, and to many it's worth the few extra dollars to say one has dined chez Trump!What's the big deal, especially for all members of tenured professorat who make a nice living teaching a few hours a week to a handful of students, and perhaps not even teaching at all, but merely advising. Trump wants welfare recipients to justify the outlay of funds by showing an honest effort. Disapprove RR's characterization of recipients as racially motivated, since his remarks hurt the feelings of so many forced to live in a racist society, but that was then.Have yet to hear hosannas from any Times columnist about Trump's diplomatic victory in having hostages released and up coming talks with North Korean leader. Does author think that a Nobel Prize to The Donald is an eventuality?Welfare subsidies r a product of War on Poverty initiated by LBJ and fraud at the outset was commonplace. Recall case of LIVINGSTONE WINGATE, in charge of NY program who walked away with 400 million dollars never accounted for. But why do Times journos constantly raise the specter of racism with regard to TRUMP when African Americans have benefitted from his presence in WH! They r changing their view of TRUMP, seeing him in a favorable light, view his success as something to emulate.
2
Any evidence to back up such a claims?
Why do people like Trump and the Koch network never see the error of their ways until their heads drop into the basket below the guillotine, or their family is shot to pieces in a locked mansion and dropped down a mineshaft.
Revolutions are a horrible way to handle problems...but the credible FEAR of violent revolution is a check on unrestrained plutocracy. The rise and fall of Soviet Communism corresponds directly to the beginning and end of "the great leveling" in this country. Our income tax was imposed in 1917, the same year the Romanovs were lured into a basement room to be "photographed."
1
My hope is the SNAP recipients in trump country starve
I know of little else that would reach them
And starving might not reach them either
4
Cruelty is the best fit for Trump. When he was a businessman his cruelty was at a retail level, affecting different victims at different times. But now it's wholesale, 800,000 Dreamers, forty million SNAP recipients, eighty million Iranians, and lest we forget, all the future generation that he would make suffer the affects of global warming.
This column should be posted like a handbill on every bulletin board in Appalachia.
7
It must be that Republican politicians cannot believe in God, much less a judgmental and just God, and behave the way they do towards those most helpless and most vulnerable. Certainly Evangelical “leaders” cannot and still supports what Republicans do. All their professions of “thoughts and prayers” are so much hooey. We are truly governed by unethical, godless men.
2
Bravo. Couldn't agree more with everything Mr. Krugman has written.
4
It seems clear to many that Republicans/Conservatives are not Christian in any sense of that word.
7
The idea that SNAP encourages a lazy lifestyle is a classic 'flawed ideology,' per Jason Stanley in his book How Propaganda Works. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to get through to those who've adopted the flaw.
2
What's behind it? Simple greed and a corrupted christianity that says god gives money to those who don't need it and approves of allowing those with needs to die.
Trump is determined to be the president who destroys the new deal. He is going to bankrupt the country to do it. He has just breached an agreement and intends to start a costly war.
Had enough yet?
5
The Republicans conveniently throw around God when it suits their agenda. The reality is that most stand with one hand on the Bible & flip off the rest of us with the other hand. Vote in 2018!
3
These days the old adages “A day’s work for a day’s pay” and “A penny saved is a penny earned” need to be rewritten to better suit the political imperatives.
"Work shall set you free" so said the entrance sign at one of Germany's 'workhouses' for the transient, mentally disabled, and otherwise unemployed in a society focused on 'Making Germany Great Again'. And Germany did become great, for a time...
3
I guess people in places like Owsley County Kentucky figure they’re really sticking it to coastal liberals like me by voting for Trump. I hate to tell them, but when they go hungry, lose their teeth because they can’t afford dental care, or die of a heroin overdose because no treatment is available, I’m not the one that suffers.
5
Why are liberals seemingly terrified of welfare recipients finding work? Not the possibility of the floating votes, I'm sure.
1
This same sentence runs through my head everyday; “Everything, and I mean everything and everyone he touches dies.
The poor,the hungry,Novartis employees,the environment........etc
Everything
4
You just painted an abomination in these United States, a rich country but with deep inequalities, where the wealthy sock it to the least among us...for no good reason at all. Cruelty 'gratis', as you stated. But also a huge social distance in between, given that the rich and powerful have never felt the pangs of hunger, never; hence, unable or unwilling to really 'feel' for the rest. What is gnawing, oppressive, even malevolent, about all this is not the 'natural' ignorance about something, as this can be corrected by educating oneself; this is an ignorance 'by choice', a damning insult to reason and justice. Trump is despicable of course, but so is Paul Ryan, and likely the entire republican party, a harsh condemnation of their evil spirit. Let it be known though that many of us are complicit as well, as we have failed our fellow man/woman...by looking the other way. Guilty as charged, and without redemption, let alone our own peace of mind in the face of evil.
1
" More than half the county’s population receives food stamps; 84 percent of its voters supported Trump in 2016. Did they know what they were voting for? "
Sadly, they do, to some extent. They knew he was a liar, who pretended that Obama's birth certificate wasn't genuine. They want to believe his lies about having solutions for their financial problems that don't involve strengthening the safety net.
Much the same way children of abuse often enter abusive marriages and become abusers themselves, the people living in states that are indifferent to their poor appear to believe that they aren't deserving of help. It seems that struggling schools, inadequate social services, limited healthcare all
serve to convey the message that people are not entitled to expect much from gov't.
They have bought into the Republican narrative that if only there weren't so many regulations, and if only the gov't wasn't wasting it's money on frivolous spending (e.g. poetry festivals, foreign aid) - if only the gov't got out of the way, they would be able to make a good living and not need any help. They don't remember what life was like in the early 20th century.
The great reform movements of prior generations, the labor, civil rights and environmental leaders have been replaced by right wing radio hosts, and right wing media and right wing think tanks funded by multi millionaires who don't want to pay taxes.
7
Dr. Paul -- to the rich, more will be given. From the poor, more will be taken away. Matthew, Mark and Luke preached this in the New Testament. Re your piece, "Let Them Eat Trump Steaks", this is the way our universe works today on Trump's hinge of history.
2
Been there, done that:
" ... how about imposing a 100% inheritance tax? Oh, I can hear the caterwauling now."
The commenter who proposed this is probably not aware that George McGovern proposed exactly that during the 1972 Presidential campaign: a 100% tax on all estates (though his plan excluded the first $500,000, a much larger amount in those days). I thought McGovern's plan would be widely supported, since well over 95% of Americans (and voters) would pay no estate tax.
Wrong I was. McGovern's plan was almost universally panned, by rich and poor alike, and he dropped even further in the polls (ultimately being crushed by Nixon on Election Day).
The hard-to-miss lesson there is that most Americans do not want to "cap" their upside potential by confiscatory taxes. Even if the odds are very low that a tax increase will ever apply to them, they will oppose it if it might.
5
What would come to be known as the 'lottery mentality'.
And as we all know, the lottery is basically a tax on people who are bad at math. Okay, statistics, to be precise.
2
Trump supporters need to reap what they have sown. I bet they wouldn’t have it any other way.
4
Paul Krugman on another "the planet is doomed because of Trump" screed. This charlaton has been wrong on everything he has said over the past 10 years. How did his Keynesian economics work during the Obama Administration? Did any of his economic predictions during Obama's tenure come true? I remember seeing the word "unexpected" come up often when the "economists" predictions spectacularly failed.
2
How did Kenyesian economics work? Pretty damn good since it kept us out of another Great Depression.
I find that white rural relatives some of whom have had to rely on welfare programs oppose the programs they rely on or have relied on because "those" people get it - and of course they believe the myth of the "Welfare Queen" Reagan made up - people living the life of Riley on the lavish food stamp and cash assistance.
It is always the issue of race for them, blatant or implied. Welfare is bad if it goes to anyone browner than a bread crust in their eyes
5
If actions speak louder than words, then the Republican party is a party defined by an ideology of mean spirited miserliness.
6
Is the word “evil” too strong to describe the determination of Donald Trump and Republicans in the House of Representatives to deprive poor Americans from receiving Food Stamps?
Not only is evil not too strong to describe the cruelty exhibited by comfortable politicians against our fellow citizens in need, the word requires adverbs: very evil, extremely evil, incredibly evil, …
5
This the sick result of Calvinist predestination and prosperity gospel, which holds that worldly success comes to the self-styled righteous, no matter what they do, and that the poor deserve to suffer. And these hateful people call themselves Christians.
9
Didn’t someone describe Trump as hating to see any dollar that doesn’t go into his pocket?
5
It's like a giant, slow-motion Darwin Award experiment. These rural white voters who helped put Trump in office are the ones who will be hurt the most by his actions. As a result of losing access to nutrition and affordable health care they will die at increased rates, reducing their influence in future elections. It's a self limiting process.
4
I read J.D. Vance's book "Hillbilly Elegy" to understand the phenomenon of how the Democratic party lost the votes of people for whom they advocate. The direct beneficiaries of SNAP don't or can't vote. They are children, the disabled, the elderly and the despaired.
Vance himself states why he is a conservative. He explains his politics by relating an instance where he observed a SNAP recipient trading benefit coupons for cash and buying, beer soda and chips.
If the highly educated and successful Vance sees the poor as villains, more mean spirited legislation for the GOP is on the way.
4
My wife (80 years old) volunteers at Gleaner's Food Bank here in Michigan. We live in a "white bread" country full of Trump voters. Since she has been volunteering at the Food Bank, she has not see one African American come to the bank to collect food. 100% of the recipients are white. I hope these folks will realized the folly of their vote, come to their sense and vote intelligently next election....probably not.
8
Taxpayers should not be forced to contribute charity and that is what food stamps are. Most food stamps recipients are lazy or irresponsible - e.g. women having kids they can't afford. Paul Krugman and others are welcome to donate to food pantries and other such charities.
I do contribute to charities such as Special Olympics, pediatric aides and others where the recipients truly are deserving.
1
" I suspect that Trump himself still thinks of food stamps as a program for urban black people." Perhaps you are wrong, Mr. Krugman. Perhaps Mr. Trump is not a racist. Perhaps Food Stamps are not the best way to help the poor.
2
Even without the food stamps discussion, trump is still a racist.
