Hey, Michael Sean!: Food baskets come with a Gilded Age moral lesson

Hey, Michael Sean!: Food baskets come with a Gilded Age moral lesson: https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/food-baskets-come-gilded-age-moral-lesson MGB:_This budget is more than dead on arrival, FY19 appropriations have already been passed. Doing so largely mitigated the damage that could have been caused by the tax cut, but it is the spending that will cause jobs, not the tax cut. If the nation is insane enough to keep the GOP in office, there may be later spending cuts which will lead to a recession, but if we keep spending until Democrats can raise taxes again, there will actually be economic growth (mostly because the Democrats traded letting defense cuts pass to get domestic spending).

The tax system is ripe for reform, not just by raising rates on the rich but by removing the more from the tax roles, transferring this tax payment to consumption taxes (the income taxes of workers are essentially a hidden consumption tax), including a subtraction VAT which contains a credit of $1000 per child per month paid with wages, that living wage that Catholic social teaching not only favors, it mandates some form of distribution like that. Having such a credit can result in an end to SNAP, so no food boxes would be necessary. About 74% of abortions would not be necessary either.

People on SNAP do eat badly. This is because the amounts are under what is needed to buy food. Entitlements were cut so that when AFDC was turned to TANF, states would not simply switch to SNAP to take care of the job resistant (these are now either abandoned from the rolls or steered to disability). SNAP is now is even worse for people who need cash (everyone) to buy toilet paper or diapers, so they are forced to trade their cards for fifty cents on the dollar. Including a cash grant is much more essential than a box of food, which many SNAP recipients already get from local food pantries.

Sadly, much of that food is donated from super markets when it has reached the expiration debt (although some of this is simply sent to minority neighborhood stores for sale in food deserts). SNAP is not charity, it is justice, but if it were charity it would disgraceful in in paucity. Food pantry boxes often contain food that is or is about to spoil. Matthew 25 says that when we feed the hungry, we are feeding the Lord. Boxed excess food is often second rate. Is that what we would truly feed Jesus? Are we giving the sacrifice of Cain, which was not accepted and caused him to kill his brother who did give a good offering? Give people money instead and more heavily regulate the quality of food in poor neighborhoods.

Full disclosure. I spent much of last year using pantry food to supplement my disability income. If I am forced to stop drawing from my IRA because of value loss, I will be doing so again, so I know how bad the food can get, not through any malice but because everything donated is distributed (even if it should be composted). I cannot imagine the government doing better.

Conservatives believe we must punish the poor (not a Christian attitude) because if we suppor them (or rather if you suppor us), we will lose the incentive to go and invent the next version of the Internet, join the military and be shot at by the Taliban or simply be there to give you your morning coffee because you are too stupid to use an espresso machine or too lazy to clean it with each use. A servant economy depends on having poor people to be servants. Suffering is seen as a way to enforce conformity to society’s worthies (like our billionaire President).

Giving people a tax cut for each child will take people out of the labor force and allow them not fear poverty If they chose to work in a theater or library or sell hot dogs at the ball park. It may require higher prices to pay the taxes and any higher minimum wage (since no one should have to work for peanuts just to get a child tax credit, but that uncovers the problem with a sane economy that serves everyone, rich people are cheap, entitled and resentful of the poor. It is still hard for the rich to gain the kingdom of God, not (just) in Heaven, but in the earthly kingdom on earth (Thy kingdom come).