The Oklahoma Republican Party calls Walmart and the mega-corporate fast-food and hospitality industries animals dependent on food stamps. And its chairman wants a national discussion about it. Oblige him, Democrats.
In any event, it’s completely unclear where people will stop in for hamburgers and fries, and where they will buy extremely cheap household items, once the fast food industry and Walmart have ceased to exist because there no longer are Americans who lack the skills and qualifications for good jobs and they’ve all found good jobs because we elected a Republican president who has persuaded Congress to enact a law that says that the way for people to get good jobs is for people to get good jobs. Rather than, say, electing a Republican president who has persuaded Congress to enact a law that says that the way for people to get full-time jobs is for people to get full-time jobs although with no promise that they will be good jobs and instead might be full-time minimum-wage ones.
— Me, Scott Walker vs. the Walton Family and McDonald’s’ CEO, yesterday
Am I reading too much into this, or did Oklahoma’s Republican Party call Walmart and fast food chain minimum-wage workers who receive food stamps animals who live in national parks?
Whoa. If the Republicans keep this up, the Walmart family and fast food chain executives will start their own Super PAC. To help Democratic candidates! If a Republican wins the White House, their companies might have to start paying their employees enough for them to afford groceries.
— Me, in an update to Scott Walker vs. the Walton Family and McDonald’s’ CEO, later yesterday
This actually is a really serious matter: Apparently, most people do not know that a substantial percentage of people on food stamps work—including many who have full-time, very-low-paying, no-benefits jobs. Much less do most people know that most of the people who work yet receive food stamps are employed by mega-corporations or franchises of mega-corporations in the fast-food industry, in retail stores and in the hospitality industry, and have dependent children.
Prominent Democrats—Obama, Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and others—need to engage in a mass education campaign on this. Especially now, in response to Scott Walker.
Key to this is to point out that the food stamp program is, to a surprising extent, corporate welfare—to which these companies have, like the animals in our national parks who have become dependent on the government (or at least on people visiting the parks, which are funded by the federal government) food handouts.
The article I linked to above is from Politico, and explains:
The Monday post, which has since been taken down, first sarcastically declared that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is proud to be distributing a record number of food stamps. It then said, “Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us ‘Please Do Not Feed the Animals.’ Their stated reason for the policy is because ‘The animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves.’ Thus ends today’s lesson in irony ?#?OKGOP?”
To answer my own question, yes, Oklahoma’s Republican Party did call Walmart and fast food chain minimum-wage workers who receive food stamps animals who live in national parks. Sort of. The Party said that Walmart and fast food chains and the hospitality industry are like national parks, in that many of their workers receive food stamps. The Party also said that Walmart, the fast food industry and the hospitality industry are, themselves, like animals who live in national parks, because these business are subsidized significantly by the food stamp program.
They’re right about Walmart, the fast food industry, and the hospitality industry. I mean it. And Democrats need to say this, again and again and again, when discussing the minimum wage or the social safety net.
Again and again and again. No Democrat should ever talk about the minimum wage or about social safety net programs without saying this.
The Politico article, by Eliza Collins, goes on to say:
On Tuesday, Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman Randy Brogdon apologized.
“Last night, there was a post on our OKGOP Facebook page, and it was misinterpreted by many. I offer my apologies for those who were offended – that was not my intention,” Brogdon said.
He said the original statement was supposed to compare two separate situations and illustrate “government dependency in America.”
In addition to the apology, Brogdon used the new statement to continue the discussion on welfare programs.
“However I do think that it’s important to have conversations about government welfare programs since our dependency on government is at its highest level ever,” it said. “Quoting President Reagan, ‘We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.’”
Do oblige him, Democrats. Give the man the conversation he wants.
The GOP would make sure slaves get food stamps…… if the war of Northern Aggression had not redefined by fire and bullets property.
It seems some people have a huge lack of knowledge about the Food Stamps program. This program is used by Military families, some people on Supplemental Security Income for disabled, Social Security Disability Insurance and homeless as well.
Those on the SSI and SSDI programs are disabled and unable to work. On SSDI people have worked and put money in to said program and receive payment monthly. Neither of these programs have been allowed to have meaningful cost of living raises. Thus, even with FS which have been drastically cut by GOP most people end up running out of food each month. Especially those that have children at home for the summer.
That is the lot that those that have worked for numerous years and then injured or had a medical condition hit them now get to face. A day by day battle to survive while sick and or injured.
Nice
I think people working a full time job should not get food stamps. What that means is that the minimum wage must be high enough that a full time worker does not qualify for food stamps because they earn too much money. It is time for the U.S. Taxpayer to stop supplementing corporate profits. If a business cannot pay the full cost of their labor, they need to change their business model, not depend on the taxpayer to bail them out.
