(Written on Oct. 30th)
I spent my blogging time wondering about my sign for tomorrow. Once again, protesters will be outside Rep. Juan Ciscomani's office at 8am. I'm not sure who is organizing it. I'm not sure if there is a theme. I could find the invitation but I'm not that motivated.
I called his DC office today and had a polite conversation with a staffer.
- Yes, the Congressman is forgoing his salary during the shut down.
- No, he has no specific plan to reopen the government.
- He is meeting with the Speaker and other Members trying to fix the problem.
I'm all out of clever ideas to describe the insanity of denying food to anyone, let alone children and the sick and the elderly, especially when there are billions of dollars sitting in a contingency fund set up for crises such as these.
I cannot think about the fact of the destruction of the East Wing, let alone look at the pictures. No way I want to carry a sign about it.
One thing has been bugging me since his election, He is totally unavailable. One virtual town hall was free. Everything else he's done has had a fee or a membership requirement. And so, I created this:
Arts and crafts, friends, games.... it's a great start to the weekend.
(There were 50 or so of us old folks out there, doing our parts to save democracy.)
keep in mind the cost of SNAP, plus states getting the most funding for it are blocking trying to find out who gets it. Also keep in mind that if there are those taking it, who didn't need it, but like extra money, what those takers are doing is denying it to the families, etc. who do need it. Also keep in mind that the money in that fund won't fully fund even November where its cost is 9 billion for the month. It's not a a simple solution to a complex program where I think all want those needing it to get the help. I wrote about the complexity in my recent blog. Easy answers go on signs or even blogs, but don''t fix things when the issues have been years in the making.
ReplyDeleteSNAP is 1.5-1.6% of the federal budget; that seems miniscule to me. A quick Google search shows this: "The current 1% fraud rate means SNAP benefits abuse amounted to roughly half a million dollars in 2019. That's a drop in the bucket compared with the $125 billion the U.S. Department of Defense is wasting at last count, or the $334 billion it lost to contractor fraud between 2013-2017."
DeleteFraud is not the problem. Affordability is. Without details, Mamdani has risen to the top by making that his only issue, which tells me a lot about the electorate , especially young people.
Easy answers belong on signs; people are driving by and dense prose doesn't work. But my sign shows that I'm concerned, that I care about the issue I'm waving, and, if anyone bothered to ask me, I'm willing to have the conversation about why.
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Given I understand Oregon, a self-designated sanctuary state, I think they don't want the fed to know who gets SNAP as they are likely mostly illegal adults with children who likely could be citizens. That was part of the problem of the open border crowd, not facing the complications of what that would mean eventually. So kick out the illegal parents but leave the parentless children? I don't know who thought that was a good idea.
DeleteGood ideas rarely get translated into perfect programs, right? I like to think of it as a bus, not a limo. It gets you close and you have to close the gap another way.
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