Food stamps: Real welfare queens live in Manhattan

Food stamp usage in the United States has increased 14 percent from the last fiscal year, leaving 43 million individuals, one in seven Americans, largely reliant on the underfunded government program, according to the Department of Agriculture.

No doubt the recent spike in food stamp recipients, a large portion of whom are single parents trying to raise their children, will most likely cause right-wing politicians and television hosts to scrutinize the American welfare program with party lines, such as “creating a culture of dependence” and “welfare queens driving around in Cadillacs.”

Of course, when right-wingers and political hacks from both sides of the spectrum refer to “welfare,” they are really only referring to the very small component of welfare that goes to the poor, failing to mention the mountain of government assistance that goes to the rich.

The most obvious form of government welfare to the rich comes from things like military spending. The United States has not been invaded by an external state since the War of 1812, yet this year the “defense” department will spend $680 billion of tax-payer money, a number which does not include the $660 billion in discretionary spending, a chunk of which is estimated to go to the military.   

In reality, the Defense Department is a system established so the losses that come with research and development of new technologies are socialized with public funding and then if anything good comes out of the system, the gains are privatized for corporations and large investors. And the system is by no means accidental.  

In 1948, the first secretary of the Air Force, Stuart Symington, explained the situation very plainly: “The word to talk was not ‘subsidy.’ The word to talk was ‘security.’” Our system of national security is really just the world’s largest welfare program for massive, exploitative corporations.   

Another kind of welfare program for the rich is regressive fiscal measures.

Increased tax deductions for business expenses and unjustified corporate tax breaks are the exact financial equivalence to a welfare check.  

As journalist Steve Kangas highlighted before his death in 1999, “If a corporate lobbyist can win a $5,000 tax break, this means that the company is funding less of the government’s goods and services, even though it’s drawing on them just as heavily as before.”  

In other words, more pressure is put on society to finance government’s goods and services, even though the corporation uses the state to protect itself from the society.

An example of this is receiving massive subsidies to avoid having to comply with any potential free market forces or using the state to help mobilize capital and immobilize labor to prevent workers from being able to fight for increased wages or better benefits.

However, from watching the news, one would get the impression that food stamps for poor children and struggling families are one of the programs to blame for our country’s current financial situation. These arguments are beyond absurd.

I agree with the rhetoric, though. There is a culture of dependence in the United States.

It is the rich’s dependence on the poor and middle-class to subsidize business and fund research.


E-mail: mardunba@indiana.edu