Jerry Critter
Then expect numerous cries and gnashing of the teeth from the GOP for the Federal Government would have to give huge pay increases to numerous Military personnel for numerous military families receive SNAP for their children. Thus the parent has the great pleasure of talking to their partner at home while overseas and listening to how the food is running out for SNAP amounts have been cut by GOP.
Is that not nice that the GOP shows how to support our Military by paying them so little that they qualify for SNAP and then cut the amounts to their families. That is true GOP support of our Military.
What Jerry said.
It would take a $10/hr full time job to knock me off food stamps. And I spend a good part of every day following up on job applications trying to get one. In between my main amusement is shopping for big sales at Albertson’s to stretch my SNAP allotment out.
Got a great deal on Paul Newman Spaghetti Sauce today! So got THAT going for me. But would really prefer to be on the job doing most anything. And I have two degrees from Berkeley and just got out of an Office Technology Certificate program at a Community College. It is not like I dropped out of middle school or somethin’.
But here I am letting down BOTH Jeb AND the Oklahoma GOP. By not quietly starving to death. Cause those 40 hr jobs are just out there going begging.
Bev,
I suggest that you leave sarcasm to discussions between friends. It gets lost in the written words of all but the most adroit writers. There is nothing in that Politico article that would imply that the OK GOP operative said anything remotely disparaging about Walmart, McDonald’s or any other corporation. All the vitriol, as usual, is saved for the workers at those companies, and as usual its the employees’ fault that they are being exploited. The apology was more likely brought on by the realization that the need for food stamp assistance is due to the companies that pay substandard wages. That kind of attention is unwelcome to such corporations.
Don’t confuse such issues with sarcasm when addressing the indirect results of corporate wage abuse. Call it what it is, corporate welfare and a burden to all those communities that allow such wage abuse to continue.
ilsm, it was the GOP that fought to end slavery.
Warren,
I think that ilsm is referring to the GOP as it is today and that the Civil War is now only an unfortunate impediment to actions that the modern day GOP might find appropriate in regards to people who now work for slave wages rather than actually being slaves.
Warren party labels mean very little. After all Jefferson was a member of the Democratic-Republican Party. Which became the Democratic Party. Which later contested with the Whig Party which split into Pro and Anti-Slavery factions with the result that the later morphed itself into a new Republican Party. If you ignore how Parties transform themselves over time and just focus on how they were labeled at some previous time you could just say “After all the Democratic-Republican Party was the Party of Slavery while the Anti-Slavery Wing of the Whigs abolished it”.
The modern Republican Party abandoned its claims to the legacy of Lincoln when its leadership consciously recruited Dixiecrats led by well known Democrat Strom Thurmond over to their side.
Ol’ Strom died as a Republican Senator after decades in the Democratic Party. And it wasn’t because he all of a sudden adopted the anti-slavery stance of Lincoln. White racists deserted the Democratic Party and by and large took the stench of slavery with them to their new home – the Republican Party. The fact that there is a slender thread that combines the Republican Party of 1980 and 2015 with that of 1860 doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.
Anti-slavery people fought to end slavery. Pro-slavery people fought to preserve slavery. And the latter are at home and comfortable in the modern Republican Party. Appealing to Party labels as they existed 165 years ago is some combination of ignorance and malice.
Warren,
Lincoln was more FDR.
There is nothing in that Politico article that would imply that the OK GOP operative said anything remotely disparaging about Walmart, McDonald’s or any other corporation, Jack? Oh, but there is. He didn’t intent it, but that’s exactly what he said.
My post isn’t sarcasm.
That really doesn’t make any sense. A higher percentage of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act than did Democrats. So why would racists go to the party that was more likely to vote FOR the Civil Rights Act?
“80% of Republicans in the House and Senate voted for the bill. Less than 70% of Democrats did. Indeed, Minority Leader Republican Everett Dirksen led the fight to end the filibuster. Meanwhile, Democrats such as Richard Russell of Georgia and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina tried as hard as they could to sustain a filibuster.”
What type of Dems were these who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Bill? The leftover Dixiecrats from the Truman Era. These were not true Democrats in much the same way as the Blue Dogs were not true Democrats. Best to look at who was apart of the Union and who was a part of the Confederacy. Those states which were part of the Union had representatives who voted for Civil Rights. 90% of them did. If you look at it in this manner, the Dems outvoted the Repubs for Civil Rights. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/republicans-party-of-civil-rights
Why not ask a few of them, Warren? I know a few, and I’m betting that you do too. The older ones might explain to you why the last time they voted for a Democrat was back before, say, Strom Thurmond switched his party affiliation. And the younger ones will explain to you why, although they’re not even remotely wealthy, they’ve never considered not voting Republican, and never will.
Then they might ask you whether you’re aware that more than a half-century has passed since the Civil Rights Act was enacted, and a half-century since the Voting Rights Act was. Everett Dirksen died in 1969.
