First you take away their right to vote, then you let ’em starve. That’s how Republicans like to treat America’s poor (read: black) people. Photo ID laws have been so successful at keeping the poor, elderly, and minorities from voting that the GOP now wants to impose similar requirements on food stamp recipients, even though food stamp fraud — like voting fraud — is almost non-existent.
Huffington Post says, “A key problem is that food stamp benefits typically go to entire households, meaning any family member is supposed to be able to use the household debit card, not just the person whose photo is on the card.” But an even bigger problem, for many people, is the difficulty and expense of getting photo IDs. People who need food stamps generally can’t afford to pay for ID, but if the GOP proposal goes through, they won’t be able to cash their food stamps without it.
This isn’t about preventing fraud, of course. That’s just an excuse to pick on poor people. Republicans have had a blood lust for the food stamp program for several years now — ever since their economic policies wrecked the economy, nearly caused another Great Depression, and threw millions of additional Americans onto poverty rolls.
Originally conceived as a way to help farmers unload their surplus crops (that’s why the Agriculture Department, not Human and Health Services, runs it), feeding the hungry was always secondary, and Republicans turned against the food stamp program when it ceased to be just a handout to Republican-voting farm states and began to actually help America’
s urban poor.