3 ms·

SNAP is a SUPPLEMENTAL program. It's not intended to pay 100% of your food bill.

• logfromblammo 7y ago
  Here we see the danger in imparting real meaning to the component words of backronyms generated to be the short, easily-pronounced names of government-administered benefits. The legislation was not created to support the name. The name and description was generated as shorthand, advertisement, and propaganda for the legislation. The reason it is not intended to pay 100% of your food bill is not because it's "supplemental", but because some legislators are rabidly anti-entitlements, and any proposal to meet 100% of a family's food needs (by any particular measurement of that need) has a greater likelihood of being a dead-end bill that never becomes law. As long as there is some question over how much should be covered, the anti-entitlement legislators can hope to reduce the benefit in the future, even as the pro-entitlement legislators can hope to increase it. That is the reason why it does not cover 100% of the median recipient's food bill. 100% does not get enough votes. It's not because it's "supplemental". It's because our government has to accommodate rich anti-socialists who would prefer that some people go hungry over paying an additional dollar towards tax.
  • gmadsen 7y ago
    if the compromise made by congress is that it should not cover 100% needs, then the program is supplemental by definition. it doesn't matter what each party would prefer the program to be, only what is passed