1
Many Trump voters were part of an elite bunch, or at least upper middle class who voted the Orange Buffoon into office. I know for a fact that a big majority of my co-workers at a well known NY upstate hospital (doctors, RNs, many quite intelligent people with conservative leanings) were incredibly enthusiastic in their zeal to get Trump into The White House. In the years prior to Trump's ascendancy, it wasn't uncommon to here several nurses claim that President Obama was 'a muslim' and many of them quoted Fox News more times than I can remember. Talk of welfare recipients around the lunch table at work got very heated, and the anti-Wall Street demonstrations at Albany's capitol drew considerable ire, much of the wrath aimed at people collecting food stamps while 'us good honest folk' worked our butts off. I found working alongside so many of my co-workers on a day to day basis nearly intolerable ; granted many had good qualities, were thoroughly professional and dedicated to their professions, but there was among many of them a bull-headed cluelessness and stupidity when it came to basic facts of American History, politics, and socioeconomic matters. And the bile and hatred toward President Obama I found unfathomable. When Trump announced his birther nonsense in 2011, a lot these people believe him hook, line and sinker. It makes me feel that the United States of America is a broken country.
10
I've found these same opinions to be very common among the 'blue collar' computer technicians I work alongside, as well as some of the middle aged entry level or middle managers I come in contact with.
2
Trump steaks are best savored while drinking Trump wine in the faculty dining room of Trump University. Anything less and the true flavor of this con man's fraud can't be fully appreciated.
5
Very true... much like how the Imperial March can only be truly appreciated when played on vinyl.
Indeed. The cruelty has become much more blatant and widespread. Basic humanity is increasingly conflated with weakness. All suffer, but those on the margins of life suffer far more. And all to feed the egos of underdeveloped people who have no concept, at all, of enough.
2
Trump is government of the rich for the rich with total contempt and disdain for the poor and the vulnerable.
Unfortunately this appeals to many in the Republican Party and ironically to many in his so called White Religious Right Evangelical Base. He is truly an apostle of anger and hate!
6
No question that there is an element of not just indifference, but cruelty and meanness in Trump's policies. To pretend otherwise is ignoring the obvious. Trump radiates palpable and unbridled anger toward almost everything that creeps into his consciousness. Kindness does not appear to enter his psyche.
That said, Trump's willingness to seemingly turn his back on his core constituency reflects more than this. It manifests what so many of us already know: that Trump is a superficial, simple, binary, black and white sort of thinker, and that's being kind. He does not bother to consider the complexity of either the issues he faces, the policies he espouses and implements, or the consequences to others of his actions. Nor, apparently, does he care.
Trump's ham-handed and icy approach to life is not only a "don't bother me with the facts" approach to governing. It is also a form of brutality, one which demonstrates a coldness we've never seen before in a president, and should hope we never see again.
4
I have a friend who receives SNAP. An elderly man who voted for Trump. Of course, he does not believe that Trump would actually eliminate SNAP. Yes, Trump would do that.
Back to the friend, who is loved by many people. I cannot convince him about anything that has to do with Trump. I am silent, expect when a inlaw, viciously attach my friend. Why my friend, voted for Trump is a mystery to me. Maybe when his food stamps are cut, he will think differently.
6
"No, this is about petty cruelty turned into a principle of government. It’s about privileged people who look at the less fortunate and don’t think...." It's petty, but also self-righteous, brutal cruelty toward another human being. Of course there is no thought about who is impacted or what positive ways food sustains our young as well as seniors. The late priest Henri Nouwen noted that the root word for care is "Kara" which means to lament or to cry out for another person. He says we can all express care. We can, but many choose not to.
One evening an old Cherokee chief told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.”
“The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked, “Grandfather, which wolf wins?”
The old Cherokee chief simply replied, “The one you feed.”
6
There is something profoundly obscene in the Left's gullible belief in the Big Good Government taking care of everyone. I lived it in the USSR as a child, watching my parents being "taken care of" - all united and equal in their misery, poorness, and grim outlooks. Yes, indeed, let me eat Trumps' steaks instead: work hard, take care of myself and my family, save for my retirement on my own terms, and not to be beholden to the Great White Lie of the Democrat Party: that we are all entitled to something other then our right to work hard, to live smart, and to take care of ourselves and our loved ones free of the Government interference. Happily, there are enough people of my persuasion in this great country to deliver victories to the republicans over and over again for generations to come.
2
Pitiful that the very same people who voted for and blindly continue to support him will suffer the most.
Shamefully they put their racial prejudices and xenophobic beliefs where reasoning should have prevailed.
These are the same people who plea for government help when natural disasters strikes their region.
Perhaps when reality sinks in, if ever, they may admit their mistakes
3
Mr. Trump has managed to acquire every negative stereotype since he assumed the position at the Trump Org. & with the help of so many others equally disendowed to turn each into his chosen political rhetoric. Chronic ingratitude, cynicism, impulsiveness, & vengefulness aid Mr. Trump in this venture.
1
"Consider Owsley County, Ky., at the epicenter of Appalachia’s regional crisis. More than half the county’s population receives food stamps; 84 percent of its voters supported Trump in 2016. Did they know what they were voting for?"
While I don't want to sound heartless like Whinin' Don, maybe it's time they learned [what they were voting for]?
1
What isn’t fundamentally obscene about Trump? His idea of having a sense of humor is being able to mock someone behind their back, especially for their sincere acts. He is bright but is lazy and works only at conning gullible people, when mocks them. He defiles every norm that has made this nation great in his quest to MAGA. Of course it disgusts him that some person somewhere is getting something without running a con.
2
I have often wondered about the brain and thought processes of conservative Republicans. But no more. My neighbors have a son just about to turn two years old. He is self-centered, greedy, selfish, given to temper tantrums when he doesn't get what he wants, impulsive and ungovernable. The other day I turned to my bride and exclaimed "OMG, he's a Republican!"
4
I grew up on a ranch and started working as soon as I was big enough to lead a steer or pick up a bale of hay. I've always worked -- have drawn unemployment benefits a couple of times, most recently in the mid-nineties. From the '70's until today, the longest I have worked for one employer is 7 1/2 years. I've never been fired...never even had an "average" evaluation...always received high marks from employers. Each time I had to start again it was due to a buy-out, reorganization, down-sizing, or even malfeasance at the executive level. Now, at 60, I can only hope the company I have worked for the last 4 years stays healthy for the next 10. I will be heavily dependent on SS when I try to retire at 70. There is so much that can go wrong in the meantime, including the destruction of SS and Medicare. I'm putting as much as possible in my 401K, but realize that if this company goes belly up, I may have to use that money to survive as I struggle to find new work. It isn't a hammock of complacency that I occupy and I really don't see that as the case for those folks working full-time for minimum wage or only able to get 2 or 3 part time jobs (I've been there, too.) We have to stand up to the greed that has stolen our country.
10
Trump apparently uses many loopholes and shell games to avoid paying his share of income tax. Why isn't that welfare?
8
In Wisconsin, Land of Paul "Ayn Rand" Ryan and "Choir Boy" Scott Walker, they're trying to make it even harder to get food stamps with tougher work requirements, rules about "healthy food" and drug testing. They really know how to "show love."
3
I'm a big Krugman (and food stamps) fan, but I'm really afraid that this op-ed is going into the wrong direction.
Today, 7 out of 10 GOP voters who are paying taxes, SUPPORT the idea to cut welfare.
You cannot possibly explain this away by suggesting that tens of millions of Americans must be "cruel", in other words bad, evil people. Doing so places us on the same level of "analysis" as the Hannity's and Limbaugh's of this world, in other words, ground zero of intellectual debate. America's poor deserve better than that.
So WHY is it that so many good, decent ordinary citizens support dismantling the safety net, which de facto brings us closer to full-fledged "savage capitalism", where each individual is on his own, except if you're wealthy enough to buy politicians and obtain laws that increase your wealth even more?
They do so not because they want to harm people (cruelty), but because they sincerely believe that THIS is the only way to MAGA.
Centuries of certain forms of Christian philosophy have taught them that life is hard and people weak and sinful, so only "punishment" will force us to get up and work, every morning. Financial hardship is THE punishment needed here.
And God knows that tens of millions today are having jobs that indeed destroy all humanity and (self-)compassion inside them, so for them this isn't merely "philosophy", it's daily life. And it's only fair IF others are forced to do the same.
That's what we'll have to address, to win this fight...
2
I look at what it’s like to be poor or vulnerable in America and it scares me. Our elderly poor are like lambs to the slaughter. I work and save not to get rich but to avoid being poor because it’s no fun being dependent for help in Trumps America.
3
In their world, the "winners" and the only people to be respected are those who can pull one over on the less fortunate, their "marks".
2
How can we help hungry children when their parents keep voting for Mitch McConnell, Trump, and Rand Paul?
2
America is not great again. It may never be great again. America no longer has anything to be proud of. America abandons it's most vulnerable, the poor, the aged, the children in order to give more money to people who have so much they have no hope of ever spending it. America should be ashamed.
2
In every photo and every television appearance, Trump has the blank black eyes of a great white shark. They are, perhaps, the most visible manifestation of a predator always on the hunt for weaker prey on which to feed. Although Trump has no policies or beliefs other than self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment, he found a natural home in the Republican Party because it has "turned petty cruelty into a principle of government," as Mr. Krugman says. And Trump is full of petty cruelties.
3
Organize to get votes out in November to stop this horror.
2
Just a quick note. I am in Fort Lauderdale Florida because of a need for a hip operation. My wife and I are staying at a modest Airbnb location close to the hospital. The lady who greeted us upon our arrival told us that she worked two jobs. Her husband in this in his 60s cannot work because of a disability. So she manages this small eight unit complex in return for the housing here which is a one bedroom apartment. Her other work includes House cleaning pet sitting and any other odd jobs her clients may require. On the ninth of the month she told my wife that their food stamp allocation parentheses $180 per month parentheses had already been used up. So here we are not halfway through the month and the food stamps have run out and our friend our lady neighbor has to look to scrounging a few dollar just walking dogs on the street or cleaning someone’s house to make it through to the next food stamp application. I can’t express enough my frustration my sadness and my anger over this situation. All of these emotions compounded by the news of our great corporations AT&T Novartis and others making multi million dollar contributions to political slush fund, Claiming normal business practice. No wonder Trump won. Believe me, the revolution is not far off at this rate.
3
Paul Ryan's father died when he was a teenager. The family became dependent on government benefits. NOW -- he wants to deny benefits to people like his who had fallen on hard times. He is the worst hypocrite of all.
2
It is tragic that the people who voted against their own interests by following the evil Pied Piper are now the ones who are suffering. Our education system did not teach them to think. As well as giving food and money to the food banks we must work to improve Access to schools that will teachi future generations. But we must continue to feed and nourish the children so that they can learn.
