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The past two administrations, arguably the past three if you think the pandemic was overblown (I don’t), have been totally reckless with spending and their ostr

The past two administrations, arguably the past three if you think the pandemic was overblown (I don’t), have been totally reckless with spending and their ostrich-like refusal to reform entitlements. Maybe the suspension of SNAP will “break the seal” on further entitlement cuts?

OkayPhysicist 1y ago
Or it'll be a real-world test of the whole "three missed meals away from violent revolution" quote of Lenin's.
- notmyjob 1y ago
  Where I live, private sector food programs are very healthy, and so it seems unlikely this will be much of any local impact beyond retailers’ bottom lines. For example, the Taco Bell drive thru down the street from me has a huge sign “WE TAKE EBT!!!” which I assume corresponds to the local consumers being largely subsidized chalupa eaters. I wonder if chalupas will decline in value from $7 dollars or whatever artificially inflated price they’ve reached, back down to their old timey price of $3? (I’m not sure I have those prices exactly right as I’ve only purchased Taco Bell once or twice since in the past few decades. I confess I don’t get EBT yet, so my perspective is a naive one. It may be the case that chalupas are a better value proposition than Safeway prices in the suburban food desert where I live. There’s certainly a dearth of drive thrus.)
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    When did EBT start being legal at restaurants? I thought it was only for unprepared food (e.g. grocery store items).
    - OkayPhysicist 1y ago
      When someone realized that people exist who don't have ready access to kitchens?
  - jabroni_salad 1y ago
    I looked this up and it seems like restaurant meals are only available to SNAP users that cannot use a kitchen because they are homeless or too disabled. Programs like meals on wheels have waiting lists now so that might not be an option. Taco bell seems ridiculous but the alternative is that they eat cat food.
  - kelnos 1y ago
    That makes no sense. Who do you think pays the bill for EBT? If entitlement programs are done away with, no one will accept EBT, because it won't exist.
downrightmike 1y ago
Tax cuts for a few that raise taxes on millions was not a good idea and was a poison pill. And now we're poisoned.
rco8786 1y ago
Genuine question - why is taking benefits away from the poorest among us the only answer? Corporations and the wealthy upper crust have made record profits YoY for like a decade now. But we can only find the money by taking it away from people who are just trying to eat?
- ratelimitsteve 1y ago
  because the poorest don't have the power to stop anyone taking their benefits whereas being rich by definition is having access to levers of power like the courts and political contributions and have also been running what is essentially a multigenerational PR campaign that says that the poorest among us are the source of all of our problems and that eliminating any help for them will simultaneously make things better for us by cutting spending and make things better for them through vague notions of encouraging responsibility or whatever. tldr - the reason that going after the poor is always the answer is that it's the rich who are both asking and answering the question.
  - notmyjob 1y ago
    SNAP should be the last thing that gets reformed, aside from its tendency to fund less than ethical corporations (coca-cola, big agribusiness, Taco Bell). On that I totally agree. The wealthy boomers who own multi-million dollar California track homes and don’t pay taxes because of prop 13, who are consuming millions on quasi-necessary medical procedures because they partied too hard in the 70s, gorged on trans fats in the 80s, smoked drank and didn’t go for walks, that’s where entitlement reform should start. But those are the base of one, maybe both parties and will vote out anyone that refuses to subsidize their ozempic and knee surgeries. They will even vote to reduce democracy by gerrymandering the state to block third party candidates and ensure nobody can come for their unnecessary health care costs and other ballooning entitlements.
    - ratelimitsteve 1y ago
      i was with you until you wanted to means test healthcare
InTheArena 1y ago
Sorry, the entire political establishment learned that debt didn't really matter back during Bush and then Obama. How different would the world have been if either of the two "grand bargins" that Boehner started, and then Obama torpedo'd last minute (in the first example) or the second one (which biden as VP torpedo'd) happened? No rise of the tea party, working bipartisan arrangement on spending? Shit matters.
- notmyjob 1y ago
  Well, I think just very rough numbers Biden added about 7 trillion, which was about the same as Trump 1, driven of course by the pandemic. I think we’re headed for another 6 or 7 trillion under Trump 2, give or take tariffs and whether we can Art of The Deal our way with Xi’s communist empire and enter some new era of AI driven prosperity. So if the total debt is, rough numbers, about 40 trillion, then the past 3 admins account for a substantial fraction 15-20 trillion, tough numbers, given that the economy has been objectively strong since Obama’s second term. We should have decreased to debt in those years of strength, aside from the short few months of the pandemic when vaccines were needed and temporary lockdowns had to be subsidized.
