A Modest Proposal Circa 2013
BY ADAM FLORES
It is quite sobering to walk the streets of this city, or any city in this magnificent country and to encounter the numerous dispirited people who call the subway station, the dilapidated apartment, or even the corner outside of a coffeehouse, home. These people find themselves in their situation for a variety of reasons, many because of a series of unfortunate life circumstances over which they had little control. But, such is the life of a person in poverty.
Like many people, I envision myself one day having the resources to sip a fine cabernet sauvignon on a French vineyard in the middle of summer while I am served a plate of exquisite cheeses. Despite my extravagant dreaming, though, there exists the possibility that I may never cross the Atlantic, but will instead become one of the millions of Americans working at or below the minimum wage, a salary that would generate an annual pre-tax income of approximately $15,200 in Missouri. As a single person without additional health expenses or dependents, I probably would not qualify for assistance through the State of Missouri’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly referred to as food stamps. I would not be allowed to join the 928,000 people in this state who receive benefits as of June 2013. I would not be sufficiently poor.
Particular circumstances could lead to a reduction in employment that would then render me eligible for SNAP benefits. Based on the United States Department of Agriculture Thrifty Food Plan – the plan that serves as the basis for the maximum benefits available to a household enrolled in the food stamp program – food for a single male between the ages of 19 and 50 costs $42.10 a week. Currently, the maximum benefits for a single person is $200 per month, or approximately $2.22 per meal. In fiscal year 2012, however, the average monthly allotment per person in Missouri was $128.54. These numbers reflect just how much the government values the life and wellbeing of the nations’ poor. One must conclude that such policies were implemented to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit. As a hypothetical person in poverty, I am sure I would have something worth selling.
As the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. Popular culture is rife with examples of people going to great lengths to survive financially in the modern world. Hell, Bryan Cranston took down an entire drug enterprise. Notwithstanding, there is one last-ditch option often overlooked by Americans: selling your organs. With tens of thousands of people waiting on the transplant list and numerous people struggling to put food on the table, why not at least entertain the idea of trading part of my liver for several thousand dollars? If New Jersey has shown us anything, other than the underutilized wonders of a tanning bed, it is that I can find a wealthy older man low on the transplant list who will pay $160,000 for my right kidney. Ah, how the free market finds yet another solution to multiple societal problems.
You see, the Republican Party gets it. That’s why they are pushing the Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act, a bill that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would remove 2.8 million people from the food stamp program over the next ten years and reduce the benefits of another 850,000 households by about $90 per month. Makes sense, does it not? This is the party of limited government, the party of open markets, the party of self-improvement through the entrepreneurial spirit. What the Republican Party is trying to convey to the American people by slashing financial assistance programs for the nation’s most needy is that we are strong enough to overcome hardship as long as we are willing. The government does not need to give away as much money – or rather, as little – as it does to the poor. If the poor man understood the true capitalist spirit, he would find an affluent woman with an oxygen tank, call the doctor out into an alley, and point to the left side of his chest.