" Let Them Eat Trump Steaks ". I completely agree. Actual Trumps, and others of his ilk. High protein and in some cases, huge amounts of blubber. Perfect for fattening up for long, cold Winters, and for the neighborhood cookouts all Summer long. Nutrition, Recycling and Pest Control in one step. Just saying.
1
Thank you Paul. Powerful writing. Voices like yours will get rid of this monstrous regime
GOP--the party of greed, bigotry, and hate, without an ounce of compassion. These are the dolts who each believe some version of the story that they "earned" their favored position in society--even Ryan who likely wouldn't be where he is today without social welfare programs since he received Social Security survivors’ benefits as a minor. They have no conscience in taking the very bread out of poor children's mouths. Hopefully these people will finally comprehend the exact nature of the monsters they helped vote into office.
1
Good reasoning. Another cause is using it to gain support/vote from majority of people who didn't have enough time to research the subject, or read the NYT.
"Let me be upfront here: There’s something fundamentally obscene about this spectacle."
The obscenity lie not in the spectacle (which calls for empathy and pity, as well as more fresh food rather than the unhealthy tinned stuff and carbs -- grocery items that are easier to warehouse) -- not disgust.
No, the obscenity (which generates disgust) belongs to Trump and his ilk. (Which you do say, I acknowledge.) It's just that the obscenity charge needs to be sheeted home to the perpetrator rather than the result.
Number 1 Reader Pick and Times Pick Betsy B, Dallas and most of the replies to date tell the fundamental American story, underscored by coming from wealthy Dallas and point to the endless need for the Times to provide separate Fact Boxes as my Swedish newspaper DN often does.
Readers in other countries often note that in the country they live in, one reply from Canada the man in Betsy B's account would have been much better supported both financially and in terms of care.
Perhaps the Times Reader Center (a virtual center led by an invisible person) could at least read our comments and learn what the Times might add to its presentations.
Here the Times could help Paul Krugman with a fact box - 3 or 5 more advanced countries what would a person experience in each.
I have helped a person for 18 years who came to Sweden as a refugee from the Iran-Iraq war. Illiterate in his two mother tongues, several substantial psychological and health problems, but supported on many fronts to live a decent life.
n = 1 story but supplemented by the fact that in 22 years in Sweden in many different grocery stores I have never seen anything close to what Betsy B reports. Will observe closely in American supermarkets in June.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
3
As long as there is ONE dilapidated little shack in Georgia (or pick you state) with a Cadillac parked out front the republicans will never rest. It drives them crazy (a very short trip).
One of the people running the government since 2017 is Paul Ryan. He is the poster boy for cruelty towards the poor. He more than anyone should have compassion for the struggling poor, as he was raised by a single mother who depended on the government for survival. If a republican like him can't champion social programs, its hard to see how someone like trump and his ilk could. Now he leaves Congress and really takes advantage of government.
3
One is tempted to say "well, if the rural poor who voted for Trump get their welfare cut, isn't that a form of rough justice?" However, the truly perverse thing here is that the worse the lives of these people get, the more they hate government, and the more they vote for people like Trump. Coming up with a message to effectively deal with this is one of the biggest challenges facing democrats.
Prime example of people voting against their own interest, duped by a con man. These diehard Trump supporters need to get woke and realize he's playing them for fools. Worse, he's taking away the very programs that allow them to live. Wake up!
"They don’t want to help the less fortunate."
This is the main reason conservatives don't like government programs that help the poor. Racism certainly plays a part. Conservatives also don't want government telling them what to do with their money. (Some conservatives give to charity.) They see government's role as providing security (the military) and law and order (police), and not much more.
Many of these conservatives are Christian evangelicals who think they are doing God's work on earth.
"No, this is about petty cruelty turned into a principle of government. It’s about privileged people who look at the less fortunate and don’t think, “There but for the grace of God go I”; they just see a bunch of losers. They don’t want to help the less fortunate; in fact, they get angry at the very idea of public aid that makes those losers a bit less miserable."
Let's unpack this for a moment.
1. Cruelty.
Contrary to what some comments already suggested the last time that Krugman used this word to describe GOP behavior, by definition cruelty means causing physical or mental harm to someone, whether intentionally OR NOT. And this is yet another GOP decision that will cause tremendous harm, so yes, it is cruel.
2. If "cruelty" is the only reason you can find to explain someone's behavior, you actually mean that he's INTENTIONALLY trying to cause harm. And that, of course, is bad ...
3. ... unless you do it in order to increase your victim's "well-being". And that's the "philosophical" motivation behind the conservative rejection of "welfare". As long as we don't address this most "noble" reason, but merely depict them as bad people, we won't have the debate that is needed and people will continue to vote for the GOP.
What do you do when your child cries and you want it to stop, "traditionally"? You slap it on the face. And then it shuts up and continues eating. Your action may be misguided, but your motivation is positive.
People vote for slap-in-the-face, not cruelty.
The people of Owsley County, Ky. want jobs. The democratic candidate told them that coal was dead, and talked a lot about transgendered rights and DACA. The same candidate took $400k for a Wall Street speech, refused to release the transcript, and then said (with a straight face) that the money wouldn't influence her. Exactly why do you think the people of Owsley County, Ky should have seen her as their champion?
1
I really, really hope they do this. Why? It's the only way to get a Republican voter to understand just exactly where the pain comes from. There are no Democrats to blame this time. The need for food stamps is highest in Republican states. That is simply a fact. When we Dems say we don't like trump or the Republican agenda we are told to just get over it. Well, when you are told to go get a job in order to get help with food and there are absolutely no jobs in sight then I say get over it. Speaking of jobs, where is the glorious infrastructure/jobs bill from the Republicans?
1
It is even more perplexing when you add the fact that a considerable percentage call themselves "Christians", people that should care for the less fortunate.
A little while ago someone asked Pope Francis is you should give money to someone asking for it on the streets. What if that person did not need it, if the person was just trying to swindle you?
Pope Francis answer: "Just give the money. Even if the person does not need it, you did the right thing, because you can't risk NOT helping others when you can."
Enough said...
1
My first instinct was to post, "I hope all the Trump supporters on food stamps starve to death." However, that is not a very Christian thing to think and feel. Their kids are innocent and even though their parents impede progress and enable a morally repugnant scam artist to rob our democracy blind, I can't help but pity them. At the same time, they just make me so very angry. They drain the humanity and compassion right out of you with their smug ignorance and self-destructive worship of the rich. The worst thing is that they cry about elitism when they think they know better than climate experts, economists, and healthcare policy wonks. They are the worst kind of elitists because they think their opinions are inherently better than people who have dedicated their lives to amassing expertise on very complex subjects. Trump's delusional arrogance mirrors theirs when it comes to policy. That's why his intelligence briefings are half a sheet long. They think having a gut feeling and being a "red blooded American" qualifies them to override experts in subjects they know nothing about. They remind me of the proles in Orwell's 1984. They rage at a world larger than themselves about which they know nothing, and yet so much of our future hinges upon them waking up and realizing who's really to blame for all their economic woes.
Dr. Krugman later in his column hits on the racist nature of these cuts. The NYT recently shed light on the Michigan Republican legislature's attempts to put working stipulations on these entitlements. However, they are also placing an exemption on "rural" districts with high unemployment. Rural districts being a euphemism for mostly white, poor districts. Urban areas are not exempt from the legislation. Governor Snyder's stooges are at it again, and more than likely the Michigan electorate, with it's 'infinite wisdom', will return these fools to power in November.
1
One wonders if Trump ever read Ayn Rand. Paul Ryan certainly did, and his contempt for the less fortunate clearly flows from Rand.
Let's look at it from a purely economic perspective, something republicans might relate to - especially the elderly poor who qualify for SNAP are not lazy, or in Ryan's comfortable hammock, they are living independently and less expensively than if they were in government supported assisted living or nursing homes. Providing modest support to allow individuals to live independently is the most cost effective solution.Although there is the call to reduce Medicaid support for those individuals as well. We can't even suggest they find an ice floe to go and die on with climate change.
2
Sometimes when friends and I are shooting the breeze over a beer, we'll play this parlor game of "What Is Going On In Republicans' Minds." Our attempts can sometime be amusing, but none have distilled it as well as Mr. Krugman's sobering next-to-the-last paragraph (the one that begins "No, this is about petty cruelty..."). As Brian Williams recently observed on his MSNBC program, some people just seem to be born lacking the compassion gene. It's probably been this way since time immemorial, but here's hoping that those of us that have some choice in the matter will soon return to a more compassionate view of the world.
5
Scientific studies of the last two decades show that compassion is innate in all human beings, BUT also a skill that has to be trained, if not, it remains underdeveloped.
Even more importantly, without any doubt, is the fact that studies also show that the extent to which people behave compassionately towards others, is directly determined by the extent to which they have been able to develop a slightly different skill: self-compassion.
That means that people voting for policies that are the exact opposite of compassionate politics, are clearly NOT evil or bad, as individuals. But they do are suffering from circumstances in life that never allowed them to learn how to develop self-compassion, and as a consequence, never allowed them to learn how to develop compassion for others.
It also means that if we ourselves want to cultivate compassion, we have to urgently STOP considering GOP voters as evil or subhuman beings, and use our moral imagination to try to feel what it means to grow up in a world without compassion, and to try to invent news ways to approach them in a compassionate way, day after day, until they too can start to develop self-compassion and subsequently compassion for others.
Many fundamentally human skills can only be trained when initiated by others.
It's time to put our lofty ideals into practice ... in our conversations about and with GOP voters too.
1
Paul Krugman didn't have space to include all of Mr. Trump's nefarious sources of wealth, so let me add one that's particularly galling: property tax breaks in the hundreds of millions of dollars for his real estate ventures, in New York City (and surely many other places as well.) Those of us who live in the city have been quite generous, even lavish, in supporting him with our funding. You'd think he'd have more of a heart.
3
Of course. Republican voters think;
the rich are too poor
and the poor are too rich.
4
What is it about Republicans?...or is it Conservatives? Dr K says it's "petty cruelty turned into a principle of government". Has meanness become a part of the American psyche?
It's OK to give welfare to the rich; tax breaks for big business; and subsidies to industries like pharmaceutical companies who don't need it. But let's take away that poor kid's dinner. I don't get it. I thought since they were big on protecting "religious freedom" it would follow that they practice at least one of the principles of religion like compassion. I guess the meek need to get a job.