- malcolmgreaves 1y ago
  The tea party was a front by the Koch brothers to pay less taxes. It was and always will be a thing by the rich, for the rich. It was also just wrapped up in the entire republican agenda of trying to sabotage the first Black president, because too many white folk couldn’t accept that the president was Black. There was never any possibility of a bipartisan agreement.
TimorousBestie 1y ago
As always, “reforming entitlements” barely moves the needle on paying down the debt. Even SNAP only cost 100 billion last year, and its net effect on revenue was probably positive, though these things are hard to measure in isolation: https://www.cbpp.org/blog/snap-food-assistance-is-a-sound-investment-in-our-nations-health-well-being-and-economy https://www.cbpp.org/blog/snap-food-assistance-is-a-sound-in... (Because humans are bad at large numbers: 100 billion / 38 trillion is 0.2%, or alternatively 38T represents 380 years of SNAP at 2024 levels.)
- hackeraccount 1y ago
  SNAP would be a start. Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security would be the place to end. Those are all politically tricky to take a bite out of, of course.
  - TimorousBestie 1y ago
    I don’t approve of a policy that entails the premature death or destitution of millions of Americans while also ensuring that a couple thousand obscenely wealthy families remain obscenely wealthy.
  - kelnos 1y ago
    Or we could just raise taxes on high income earners (which will barely make a dent in their quality of life). If the alternative is cutting programs that keep people from starving, from losing their homes, and obtaining basic health care... no thanks, I'll pass on that.
  - kccoder 1y ago
    A slight rephrasing: Letting 70M+ Americans, many of which are children, go hungry is good for the country because it saves money. And if they don't die from malnutrition, don't worry, we're going to save even more by cutting their health coverage, and eventually social security, a program that people paid into their entire lives. Take a step back...do you believe these 70M+ people are just lazy, inept, ...? Do they deserve to suffer, especially the children? What are we buying with their suffering? A reduction in spending? A tax break for the wealthy? Is this the only solution? What if we were to create a real national healthcare system which cared for everyone at a vastly lower cost? That would also save money AND reduce suffering. Seems like a net win. But that won't get us all the way there, so what else can we do? Everyone knows the answer, increase taxes on the wealthy. Top marginal tax rate used to be 90% (1950-1964), so perhaps there's some wiggle room between that and today's 37%. Historical Tax rates: https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/2012/12/1.png https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/2012/12/1.png This country needs a big old heaping of empathy and compassion.
sQL_inject 1y ago
Not sure why you're being down voted. SNAP was bleeding us on the front end by subsidizing sugar water mega corps and on the backend by subsidizing the collosal medical bills that come from the overweight, diabetic millions. One day we'll look back and wish we had the self-control to both impose austerity measures to get the spending under control and the foresight to spend wisely on long term functions like infrastructure. Until then it's business as usual from both political parties.
- nozzlegear 1y ago
  > Not sure why you're being down voted. SNAP was bleeding us on the front end by subsidizing sugar water mega corps and on the backend by subsidizing the collosal medical bills that come from the overweight, diabetic millions. Letting people starve is a better solution than letting them drink soda and potentially develop diabetes over the long term? Preposterous. I don't understand why the common sentiment is that everyone who uses SNAP must enter into a contract with the state to lose weight and only eat heads of iceberg lettuce, lest they be labeled leeches.
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    It's not one extreme or the other. There's a reasonable middle where SNAP can't be used for soda or candy, etc. But such regulations are easily subverted and ultimately may not make a lot of difference. If people want to live on Dr. Pepper and cigarettes they will find a way to do that.
    - nozzlegear 1y ago
      I personally agree it shouldn't be one extreme or the other, but the person I was replying to was defending a comment about the suspension of SNAP. My wife and I used SNAP when we first moved in together and she couldn't find a job, so it annoys me when I see people imply that SNAP users just need to make better choices, be less lazy or eat healthier.
    - 8note 1y ago
      forcing moralisms aint gonna do it either. people shouldnt be prevented from ever drinking doctor pepper because they are poor. snap should reclaim their money from dr pepper if peopleare spending too much on it, or they should be pushed on making doctor pepper healthier if thats what people are spending snap money on.
kelnos 1y ago
Or, instead of taking from the most vulnerable among us, we could restore higher taxes on high income earners. Yes, the rich would whine about it and raise a fuss, but ultimately their lives would not actually change for the worse. Whereas taking away SNAP and other entitlements would demonstrably make the lives of millions of people significantly worse.

