June 22, 2018
That was the claim in the headline of a New York Times editorial. It is clearly wrong for the simple reason that we are not currently giving hungry kids anywhere near enough money to pay for the tax cuts.
The budget for food stamps, the program being targeted for cuts, is $73 billion a year or 1.7 percent of total spending. The tax cuts are projected to cost roughly $150 billion a year, an amount equal to 3.4 percent of current spending. Even if we cut the food stamp budget by a quarter, it would cover less than 15 percent of the cost of the tax cut.
The reality is that the amount of money at stake in the food stamp debate is relatively small in terms of the federal budget. The Republicans like to beat up on the program for political purposes. They want people to believe that all of their tax dollars are going to pay for food stamps, with the idea that the people who receive these benefits are all African American, Hispanics, or immigrants from various “shithole countries.”
The New York Times is helping the Republicans in this effort by implying that real money for the federal government is at stake. While these benefits may make a huge difference in the well-being of tens of millions of low- and moderate-income people, they make very little difference in the federal budget. It is unfortunate that the NYT is so intent on obscuring this simple fact.
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