It's now an American zero sum dream. The rich and powerful crush those below them on the way up.
6
The US right wing is comprised of egregious abusers of language. Trump's angry mob of nihilists are reactionaries, not conservatives. Real conservatives conserve and real liberals liberate.
3
That’s their religion, the Prosperity Gospel. It preaches that poor people are poor because God decrees that they don’t deserve to be rich, that they don’t meet the qualifications.
2
7% of veterans are receiving food stamps out of the snap program. 40% of the food in the United States is wasted. That excludes Trump's bloated body.
4
Gee Paul, as I remember the horrid 2017 tax cut bill takes $1.5 trillion dollars from the poor and middle class to give these monies to the 1% and corporations? Reverse Robin Hood from the Greed Over People party!
1
if the president and republicans are so business oriented then the SNAP program brings enormous health and economic benefits to this nation. people, farmers,businesses
2
In this time of Trump and his oleaginous (Thank you George Will) these are politics where it is much easier to dismiss than be empathetic
Despite Trump and the "new GOP" taking away their benefits, their food assistance and their medical care, the white rural poor will line up to vote for him again in '20.
Facts have no place in today's politics.
3
Paul Ryan needs to walk a few miles in the lives of SNAP recipients. I’m not even suggesting such an act for Trump, since he is willfully obstinate in his refusal to grant equal right to anyone else’s existence but his own!
This nation has become a farce. It didn't start with Trump, but certainly its policies riddled with callousness and disdain for the poor and working classes are now out in the open and on full display each and every day for the world to see. American values? It's just a phrase the GOP loves to regurgitate on cue in front of the cameras. Every breath they take is and has been for the benefit of those at the top and a life of poverty and austerity served to everyone else.
5
It's all just "God's Will" to people who believe Trump is magic.
It all goes full circle, the wise folks who elected him, voting for some absurd fantasy while voting against their own interests, will suffer the most because that’s the result of being uninformed and doing the aforementioned.
There is no national daycare policy in the United States. So I ask: How are hungry mothers who lack childcare expected to work and look after their children simultaneously?
(Not an experience the President and his Congressional allies know a lot about.)
When did "Republican" become a synonym for "I don't want to part with a cent if it means it'll go to a fellow human being"?
If Melania wants to stand up for American kids, maybe she should talk about the most vulnerable: hungry children living in poverty.
7
I have gotten food stamps on very rare occasions when I COULDN’T find work. I wonder with the work requirements if they’re going to actually offer jobs...
Ha ha, you know I’m joking....
1
Just imagine the following: a group of Trumpians propose manufacturing food just for the food stamp class: fast foodishly addictive (the food industry already know how to make food addictive), low quality, and, of course, profitable. And another Trumpian ready to open a chain of "grocery" stores (with federal contract, like private prisons) where the needy and hungry MUST go to get their "food" (rather like the company stores of yore. The two Trumpians lobby their Trumpian reps and senators, who, see their plan as a way to be able to claim they have done away with food stamps/public assistance. Laws are passed to green light the plan. Then this "grocery" chain can begin offering public shares on Wall Street. It really is a brilliant scheme because there will be a guaranteed customer base, which means guaranteed cash flow that doesn't appear to be from the government but is in reality. And farmers can benefit by selling their surplus and lower quality crops and animals to low budget food processing operations (subsidiaries of the major food producers and retailers), which receive huge tax cuts proess. And the main stream shoppers won't be bothered by sights of the poor in the checkout lines. Of course the Trumpian conservative reps and senators will also pass laws making it impossible for people who buy this "food" to sue for food borne illnesses. Trumpians will be smugly satisfied; liberals will be rightfully outraged. When does the revolt begin? 2018!
I'm certainly not a Trump fan--far from it, Hillary through and through--but these people in Kentucky were on food stamps long before Trump was elected.
I believe we have all--liberals and conservatives alike--let the poor, undereducated in our country down. Their reaction when given a match: burn down the house!
Or, in this case, the country. What do they have to lose?
2
The headline is perfect and it seems to be dead on. Anyone who has had to use food stamps knows that it is not a lot of funds at all. But the myths of buying steaks are an indication of the recipients stupidity, not failure in the program. Most say, I got to stretch x for the month. Though as a tax payer I hate waste, I also hate demonization. I have never met one person on SNAP that have “an easy life.” Period. In large pockets where SNAP use is high, doesn’t that indicate that the area is depressed and needs intervention? I am sure that if a call center were to open up hiring at $11 an hour, that people would flood over to apply. Maybe the solution is more of a several prong approach than a one prong solution
1
What Krugman fails to see is that our national deficit is astronomical, the welfare rolls have exploded in the last 10 years under democratic leadership.
The president, and many of us working 60 hours a week, want to see the rest of our citizens make an effort and get some skin in the game. I believe the Bible said it best, "if a man shall not work, he shall not eat"
I simply cannot believe that 7,000,000 Americans cannot find a suitable job or the means to take care of themselves without government assistance, I will not believe it.
By the way, well-dressed monkey could get a job environment where the jobless rate is approaching 3 1/2%.
1
We have record unemployment now. Maybe some of these people can get a job.
2
Is there an accepted figure for the number of welfare recipients who are actually "cheating" to receive their benefits? I suspect it would be much lower than conservative Republicans think.
1
If taking away "unearned" benefits from people is such a great motivator, how about imposing a 100% inheritance tax? Oh, I can hear the caterwauling now.
Ryan is a one-percenters who really has no idea he did not get from ideological polemicists and Trump is fecklessly ignorant, preferring in any case to use cheap foreign labor whenever possible or simply not pay his contractors, which he sees as just another way to improve gross margin. And I say this being a confirmed card-carrying capitalist.
2
I never had any illusions about Donald Trump being anything other than he is.
Namely greedy, miserly, racist, corrupt.
He made that name for himself here in New York City through the years, but nothing crystalized it more than his reaction to the 'Central Park 5', a group of young men of colour who were falsely accused of assaulting a white woman in Central Park.
Donald Trump took it upon himself to place full-page ads in the tabloids not only judging them as guilty, but pressing for the death sentence.
As it turned out, they were all found innocent of the crime.
When it comes to race matters, everything Trump has said or done since then is on par with that shameful experience.
He ran as a racist candidate with the endorsement of white supremacists, and continues to count them as part of his most avid base.
There is little doubt that his attack in the supplemental food program came as a swipe at all people of colour, whom he oviously regards as lazy, shiftless and undeserving of any kind of assistance.
One look at the U.S.D.A. proposed 'America's Harvest Box' proves that.
Not only is it void of anything even vaguely fresh and nutritional, it would never pass muster with any of those who would willfully foist it upon others.
And that this country is one of the most agriculturally fruitful and productive on the planet only makes this more of a crime than it already is.
But sadly, it's not at all surprising.
"This is America".
4
In this column, you seem to truly care about the poor. If this is true, why then were you so against universal healthcare, as proposed by Bernie Sanders, in the 2016 primaries. You called his policy proposals "rainbows and unicorns"?
Many Trump and Republican policies now are anti-children. Children don't vote and can be discarded. Look at the borders. Separating children from their families is an atrocity and a crime against humanity. The US hasn't done this before but under Trump it has become policy. You read sick posts and Trump has hinted that immigrants are "breeding" Democratic voters.
Money for CHIPs which helps provide insurance for millions of poor children is taken away by the same Republican Congress that just voted to give more than $1.5 to the wealthy in tax cuts. Public education is being systematically destroyed by DeVos. Nutrition for infants and mothers is always a target. The SNAP program feeds hungry children. Republicans have repeatedly tried to end maternity coverage insurance. Maternity death rates have soared, and babies are harmed. Some politicians have proposed that school children work for their meals. The traumatized kids at Parkland were viciously attacked twice, once by a mass shooter and second by Republicans.
So anti children programs target the most innocent, the most vulnerable population in the country. Only in the era of Trump has America systematically been so cruel.
Bless the little children.
7
Despite what Emma Lazarus wrote, America will only accept and keep the healthy, successful , and yes, “white” newcomers.
Trump will have her words chiseled off the Statue of Liberty and replaces with “Welcome to Trumpland”, with a box for the entrance fee.
1
"Did they know what they were voting for?"
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. - H. L. Mencken
1
Uh, oil industry subsidies? They're on welfare as well.
2
When it comes to benefits for the poor and near poor, we are a stingy country. The benefits are quite different from state to state. In Mississippi, the highest amount of food stamps a person on Social Security can get, no matter how small their check, is $16. The only SS recipients who can get more are those with dependents. Mississippians pay a 7% sales tax on all their groceries. Even the non-profit food pantries have to pay 7% on all the groceries they buy. That's how the "good Christians" roll, folks.
1
We are witness to the plunder
Our country torn asunder
Distracted by the madness of a clown
Now we face our darkest hour
The vandals have the power
And everything we've built
They're tearing down, tearing down
Oh, everything we've built
They're tearing down
"Why would anyone want to do that?" A: Ayn Rand. Stop letting Republicans get away with fealty to atheist economic philosophy when they always pretend to be holier than thou,
Only after Trump supporters lose their SNAP will they realize Trump's true goals.
2
In a country where the accumulation of wealth is the state religion, the wealthy are exulted as gods and the poor are excommunicated.
2
yep, my mother raised me on food stamps and unlike the vast majority of Republicans I did my four years and paid taxes my whole adult life as well.
2
We should not assume that the people in poor, rural-red and Appalachia who voted for DT are the poor people there. Typically the poorest who will lose-out due to food stamps etc, are not as likely to vote. The people in those red areas who do reliably vote are largely the middle class who do work and resent the poor amongst them. This resentment against the freeloading poor is, I think, very local.
3
Mr. Krugman hit just about every progressive spin and slander in his defense of our immoral welfare state. Food stamps are one of a suite of taxpayer subsidies paying people to remain under or unemployed and thus to stay in or near poverty. Our progressive government then punishes these dependents for obtaining a middle class job by withdrawing tens of thousands in subsidies and imposing taxes. When Seattle decreed a $15 an hour minimum wage, government dependents worked fewer hours to maintain these subsidies.
2
Food stamps are being totally abused. My friend was laid off but has a wife with a well paying job. They live in a new apartment complex in a hip area of SF and pay over $4000 per month in rent. Yet he gets food stamps. It’s incredible. You get $400. It comes on a credit card.
How did I find out? We went for dinner and I felt bad that he got laid off and was going to pay for dinner again. But he was like no way man, I get so much money for free.