Me? I have a question for you myself. Why are so, so many wingers so, so stupid? Or do they just pretend to be?
If it is important to end these subsidies then advocate ending them. From the article I take it that SNAP and possibly other benefits like section 8 and medicaid are meant. Discontinue them and I do believe that compensation would go up at businesses with employees qualifying for them at their current wages.
Eric:
Seriously? That would be like expecting the entire healthcare industry to provide for all citizens since the attempted passage of Hillarycare in 1992. The fact is, they did not and neither did the Republicans may a move in the direction of providing healthcare for those who could not afford it, were denied healthcare insurance because of pre-existing conditions or made it too expensive, or denied it because of age (there was a time when this happened). Believe all you wish to; the record is clear, not one company made the effort other than a pittance of what it could do. Instead, we experienced rising costs exceeding inflation with the only thing beating it was the cost of getting a college education.
That is the beauty of belief. It requires no proof and does not even have to be true.
Run,
I’m serious. If such subsidies are unwise, end them.
The subsidies aren’t unwise, Eric. The low minimum wage, which necessitates the subsidies, is what’s unwise. You missed this point? Really?
I would say that it is unwise to have a family before one is able to make a living.
The problem with the Minimum Wage is that it changes the balance between capital improvements and labor. That is why we see self-serve gasoline in every State where it is legal, and self-checkout lines in grocery stores, hardware stores, Sheetz, etc.
The benefits of capital improvements go to those who purchased them (the capitalists), not to the remaining employees. If we push the Minimum Wage to $15/hr, only those whose labor is worth more than that will be employed.
Warren:
Can you have productivity gains without Labor?
Bruce, I am very surprised that a person with two degree (and from Berkley — impressive) cannot get a job.
What is it that you do? What degrees do you hold? What experience do you have?
If the problem is that last part, I recommend volunteer work somewhere. I did that, and created a membership database program for them. Even though I did not get paid for the work, it looked mighty good on the résumé when I was trying to get a paying gig!
Beverly, the claim seemingly is that lower wage workers are harmed by the benefits because these undermine their negotiating leverage with respect to potential employers. I think reasonable people can think this, but I don’t particularly, because I can’t fathom what mechanism gets people to work for less than they can command. At my age I see many colleagues who just finished paying their last mortgage payment, or the youngest finished college. These beneficial events tend to dwarf in absolute financial terms SNAP benefits, yet not one of them has yet told me that they are ready to work for less now. You think a higher minimum wage is a good idea. Fine, but why the urge to complain about Walmart and other companies that employ thousands at at least the current required wages? When I read here that Angry Bear web-site just hired 20 former Walmart associates at $20/hour I’ll be impressed.
Eric:
But they were hired at $20/hour or a higher wage than the minimum wage. The localities, states, and federal government subsidized the wage with various government subsidies such as Medicaid, Snap, CHIPS, etc. which brings them to a higher standard although not liveable as one might find defined by the EPI. One might ask too, when has direct labor become the defining argument for the cost of manufacturing?
Lincoln said labor should have precedence over capital. I do not know if he heard of Marx.
Eric,
I think the rage is against a economic (distribution is the purpose of the) “system” whose metrics do not include the “general welfare”. Property over people!
Warren,
My memory is flagging, I have a pocket card of logical fallacies, you win this week’s contest exhibiting 3 brain flati in one thread!
Thanks for playing!
Anytime. Let me know when you can actually point out the logical fallacies.
I have to laugh, Warren, at your presumption that were it not for the law that requires gas stations and supermarkets to pay their workers at least $7.25/hr., we wouldn’t have self-service gas stations and self-service checkouts at the grocery store. Instead we’d have gas station attendants and grocery store cashiers making—what?–$5/hr.?
Wow. Why didn’t we foresee this? How shortsighted of us to have ever enacted a minimum wage!
Paul Krugman has a terrific column today on fairly recent research showing what the effect of a raised minimum wage actually is. You should read it, at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/opinion/paul-krugman-liberals-and-wages.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region.
He doesn’t discuss how many more people would be employed now as gas station attendants and checkout cashiers if only we had no minimum wage, but it’s a good column anyway. And I can answer that question myself: None.
I am a part time professor, I have fees and overheads.
You cannot afford me.
I see no career trying to educate you.
I cannot work miracles.
Native American saying: “You cannot wake a man pretending to sleep”.
No matter what the game, it doesn’t matter whether you can not answer the question, or will not answer the question, you still lose.
Thanks for playing.
If you read the article, New Jersey raised their Minimum Wage. That is one of the States where self-service stations are illegal.
Warren,
Meditate.
Ilsm,
It is “medicate”, not “meditate”.
EMichael, LOL. I literally did.
Bev,
Love ya’ baby.
Love ya’ back, EMichael!