“Walmart and McDonald’s are among the top employers of beneficiaries of federal aid programs like Medicaid and food stamps, according to a study by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office.” —CNBC
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It is unconscionable for the government to let SNAP benefits lapse when emergency funds are available to cover the program. Yes, suspending benefits could teach a lesson to those undeserving food voucher recipients, 40 percent of whom are children, who have been living large on an average of six dollars a day in assistance for far too long. But it wouldn’t be worth the cruelty of denying the program to those vulnerable Americans who genuinely deserve it: corporations.
How would less fortunate corporations like Walmart, McDonald’s, and Amazon get by without SNAP and other programs to subsidize their sub-poverty level wages that leave many of their workers reliant on benefits? And without that subsidy, how would they be able to continue making record-breaking profits by selling food at such low prices that SNAP recipients trying to stretch their grocery budgets have little choice but to spend their vouchers there?
I am deeply concerned about the level of suffering that would occur if this funding lapse lasts longer than a few days. Poor, disenfranchised corporations, just trying to get by without having to pay their employees a living wage, could really suffer if they have to absorb the costs of the nearly 13 percent of SNAP recipients who aren’t able to afford food anymore, or of workers having to miss a shift to stand in line at a food bank. That should never happen to a corporation in this country.
It is one thing to take a program away from people who rely on it to survive, even when there are clearly funds available to keep it running. In fact, doing so for the purpose of political leverage is a deeply rooted American tradition. However, it is downright un-American to take a program away from people who rely on it to make themselves richer.
Imagine being a single father who supports a series of younger and younger ex-wives on just a CEO’s salary, and having to tell your semi-estranged children that the caviar on their plate tomorrow night might be Osetra instead of Beluga, or that they might only inherit eleven megayachts someday. Whole families, going to bed profit-hungry, worried they might take a 0.00000001 percent hit on their net worth.
Some might argue that corporations making billions in profit should not further profit from programs like SNAP and instead use a small fraction of their earnings to pay their workers a living wage. And that the government could make that happen by raising the federal minimum wage for the first time in over sixteen years, so corporations, not taxpayers, pay their employees. But it would be inhumane to expect the families of immense intergenerational wealth who own corporations just to suck it up and make do with nothing changing in their lives in any way, because one billion dollars is one thousand million dollars.
A CEO shouldn’t have to stay up late experiencing every parent’s worst nightmare: wondering how will he be able to feed his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson white truffles at every meal he ever eats, freshly grated by one of his twelve nannies, even when he is well into his thirties.
Sure, it’s tempting to send a message to those lazy SNAP recipients, who are happy to sit back and work as required if not disabled or elderly, that they can no longer take advantage of government benefits to pad their own pockets. Still, we cannot turn our backs, even for a second, on those whom we, as Americans, have deemed the most deserving: innocent corporations, just trying to earn an honest billion through exploiting the hard work of others, enabled by taxpayer-funded government subsidies, at any human cost.