1
Sympathy grows for the folks who suffered under the mindless fanaticism in other places and other times. Resistance is so difficult. The barrage of Trump lies is overpowering. The Trump Fox propaganda is its own ecosystem for many citizens. The Trump Republican attacks on the foundations of democracy are unending. Reports of Trump White House corruption, self-dealing and incompetence fill the days. Resist, resist. Because it is the right thing to do.
And read once again the Christmas sermons and other writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
1
These stories are often portrayed as "the poor voting against their own interests" (as implied by the photo caption that accompanies this piece). But as the New York Times itself revealed in its 2015 in-depth piece, "Who Turned My Blue State Red," that is not actually the case. What's happening is that the poor don't vote, period. And it's the people a rung or two above them on the economic ladder who are voting against the interests of the poor who they see as unworthy of "handouts." In short, what we have here is a compassion deficit. A gigantic lack of empathy or interest in understanding the struggles of those neediest among us by a large share of the voting public. In a so-called "Christian" land, this should be shocking to everyone. I would love to see the New York Times in-depth piece examining this pervasive compassion deficit in America today. Where did it come from? What drives it? How do we address it?
2
Yes- it's another right wing "value" - depriving poor families of food stamps "for their own good."
The amazing thing is how many people voting Republican actually believe that the ideologues pushing these memes care about peope who are struggling to make ends meet.
What a collossal scam.
Mr. Krugman writes these long condemnation op-eds as though they contain the certitude of a deity, AKA, professor. In this op-ed about food, he can't go there until he has thrown in a few pearls of his wisdom about Iran and tax cuts. Isn't Mr. Krugman the one who predicted, if Trump was president a "global recession with no end in sight". When he finally gets around to the program, he lashes out at the idea that recipients must work if they can in order to be helped with such programs as SNAP and food stamps. But then he makes this statement, “ Able-bodied SNAP recipients who should be working but aren’t, are very hard to find”. The vast majority of the program’s beneficiaries, he admits, are working. So, it turns out, according to Mr. Krugman, that it will be very hard to find those not eligible because of the work requirements. Their wages may not be high but they are working. Then he brings out the “racism” word. But he adds this, “while many urban blacks do get food stamps, so do many rural whites. Nationally, significantly more whites than blacks receive food stamps.” We do have to acknowledge that he generally does put into his declarations, parts that seem to contradict the other parts. He deserves credit for that.
2
Guns vs butter is the classic metaphor about priorities. We increased Military spending $60b, close to what SNAP costs $70b. So I suppose it is fiscally responsible if you care about budgets (giggle!).
But wait! Is this truly Conservative? or what is Conservative? I think a lot of people think proudly that they are conservative. I think that might mean being hardworking, careful with money, being honorable and willing to help neighbors, and, for some, being religious and for some admiring the military. None of those things are bad. However, there is increased hate for liberals, who nonetheless probably agree with the above principles but think that a better world can be had if we expand the term "neighbor". A discussion with a narrow gap has changed to pitched battles bordering on violence. Giving food and help to neighbors in need is part of our custom and morality. Certainly we could all volunteer food and time to find and help those in need instead of SNAP but don't go on about who is conservative or liberal, just ask did you help your neighbor or not. "A house divided will soon fall", we have to stop attacking each other, we are all Americans, we need common ground and thoughtful political discussion.
3
Since Trump graduated the military academy where he learned absolutely nothing about truth, honor, responsibility, humility or just plain good citizenship, I wonder if he has ever broken a sweat as the result of physical exertion. A day's honest labor he has never performed. He certainly has never perspired from the worry of from where his next meal will come.
Oblivion is Trump's natural state of being, as far as having any experience with what day to day life entails for the indigent. His opinion of this segment of citizens is even lower than was Mitt Romney's assessment of the 47% of us who are "takers." (Apparently being on Medicare and receiving Social Security qualifies one for that designation. Never mind the 45-65 years spent living paycheck to paycheck and paying taxes, or the years spent in uniform in foreign jungles and deserts.)
There does seem to be a very positive correlation between possessing vast wealth and the belief that anyone not wealthy is undeserving. Undeserving of what? Pretty much any and everything, but the provision of a decent meal is as good a place as any to start the litany of grievances against the poor. The less people have, the more they deserve...to be despised.
4
The battle is about helping those never shown a way, that have fallen thru a crack. Not the truly dependent or those in life's valleys. It is about encouraging those who could, to become those that can. Food i.e. agriculture, is one of the few American industries yet to be hampered by the mythology of Progressive philosophers. Though not for lack of their pontifical-espousals. They're still trying; while claiming the planet will soon be overheating, they oppose GM that can produce crops in arid environments. Thankfully, feeding the hungry is not a problem. Enticing with rewards, e.g., good grades, allowances, more freedom with being responsible; it's an attempt at parenting those that didn't receive or accept any.
See it that way, Paulie; you'll feel better about being honest with yourself.
We need to increase the minimum wage because some people on SNAP are already working. Taxpayers increase the profits of businesses that do not pay their workers a living wage.
We ought to make sure that children are well nourished because they need to learn, do well in school, and become productive adults. They are our now and our future.
2
There is an element of sadism and cruelty to this that the Republican base applauds. Sadopopulism indeed.
9
Upon reading this article, I am reminded of the work houses that Charles Dickens often wrote about. In those days, the politicians were so worried that by giving starving people a free bowl of soup with a little bread they would become "lazy" that they established public work houses where they would do nonsensical tasks to "earn" their daily meals. To those on the evangelical conservative right wing of politics, I ask them to consider whether Jesus wondered if, after feeding the hungry multitudes with fish and bread, he was making all of these people lazy. Those of this political persuasion should wonder about their system of values reflect those noted in the sermon on the mount. In short, we are what we value. People who are hungry and needy should not be viewed simply as being lazy or losers. Those who reflect such views do not deserve to hold public office, especially when they get a very good salary for working only about 30% of the year-- at most. Now tell me, just who is lazy and "feeding at the public trough"?
15
The saddest words I've heard recently are the ones you use to end your column - "And these are the people now running America".
How did we sink so low? What happened to America as the shining city on the hill? And how do we recover our standing in the world?
10
The US trained its public down to be governed by gangsters. David Brooks describes where Trump comes from in his column today.
If you are a realist, and if facts matter to you, it is possible to understand the Trump/GOP attitude towards SNAP. "Die sooner" is good for the finances of Social Security and Medicare. If those wrongly labeled "entitlements" are less costly in the aggregate because people have gone ahead and died at young ages (65 - 70) instead of the 80+ that modern medicine and better diet allow), then there is more opportunity to cut taxes on the rich! Who needs all those old people!
4
Thank you Paul. I have been uttering these words for longer than I like to remember to both my Democrat and Republican friends.
They appear to be deaf on this subject. "Don't bother me with the fact," they say, in effect. It's hard to understand how heartless they can be on a subject, but then again, when you look at our leader, who thinks everything is a "deal or no deal," you can see the twisted logic that comes into play.
I fear that they will never understand that there are people who are simply incapable or have been denied the opportunity to lead a productive life. It is so very sad, and yet, we keep electing them.
8
God wished the whole universe into existence in six days. Magicians like Trump just need a little longer.
It has been my experience that many Republicans have a unique inability to either empathize or sympathize with those who have come upon hard times.
It would appear that for them to actually experience some measure of empathy for those undergoing difficult times -- spiritually, mentally, or physically -- they themselves would have to have fallen upon hard times of one kind or another. Otherwise, they blithely write off other people's misery and pain as a natural result of making the wrong choices.
Republicans simply can't grasp that life sometimes imposes difficulties that are hard to overcome without some outside assistance. A perfect example of this is the Great Depression of the 1930s.
It wasn't until FDR had the good sense to use a Keynesian approach to stimulating the economy by using an aggressive approach to federal spending designed to resuscitate an economy on life support....To the Republicans, this was a form of heresy. President Obama used similar tactics when he inherited a weak economy on the verge of collapse from his Republican predecessor. Such an approach is similar to "allopathic medicine" which embraces a similar philosophy, i.e. when feeling down, stimulate. And when overly excited, take a depressant, or sedative. The same scenario applies to economics.
1
Economic product is measured in exchange of money. Depression follows from stagnant money. Taxation and spending through the public sector keep money moving in slow times, and when inflation sets in, the public sector can tax more and spend slower to cool it off. This is Fiscal Policy 101.
1
...And that's essentially what I said in a more descriptive manner. Your is the Cliff Notes version.
The people who put Trump into office are in the middle class and "small business owners" who don't care about anything except if the "economy" is doing well so they can keep their jobs or keep their customers coming in and spending. They are the ones who are most afraid of being on "welfare" but won't admit it. Instead, they would rather look down on the people who really need it as "lazy" or "scammers" while they are "working hard." This is a larger problem with this competitive economic system because (all) the lower classes are forced to fight over the scraps thrown down by the wealthy. This piece is what happens when you attack economic problems from the center right. Begging and having to prove the "value" in taking care of the people with the least is never going to win over the far right. Trump is the product of capitalism—not its creator.
2
There are two groups of people who will never understand the nature and limitations of poverty. One is the person who has never had to worry about money and never experienced powerlessness. Their attitude can be defined by the famous remark of Marie Antoinette: "They don't have bread, let them eat cake". People for whom poverty is incomprehensible. The second group is composed of people who have achieved success through work and talent and fail to understand why other people aren't like them. " If I can rise from poverty, so can they." For them, it is a failure of will. They will not consider adverse circumstances, lack of opportunity, physical limitations and other obstacles thrown in the paths of the poor. They always see them as lazy and a burden on society who should be forced to work.
7
One wonders why economically disadvantaged Americans, especially white Americans, vote against there own self-interests. They have been doing so for decades. My sympathy for their hardships is tempered by the fact that so many of them continually support the people who wish to dismantle such programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP upon which so many of them depend. As for pious folk like Paul Ryan - well they are just CHINOs - Christians In Name Only.
4
"...there’s strong evidence that children in low-income families that receive food stamps become more productive and healthier adults, which means that the program is actually good for long-run economic growth." It's yet another twofer for Republicans. They not only get to take away support from those who truly need it, including their own supporters, but help make them sick with potentially no health care that they are also trying to take away. Makes me sick, so to speak.
3
America 2.0. I got mine. Screw everybody else.