OkayPhysicist 1y ago

Or it'll be a real-world test of the whole "three missed meals away from violent revolution" quote of Lenin's.

notmyjob 1y ago
Where I live, private sector food programs are very healthy, and so it seems unlikely this will be much of any local impact beyond retailers’ bottom lines. For example, the Taco Bell drive thru down the street from me has a huge sign “WE TAKE EBT!!!” which I assume corresponds to the local consumers being largely subsidized chalupa eaters. I wonder if chalupas will decline in value from $7 dollars or whatever artificially inflated price they’ve reached, back down to their old timey price of $3? (I’m not sure I have those prices exactly right as I’ve only purchased Taco Bell once or twice since in the past few decades. I confess I don’t get EBT yet, so my perspective is a naive one. It may be the case that chalupas are a better value proposition than Safeway prices in the suburban food desert where I live. There’s certainly a dearth of drive thrus.)
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  When did EBT start being legal at restaurants? I thought it was only for unprepared food (e.g. grocery store items).
  - OkayPhysicist 1y ago
    When someone realized that people exist who don't have ready access to kitchens?
- jabroni_salad 1y ago
  I looked this up and it seems like restaurant meals are only available to SNAP users that cannot use a kitchen because they are homeless or too disabled. Programs like meals on wheels have waiting lists now so that might not be an option. Taco bell seems ridiculous but the alternative is that they eat cat food.
- kelnos 1y ago
  That makes no sense. Who do you think pays the bill for EBT? If entitlement programs are done away with, no one will accept EBT, because it won't exist.

downrightmike 1y ago

Tax cuts for a few that raise taxes on millions was not a good idea and was a poison pill. And now we're poisoned.

rco8786 1y ago

Genuine question - why is taking benefits away from the poorest among us the only answer? Corporations and the wealthy upper crust have made record profits YoY for like a decade now. But we can only find the money by taking it away from people who are just trying to eat?

ratelimitsteve 1y ago
because the poorest don't have the power to stop anyone taking their benefits whereas being rich by definition is having access to levers of power like the courts and political contributions and have also been running what is essentially a multigenerational PR campaign that says that the poorest among us are the source of all of our problems and that eliminating any help for them will simultaneously make things better for us by cutting spending and make things better for them through vague notions of encouraging responsibility or whatever. tldr - the reason that going after the poor is always the answer is that it's the rich who are both asking and answering the question.
- notmyjob 1y ago
  SNAP should be the last thing that gets reformed, aside from its tendency to fund less than ethical corporations (coca-cola, big agribusiness, Taco Bell). On that I totally agree. The wealthy boomers who own multi-million dollar California track homes and don’t pay taxes because of prop 13, who are consuming millions on quasi-necessary medical procedures because they partied too hard in the 70s, gorged on trans fats in the 80s, smoked drank and didn’t go for walks, that’s where entitlement reform should start. But those are the base of one, maybe both parties and will vote out anyone that refuses to subsidize their ozempic and knee surgeries. They will even vote to reduce democracy by gerrymandering the state to block third party candidates and ensure nobody can come for their unnecessary health care costs and other ballooning entitlements.
  - ratelimitsteve 1y ago
    i was with you until you wanted to means test healthcare

InTheArena 1y ago

Sorry, the entire political establishment learned that debt didn't really matter back during Bush and then Obama. How different would the world have been if either of the two "grand bargins" that Boehner started, and then Obama torpedo'd last minute (in the first example) or the second one (which biden as VP torpedo'd) happened? No rise of the tea party, working bipartisan arrangement on spending? Shit matters.

notmyjob 1y ago
Well, I think just very rough numbers Biden added about 7 trillion, which was about the same as Trump 1, driven of course by the pandemic. I think we’re headed for another 6 or 7 trillion under Trump 2, give or take tariffs and whether we can Art of The Deal our way with Xi’s communist empire and enter some new era of AI driven prosperity. So if the total debt is, rough numbers, about 40 trillion, then the past 3 admins account for a substantial fraction 15-20 trillion, tough numbers, given that the economy has been objectively strong since Obama’s second term. We should have decreased to debt in those years of strength, aside from the short few months of the pandemic when vaccines were needed and temporary lockdowns had to be subsidized.
malcolmgreaves 1y ago
The tea party was a front by the Koch brothers to pay less taxes. It was and always will be a thing by the rich, for the rich. It was also just wrapped up in the entire republican agenda of trying to sabotage the first Black president, because too many white folk couldn’t accept that the president was Black. There was never any possibility of a bipartisan agreement.