9
The other side of cutting food stamps is the consequences for the rest of us from having 2 million people who have nothing to eat. Grocers will lose the revenue from those 2 million people, churches will be opening soup kitchens, if they haven't already, the poor will become homeless, tent cities will grow, and desperate people will turn to crime, making our world more dangerous and imposing more costs for prisons. Given the cost of maintaining someone in prison (one estimate was some $50,000 per year), what is the savings from denying people food? I would rather devote my taxes to helping people buy food through the usual commercial system, than to build more prisons. I would not force people to beg on the streets or rely on charity.
6
Did not able bodied Paul Ryan receive public benefits? That might explain his lull ness when it comes to reading numbers.
Snatching food from children..while Trump’s Cabinet member spends $30,000 on furniture alone..
Should trump pull out funding children’s food programs..we should ask those MET gala stars who donned gowns worth millions. Or maybe Barbra Streisand can spare some change after she has finished cloning all her dogs. Plenty of obscene money to go around, privately, enough to fund massive number of poor folks all around the world, should priorities shift a little.
5
It's up for debate whether the privileged, rich and lavishly dressed Queen Marie Antoinette said these words when she was informed that the populous of France was starving, They are the first words that came to my mind;
“Let them eat cake”
I hope the tribe of people who still support the trump regime hear their message as they contiune to demolish social service programs ;
Those who are not able to sustain their lives without help from the majority are but a burden. For the survival of the whole of society is far more valuable than it's parts.
Revolt and vote them out.
1
"Why would anyone want to do that? The thing is, it’s not just Trump: Conservative hatred for food stamps is pervasive. What’s behind it?"
Simple; they are evil.
5
For people who believe that supporting food stamps and soup kitchens, I strongly suggest doing this.
Go to a soup kitchen dressed down, get your tray and food, find a seat with someone, strike up a conversation, and ask yourself if you had a choice and a decent job would you do this just to keep food in your belly? Up until the day I did that, it would never have occurred to me to help with monthly support to our soup kitchens in my city.
I had, unknown at the time to me, a family member on food stamps. She worked at a low paying job with no benefits of any kind. I learned later how little she got in food stamps, and how many things it will not buy like bath soap, toothpaste, sanitary supplies, toilet paper. all which cost money hard to come by.
We know nothing about how far too many in this country are living and just trying to survive. This and other administrations have shown little concern to change it. Don't be one of those who agree that "I've got mine, Jack, sorry about you" is the decent way for people to behave.
5
These are the people the Democrats need to target. They typically don't vote, as neither of the parties seems to care about them. Is the DNC up to the task, or is it truly just corporate Republicanism-lite?
1
Here! Here! Enough with vilifying the poor. How about spending a week, or even a day, in their shoes to see what life is really like?
4
Trump, Ryan and their ilk, mostly republicans, are not human beings, they are just cold beings without compassion. It's all about me, me, me, me not about we, we, we, we. It's very sad that our government is controlled by the heartless and the ignorant.
2
The U.S. is a sick, sadistic society whose psychopathology is infecting Canada.
In the 60s poverty was a predominant issue following inner city riots and Michael Harrington's The Other America. Martin Luther King was focussing on class issues when he was killed. Supposedly egalitarian, the U.S. is now the most unequal society in the OECD.
Democrats not only forgot the poor, the Clinton administration actively hurt them through policies of mass incarceration and the cancellation of FDR's family income support plan.
The party became condescending to the poor and then were shocked when the poor went GOP.
Dems don't care about the poor, they care about identity politics, the poor been yucky compared to sisters breaking glass ceilings of high incomes and corporate control.
Dems are champions at forgetting Trump's "forgotten people"-- that's why Dems won't win in 2018 and won't understand their non-connection to poor people and why the Trumpettes love Nancy Pelosi.
The only politics to make America decent are redistributive politics of taxing and spending. The rich are doing it well, grabbing more and more of everything thanks to a mindwash.
When a voice for change emerges, like Bernie Sanders, the Dem Establishment is horrified, trying to shut down all discussion on poverty alternatives although the European social democracies are far happier then the U.S.
Trump wins because Starbucks liberals won't acknowledge the mass suffering of the bottom 50 per cent.
3
I would ask all those who want to reduce or eliminate these important safety nets to "walk a mile in their shoes!" before they decide to reduce any benefits to the needy.
1
Conservatives hate complacent people who are not laboring hard making outrageous wealth for their lords for sub-livable wages that forces them to feed themselves with food stamps.
The so called pro-life party is pro-starvation to death of those born.
Unfortunately we cannot wait for rural trump supporters in Ky. to starve to death without food stamps reducing trump's base of support. It will be too late by then after trump has corralled all the power in the world for himself.
"this is about petty cruelty turned into a principle of government." Indeed, compassionate conservatism in action. At least they are truly making our government into one we can all legitimately hate. Shameful!
The only ones "getting away with something" are the tax cut wealthfare queens now running America.
5
So what else is new? Trump didn’t start this. Republicans have always been that way.
3
Since the abolition of child labor, having a family is the most expensive thing one can do in life.
2
Can we pair this with corporate welfare. Welfare that is not going to the small farmers who are still tending their family farms on thin margins vs. huge Agribusiness farms proffered by corporate lobbyist and stockholders and who get subsidies and huge loop hole tax breaks. Also who else benefits from the supply side of SNAPS? ...Many- including the grocers, many who are small town stores that depend on this program to sell inventory. ???? TRUMP SWAMP! And Ryan who went to the church which preached 'The Rich Shall Inherit all the Tax Relief over the Poor' and preachers thinking otherwise will be 'FIRED'.
1
Dear Paul, I loved your article. I would maybe change your last sentence (And these are the people now running America). What do you think about: And these are the people now ruining America? Just food for thought. RAW
2
Nothing new under the sun, America's capitalism has always been based on the survival of the fittest and the winner vs loser myth. The only difference now is the absence of an articulate moral justification for it , something at which America used to be masterful - Trump's lack of lustre just mirrors his people's.
Mahatma Ghandi said: “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” Based on that measurement, we are certainly doing nothing, in the words of Donald Trump, to "Make America Great Again."
4
The late Kurt Vonnegut coined a term for the sort of attitude which Mr. Krugman describes.
Samaritophobia: hysterical indifference towards the plight of those less fortunate than oneself.
2
You can’t fix stupid. The people who love Trump will be the last to realize he suckered them, and I can understand their desperation, especially in coal country. Democratic initiatives to re-train people for renewable energy jobs are dead in the water, due to the gigantic 2017 tax cut, that has also crippled the “infrastructure plan.” Disgusting!
1
The conservative mind set is based on a distinctly different view of "abundance". Republicans believe that there is a finite amount of abundance in the universe, and, for them to get theirs, some one else has to be denied. Survival of the fittest etc. Liberals, generally believe there is enough for everyone if we just share!!
So that's really it, they are selfish and never learned to share.
As America works its way through this Trump debauchery, those people in need, the dependent on SNAP, will probably be hoodwinked again.
More and more it becomes painfully obvious that the November vote must replace Republicans. Making America Great Again will start with Democrats fighting back.
1
One of the ironies, sadly, is that Trump would never have achieved a fraction of what he has in life without having been propped up at key times by others: 1) there's the handout from his dad, of course (who wouldn't be rich if gifted a few million from parents); 2) there's the handout from the Russian oligarchs, from what we know, and plausibly from Putin, that saved his business empire following bankruptcies; 3) there's the name recognition that his TV show and the fictional "Art of the Deal" book afforded him, without which he would have gone nowhere in Republican primaries; 4) there's the media coverage this paper and others gave him as a "reward" for his outrageous behavior, much to everyone's regret, now; 5) there's the propping up from Fox "news" and the conservative media propaganda machine, without which he never would have been elected (because the same also tore down Hillary and Obama), and without which he would have been kicked out of office by now. Trump gets handouts all the time, but he is undoubtedly too self absorbed to ever realize it.
1
It really is amazing to me how viciousness is so ingrained in the republican party and so central to every fiber of their being. I can not even quantify the level of visceral hatred that I feel for these people. I do not associate with republicans because I do not want to go to jail for knocking someones teeth out.
1
I think I can justify the cost of something like the SNAP program on this one basis alone, that such a program is the only practical way to actually know how some of the population is fairing. It costs to know. I can't imagine a better way. But to some, ignorance(?) ....is winning?
1
In the interest of full disclosure, Owsley County has a population of 4,552, of which 98% are European-Americans.
A relative is 50 years old, alcoholic, mentally ill, homeless - she gets about $175 in SNAP. Can’t get housing. The government spends $2k per year to feed her. BUT, the government also spends well over $100k per year for her hospital stays and treatment. Maybe with mandatory treatment for her mental illness, she could have turned her life around. Meanwhile, her medical costs keep climbing while she keeps living in a tent near the railroad tracks. Moral of the story: Poor health is incredibly expensive - much more so than food & housing.
2
When I lived in a men’s homeless shelter for six months in a major U.S. city, one fellow resident (“Don”) explained his experiences with his EBT (food stamps) card. At the time, we were being housed with clean bedding and good food. He told a social worker that he was constantly hungry and had been eating out of dumpsters. With every embellishment of his story, the amount allocated on his card was increased, and he was proud of that accomplishment.
There were periodic fights at the shelter (which could get you killed), and every few weeks we choked on the smell of burning dog hair from the incinerator at the nearby animal shelter.
Don and I worked together at day-labor jobs. Was Don “gaming the system?” He had no family, effectively no possessions, and he was severely mentally ill. He was not happy.
I suspect residents of Owsley County are similarly not leading the good life.
We should not try to sicken, and potentially even starve, those on public aid. Instead, we should work to expand the social safety net, particularly health care and services for the mentally ill, as well as job programs.
Dostoevsky said: “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” He also said: “The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.” Those less fortunate in our society are effectively our prisoners, and rather than compounding their difficulties, we should always seek humane ways to set them free.
2
Not only do these people despise the less fortunate merely for being less fortunate, they lie and con many of the less fortunate into holding delusional self images and actually supporting these people and the with holding of public aid from themselves. These people then despise the less fortunate even more for being so easily conned.
If most of the people who receive food stamps are already working, then they have met the requirement, and this new requirement doesn’t affect them at all. So really, isn’t all this outrage meaningless?
Look, the modern Republican Party, especially one whose base is enthralled to Trump, is about destruction and discord. Their collective and seemingly infinite enthusiasm for laying waste to government institutions, programs and norms is matched only by their laziness and negligence in dealing with the aftermath.
The GOP wanted to destroy Obamacare, but they couldn’t be bothered to come up with a viable replacement. They slashed taxes, but have no viable plan for the deficit (other than slashing government services to the bone). They pull us out of a “bad” Nuclear Deal and leave the country with no deal of any kind. The White House knows how to fire people, but not how to retain them or EARN loyalty. The GOP knows how to imperil DACA, but can’t legislate (even amongst themselves) a fix. They know how to cripple gun regulation, but not how to stop gunmen. They were able to help empower a demagogue like Trump, but can’t control him. They know how to weaken unions, but not how to decrease income inequality.
Trump is often lauded by his supporters as a “bull in a china shop,” but no mention is (EVER) made of what comes after all the destruction. Few things are simpler or more juvenile than smashing delicate items in a fit of rage, yet I doubt Trump plans to fire up a kiln and make something better once he’s had his fun. No, he’ll run off to pay golf and leave us all to eat off shards of glass.
2
Too bad Trump doesn't spend even more time lazing around on his golf courses. The rare times he's not there he's up to no good, displaying his trademark cruelty towards the poor, underprivileged, and those who are not whitey-white. Ryan, with his faux intellectuality and pretense of religion, may have the thinnest veneer of respectability, but he is cut from the same cloth as Trump. Also born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he is a third generation beneficiary of the largess of the United States government. His grandfather's business was funded by government contracts; Ryan went to a government-funded college, then briefly worked in that family business. When his father died, Ryan, a teenager, collected Social Security, which he stated was a very fortunate thing. Just like Trump he has a great sense of entitlement, but no sense of the ironic, or that he should be embarrassed by his behavior. Ryan then spent the rest of his career to date in the U.S. Congress, endlessly railing against Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obama Care, food stamps and any other government programs to help those not born with a silver spoon in their mouths. There he benefits from a handsome Government salary replete with amazing benefits, not least of all a gold-plated health plan.
3
It's basic psychology called cognitive dissonance. I get food stamps, but I don't feel bad about myself because I'm not one of those people, the people who abuse food stamps. Your mistake is focusing on my hate for them instead of seeing that I need to differentiate myself from them.
Where is the research that shows that food stamps is the best way to fight poverty? By allowing people to use food stamps to buy soda and processed junk, we are feeding the obesity epidemic which often blocks the poor from participating in the workforce. By using “kids and families” as the final argument, we foreclose a rational discussion about preventing unnecessary pregnancies and limiting family size. Surely if you want to escape poverty, not having kids is in high school is the first step. And by wielding “compassion” as a tool of emotional blackmail, we deny the poor the dignity of taking responsibility for their own decisions. Food stamps are not used in any other country, as far as I know. Perhaps cash payments with strings attached are a better way to go. And having social services that can enforce better behavior while helping the poor to be integrated in the economy is the best.
For a crowd that continuously wants to impose religious values on the entire population, regardless of beliefs, they exhibit little or no religious values in policy decisions or personal attitudes. Hypocrisy seems to be their only consistent values.
3
It is such a shame that wealth can create such a lack of compassion in some people. It may be that these people need to see the less fortunate as undeserving so their own ego can take full credit for their own fortunate circumstances. Wealth should breed generosity, not greed. It’s really a measure of character.
1
Pragmatic approaches to improve the quality of our life (Government safety nets) - these are points the Dems should be fighting for in Nov 2018.
1
There's a vein of greedy sadism that runs through Republican politics. It's not enough for Republican politicians to sabotage the working of our government in the largest privatization scam in history. It's not enough for Republicans to steal trillions from our treasury and hand it over to the 1%. Republicans also love to denigrate the poor, laughing at them and kicking them while they're down. It's pathological.
It's also deeply hypocritical. Paul Ryan loves to pose as a deficit hawk, endlessly scolding the supposedly-lazy poor. Yet, Paul Ryan funded his college education with Social Security survivor benefits after his father died. That's the same college where Ryan backslapped his buddies at a keg party over his dreams of killing Medicare.
We need to get away from the sick, sadistic greed of the Republican party and its twisted policies. We are the most wealthy nation on the planet and it is an abomination that we allow poverty to befall so many people. Instead of tax cuts for those who don't need or deserve them, instead of corporate subsidies, instead of the gargantuan military industrial complex, it's time to start investing in our people again. We need real, living wages for all work. We need universal, single payer healthcare. We need well funded education and head start programs, including free school meals for children.
We need an end to the disgusting, cruel policies of the Republican party.
5
The vast majority of Americans are ok with the poor receiving food stamps, provided that they have some obligation to work or try to find work. They are not ok with handouts to the lazy. This is what Trump is frying to push. Krugman’s narrative is distorted.
Most people who get SNAP are working, they are working a job that does not pay enough to make rent, utilities, medicine AND food. Others who get SNAP are children, the disabled and the elderly. This notion that those who get some aid are lazy, good for nothing lay abouts is a myth propagated by the right. Have you seen what SNAP buys? Have you ever been to a food pantry and helped people who are working get food? Maybe check it out before you condemn people for needing some help.
In order to cut down on welfare we must be the employer of last resort. Programs that were very successful in the great depression were WPA and the Conservation program
1
We keep on scratching our heads, asking ourselves how these people can vote against their own interests. The answer is fairly obvious : racism. Lyndon Johnson understood this when he stated that you can pick a poor white man's pocket endlessly as long as you reinforce his supposed superiority to the " other ". Ronald Reagan initiated this pocket picking on a national level with his not too subtle references to " young bucks " and " welfare queens ". Now, we have Trump and there is nothing subtle about his appeal. There is a lot of hatred out there and many of his supporters would rather starve than relinquish this cathartic hatred.
1
I am a firm believer that all ships rise together but there needs to be greater oversight of how the benefits are actually used. Bodegas and corner stores should not be allowed to accept EBT whatsoever unless they are the only readily available alternative to a grocery store in an area and have healthy choices.
When I lived in an inner city a few years ago which also happened to be home to many presitigious colleges I would watch a common scam unravel on a daily or weekly basis. The scam went like this: a young or ignorant fraternity member or college kid wearing a hoodie would go to walk into the store and be greeted by a SNAP recipient. The SNAP recipient would offer a trade of twice as much food or grocery paid for with their benefits in return for half the dollar amount of cigarettes or alcohol. I watched mothers, the elderly, and some of the most disenfranchised get 50 cents on the dollar on a weekly basis for their vices knowing full well their kids or family would either not eat that night or merely get food that was unhealthy.
I don't point out the systemic abuses that I witnessed in defense of abandoning the current system but rather to try to cite the abuses and try to improve it. Benefits should be used for their intended purposes and bodegas should not be allowed to profit off the misery and vices of their customers courtesy of taxpayers.
1
Thank you, Mr. Krugman, for calling out the cruelty of our current Administration. And now we have ICE, under official policy announced by Jeff Sessions this week, kidnapping children from their parents at our southern border. I am sickened at what we have become.
The SNAP program just like subsidized school lunches benefit farmer's with surpluses! And it benefited schools who could provide inexpensive lunches to students because of the surpluses! So if we have sick malnourished children and schools who can no longer provide then where will they get those tables body coal miners????
The fact that the Republican Party sees itself as the Christian party heaps irony on top of the cruelty. How do these "good Christians" square Jesus' message of forgiveness and charity with their contempt for the poor? If the Bible's message was even in the least ambiguous, then I could understand, but it isn't. Jesus' acts were acts of unconditional love and charity. He did not impose any "work requirement" on those that he helped and healed. He was himself a man of very meager means and relied on the charity of strangers. I just can't make sense of it.
sorry, but if the cuts disproportionately affect the people who voted for Trump, I'm okay with it. let them eat twinkies...
1
"Some of the biggest victims of Trump’s obsession with cutting “welfare” will be the very people who put him in office. Consider Owsley County, Ky . . . More than half the county’s population receives food stamps; 84 percent of its voters supported Trump in 2016."
That's called voting against one's own best interests. But vote they did. And they will vote for Trump again. Sorry, but these people need a lot more help than food stamps.
1
Trump makes so clear how important his concern for those just released from N. Korea are: he can use them to bring positive attention to himself. But concern for the daily tribulations of those fortunate enough not to have been in the grip of Kim Jong Un? Well, he figures, they brought their problems onto themselves, and his attention to their plight won't bring him any votes.
Hey, Pres, what happened to your view about those who, like McCain, got captured? Didn't your new heroes get captured? Treat them well, please do, but try thinking about people concern for whose plight you figure your base could care less about.
1
I'm sure I won't be the only one to note that many low-wage employers expect their workers to get by with various forms of public support, including SNAP. If Republicons are serious about slashing the social safety net, they need to rethink their opposition to a living minimum wage and unions.
Not that they will. The goal appears to be a return to 19th century capitalism, or that every American city eventually be ringed with slums as in today's developing world megacities. Of course, such a dystopia won't last, so massive wars will be required to keep the nasty game going. Meanwhile, the climate will be heating up apace, as the Scott Pruitts turn the planet into a gigantic dump. Oh happy day!
1
Calling me like you see em.
The really sad part is that these same people who stand to lose the most from Trump and the GOP will continue to vote for them.
Just goes to show where the GOP stands. They want to take the food out of the mouth of children etc. while passing the farm bill which is a government subsidy to million dollar farmers.
2
The food stamp program was engineered in great part by Senator Robert Dole, a Kansas Republican, who saw it as a boon to the farmers of his state. Money for food meant money for farmers. Between this and the loss of the Chinese market because of the trade war, farmers are going to suffer.
1
Deborah-- Looks like you've hit on a v convincing answer already.
One guy who heckled us during a local Women's March after the Inauguration said he was glad an Alpha Male was in power. What Alpha Male meant to him was clearly based on a loud, aggressive, King of the Mountain on the playground interpretation.
Our understandings of real leadership vary wildly.
Perhaps the good folks in KY believed DT would lead them out of the trouble they're in, not sink them in even further.
Christ said: "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." --Matt. 24:40
The actions of a man who would take food from the mouth of a hungry child or widow instantiate the antithesis of this teaching. It pretty much qualifies the perpetrator as a two-bit Antichrist.
The only difference between the minor-league facsimile and the real article is that the latter has a lake of fire and brimstone at his disposal, while the former has only a sledge hammer and a nuclear football.
Well, come to think of it, there isn't much of a difference after all!
Next to air and water, food is the basic stuff of life. You don't earn the right to food. Nobody should go hungry, especially, especially, developing children. For whatever reason.
A society or community that cannot feed its poor?