TimorousBestie 1y ago

As always, “reforming entitlements” barely moves the needle on paying down the debt. Even SNAP only cost 100 billion last year, and its net effect on revenue was probably positive, though these things are hard to measure in isolation: https://www.cbpp.org/blog/snap-food-assistance-is-a-sound-investment-in-our-nations-health-well-being-and-economy https://www.cbpp.org/blog/snap-food-assistance-is-a-sound-in... (Because humans are bad at large numbers: 100 billion / 38 trillion is 0.2%, or alternatively 38T represents 380 years of SNAP at 2024 levels.)

hackeraccount 1y ago
SNAP would be a start. Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security would be the place to end. Those are all politically tricky to take a bite out of, of course.
- TimorousBestie 1y ago
  I don’t approve of a policy that entails the premature death or destitution of millions of Americans while also ensuring that a couple thousand obscenely wealthy families remain obscenely wealthy.
- kelnos 1y ago
  Or we could just raise taxes on high income earners (which will barely make a dent in their quality of life). If the alternative is cutting programs that keep people from starving, from losing their homes, and obtaining basic health care... no thanks, I'll pass on that.
- kccoder 1y ago
  A slight rephrasing: Letting 70M+ Americans, many of which are children, go hungry is good for the country because it saves money. And if they don't die from malnutrition, don't worry, we're going to save even more by cutting their health coverage, and eventually social security, a program that people paid into their entire lives. Take a step back...do you believe these 70M+ people are just lazy, inept, ...? Do they deserve to suffer, especially the children? What are we buying with their suffering? A reduction in spending? A tax break for the wealthy? Is this the only solution? What if we were to create a real national healthcare system which cared for everyone at a vastly lower cost? That would also save money AND reduce suffering. Seems like a net win. But that won't get us all the way there, so what else can we do? Everyone knows the answer, increase taxes on the wealthy. Top marginal tax rate used to be 90% (1950-1964), so perhaps there's some wiggle room between that and today's 37%. Historical Tax rates: https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/2012/12/1.png https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/2012/12/1.png This country needs a big old heaping of empathy and compassion.

sQL_inject 1y ago

Not sure why you're being down voted. SNAP was bleeding us on the front end by subsidizing sugar water mega corps and on the backend by subsidizing the collosal medical bills that come from the overweight, diabetic millions. One day we'll look back and wish we had the self-control to both impose austerity measures to get the spending under control and the foresight to spend wisely on long term functions like infrastructure. Until then it's business as usual from both political parties.

nozzlegear 1y ago
> Not sure why you're being down voted. SNAP was bleeding us on the front end by subsidizing sugar water mega corps and on the backend by subsidizing the collosal medical bills that come from the overweight, diabetic millions. Letting people starve is a better solution than letting them drink soda and potentially develop diabetes over the long term? Preposterous. I don't understand why the common sentiment is that everyone who uses SNAP must enter into a contract with the state to lose weight and only eat heads of iceberg lettuce, lest they be labeled leeches.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  It's not one extreme or the other. There's a reasonable middle where SNAP can't be used for soda or candy, etc. But such regulations are easily subverted and ultimately may not make a lot of difference. If people want to live on Dr. Pepper and cigarettes they will find a way to do that.
  - nozzlegear 1y ago
    I personally agree it shouldn't be one extreme or the other, but the person I was replying to was defending a comment about the suspension of SNAP. My wife and I used SNAP when we first moved in together and she couldn't find a job, so it annoys me when I see people imply that SNAP users just need to make better choices, be less lazy or eat healthier.
  - 8note 1y ago
    forcing moralisms aint gonna do it either. people shouldnt be prevented from ever drinking doctor pepper because they are poor. snap should reclaim their money from dr pepper if peopleare spending too much on it, or they should be pushed on making doctor pepper healthier if thats what people are spending snap money on.

kelnos 1y ago

Or, instead of taking from the most vulnerable among us, we could restore higher taxes on high income earners. Yes, the rich would whine about it and raise a fuss, but ultimately their lives would not actually change for the worse. Whereas taking away SNAP and other entitlements would demonstrably make the lives of millions of people significantly worse.