Professor Krugman gets to it in the end. Cruelty.
You can rationalise food support by thinking about cost or class but denying food to the poor is cruel. Telling someone that he is cruel just adds fuel to his fire. He gets pleasure from it.
1
The goal is to reduce able-bodied Americans to the point where their only choice is to work for subsistence wages, so as to maximize profit margins. As for those who aren't able bodied, clearly the goal is to eliminate them, as they are not useful to the likes of the Koch brothers.
1
"There but for the grace of God": traditional religious views in the U.S. are concerned with social justice. The Passover Seder calls its participants to care for the disadvantaged by recalling that the spiritual ancestors were enslaved in Egypt. The stories of Jesus are stories of a man who broke bread with the outcasts, challenged the authorities, fed the hungry.
But in recent times in the U.S. the "christian" political right has evolved a "prosperity gospel", which asserts that one's lot in life is bestowed by God according to what one deserves; the rich have found favor with God and the poor have not. From time to time we hear GOP politicians (and, if I remember, even an African-American female Democrat in local politics in Houston) assert that taxing the rich to help the poor is an evil sin because it works against God's plan; government assistance is an immoral crime against God.
The political divide in this country is not about policy. It is about moral vision. The people who know what "there but for the grace of God" means are people who know how to be humble and count their blessings. The GOP has no thought of humility, no ability to recognize that prosperity comes from good fortune and good government policy as much as from the sweat of one's own brow.
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I grew up in KY and am thankful to have gotten out. If there is a state that votes against their own best interest this is it. Just look at who their governor is and what he is trying to do to.
Oh, let's not forget their senators, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul who would take every last dime from the poor of KY and leave them broken on the side of the road.
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"We got a picture of a gorge, with farm surpluses on one cliff and under-nourished city folks with outstretched hands on the other. We set out to find a practical way to build a bridge across that chasm." So said Milo Perkins, the first Administrator of the Food Stamps program in 1939(!) an idea he shared with Secretary of Agriculture, Henry Wallace. The program was primarily designed to help farmers by allowing poor people to buy food for half price. Note that the program is still administered by the Agriculture Department, not HHS where one might ordinarily expect it to reside.
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In history class I learned that there were two possible scenarios, either a high-rice-price policy, or a low-rice-price policy. Either the rice price is high and the city people get support In buying their food, or the rice price is low and the farmers get help in farming.
What I find interesting is that these conservatives don't consider their mortgage interest tax deduction or the tax exempt health insurance that they get from their employer or their tax advantaged IRA's and 401K's, benefits unavailable to the poor, as middle class welfare.
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Mr. Krugman asks " 84 percent of its voters supported Trump in 2016. Did they know what they were voting for?" The answer is clear: they weren't voting for anything, they were voting AGAINST the establishment, the elite, the open-minded, people of color. Why ? Who knows ? But whatever the cause, the statistics show overwhelmingly, such attitude afflicts people who live in rural areas.
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Another issue is this discussion are the businesses in these economically depressed areas. The right always seems to tout their concern for "small businesses" but they fail to realize that there are many "mom and pop" stores and neighborhood groceries that serve communities where folks depend on SNAP. If the program disappears, so does their customers.
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Not so long ago we had military families that qualified for food stamps. I don't know if that is still true, but does that meet the work requirement? Perhaps we should impose a "meaningful work" requirement on Congress. Like, pass budget bills on time.
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Among the clear and probable solutions for the conservative conundrum of the bad visuals of hungry children and families bankrupt by reactionary policy change. Both child labor and workhouses proved extremely effective in previous centuries. Reaching into the wisdom of native peoples to resolve issues of welfare to the aging, ice floes offer an option..assuming it hasn't all melted.
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I know I write about this often--too often for some commenters--but it is impossible to understand why our charitable systems are the way they are, and why our attitudes about poverty and means-and-morals testing for benefit programs are the way they are, without an understanding of our Calvinist heritage.
We don't look upon food, or housing, or health care as a right, but as a privilege, only going to those who "deserve" it. And who deserves any of this? Only those who, arguably, need it least--those who have proven, by their ability to accumulate riches and resources, by their ability to be "makers", not "takers", that they are moral beings and worthy of being in the Elect, of having God's favor. In Calvinist thought, being rich is evidence of one's God-given worthiness, so those without resources are unworthy and therefore should not receive charitable or institutional help anyway, as their poor moral character will only cause it to be wasted, or so the circular reasoning goes. (And it explains why the rich "deserve" their tax breaks and corporate welfare.)
Our modern oligarchs may not remember the original religious underpinnings of their Social Darwinist, "if you're so smart why aren't you rich" ethos, but they certainly practice it. The mentality pervades Republican/conservative thought and goes along way to explain not only our brand of capitalism but our treatment of those without capital.
We need to understand this to have any hope of addressing inequality.
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Max Weber's hypothesis that capitalism could only take off once Protestantism replaced Catholicism is now more than a century old already, but certainly still part one of the most important sociological works ever.
But what he was referring to was the fact that for the Catholic Church, until the 16th century making profits by trading money rather than goods or services was a sin - reason why the main "bankers" of nascent capitalism, until then, in Europe were Jews.
Protestantism indeed dropped this particular notion of sin - but a bit later, Catholicism followed. You have bankers and hedge fund managers all over the place now, whether they're Protestant or Catholic (and contrary to the 16th century, today you can make most money by speculating on money, rather than providing loans or investing in "real stuff" companies - as Romney has shown).
Does that mean that being a Protestant today would make you more inclined to reject savage capitalism (= capitalism without social safety net), compared to being a Catholic ... ?
In other words, do Protestants vote for conservatives, all over the world, more often than Catholics? Do you have any data on this?
If not, the following book (which I didn't read yet) might confirm or falsify your hypothesis, at least when it comes to America:
https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783319622613
In the meanwhile, I do believe that today, financial success is perceived as proof of your self-worth and failure as "moral sin", even for atheists.
In about an hour, I'll be heading to the local food pantry, Loudoun Hunger Relief, for a volunteer shift. We provide food to the needy and hungry including those who come directly to the food pantry, and home delivery to the elderly and disabled clients who can no longer drive or perhaps don't have a car. I understand Loudoun County is now the wealthiest county in the country. But we also have a "hidden" population that struggles to pay the high rents and taxes here, and sometimes go hungry. I guess I'll never understand the point of view that these people are somehow undeserving.
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A question has to be asked, what is wrong with the people who would literally snatch food out of the mouths of the most vulnerable people in the nation based on the notion that here and there, as with every service and life in general, there may be a few who take advantage of the people providing that service?
I helped take care of my elderly parents and often wondered what happens to the elderly who do not have the money or family to survive old age? What happens to children whose parents count on food stamps to feed them? But then I remember history and am cognizant of the facts that before there was a social safety net, many of those people did not survive or if children, thrive.
The difference between science and politics is that science is based on experiments, research and results. Politics is most often based on ideology, emotions and often manipulation of the latter. There is no evidence whatsoever that eviscerating the social safety net would do anything positive and based on severe cuts in some states, quite a bit of evidence of the negative results. It's time for the right wing to get away from their faith based, pie in the sky economics and look at reality. Just because the president has a sadistic streak and congressional leadership, blind spots, doesn't mean we have to tolerate their extreme indifference.
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Once when driving through a very poor neighborhood in New Orleans, the person I was with-- who had just returned from world travels-- said, "Look at all these people living the good life on tax dollars." They can't even afford cars, much less a ticket to Europe. Oh yeah, the poor are really sticking it to us.
Demand a living wage, Republicans, and only then consider reducing assistance.
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After losing a job some years back I received food stamps, before they were on cards. They were actual stamps presented at the check-out counter. I was ashamed because I thought that I would be frowned upon for being poor. I tried with everything I had to find a new job and did get one. Poverty is real and it won't go away. Can't we be a better country, look after our poor and help them? I guess not.
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Money is good for the rich, bad for the poor.
Taxes are bad for the rich, good for the poor.
Simple.
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They believe that being poor is simply a moral defect.
The evil strategy rightly says that:
Making their voters more desperate, and with no way to determine why they are suffering more, since they are cut out from any reliable information source, means... : maintaining the voter base, and maybe even expanding it.
This is the sick reality of reality TV presidency.
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'And these are The People now running America'. Fifty years ago in The Merry Month of May, I was in a large empty school park outside of Paris wondering if 'The Grown-Ups' were going to get their act together and place their differences aside. James Jones was writing about the Student Riots and an American Tragedy, and America was far, far away: a powerful Nation where people ate large steaks, were enormously fat, took pills and went to see shrinks.
David Brooks joins Mr. Krugman in addressing The Error of Trump and his Lizard Wisdom. For Mr. Brooks: Honest, if damming, you have taken us from a recent portrayal of beauty, to the hideous and the death of America.
This is reminiscent of a political game of 'Snakes & Ladders' where our Country moves forward, or slithers back, leaving some of us with a sense of diminished light. Call it Love versus Nihilism. Not all of us wish for halos and thrones, nor are we cast out of 'Gold Finger and Goodfellas'. There are plenty of reptilian factors at play in this Presidency but little in this Administration that works.
It is breaking the Spirit of our Nation and what the leading Democracy of this planet represents. A young friend, from a staunch Republican family, and I skirted the entirety of this Era of chaos where she simply said in passing 'Jeepers Creepers'.
Trump may police the World into an unstable Peace but it can not last, not without the inspiration of a universal sense of humanity and decency.
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Well, Prof. Krugman, you waited until the very last paragraph to drop your bomb, but it was right on the money. Privileged people, like the Trumpster, don't feel sorry for the poor; "they just see a bunch of losers." They don't want to help the less fortunate; they want to get rid of them. And these privileged folk also felt, like the Trumpster, that serving in our armed forces would be a waste of their precious time because they would be losing what they love most of all - money. How did we ever let them become our leaders?
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It's shameful the rich are not content to have their immense wealth, but feel that the most needy are literally guilty of "sloth" one of the seven deadly sins. In fact, it is their projection of those sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth that is at work. They may be the "makers," but they are also the "takers" through every political con like the recent tax bill that they and their clever lawyers can perpetrate on those less able to understand and less able to protect themselves. God forbid that they pay one cent in taxes that goes to "those people." But, this is where we are in the "American carnage" that is Donald Trump's presidency. It's take everything and doesn't even "let them eat crumbs!" No health care, no food stamps, no long term unemployment, no clean air, no clean water, no nothing.
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