Who are these so-called “socialists,” anyway?

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Or call them “Communists,” as Republican candidates often do. This year’s Republican candidate for the office of President of the United States is fond of throwing around the lie that his opponent is a “Communist,” a lie born early in the last century and has been dragged out over and over again by politicians who seek to win by inducing fear. 

 

There are also idealogues who want either no government at all or government only for military purposes. To them, anything more is socialism. 

 

But enough with the generalizations. Let’s get down to something specific and look at it more closely.

 

Food stamps. No actual “stamps” are involved (there were stamps from 1939 to 1943), but that name for the benefit persists, so I’ll use it. I was curious about the people Reagan years ago called “welfare mothers” and who they are today, so I looked into it. Data found by the Pew Research Center (full article here for you) is eye-opening. Take a look. 

 

The majority of recipients of SNAP benefits are overwhelmingly white (62.7%) and were born in the United States (a whopping 87.8%). There are almost as many two-parent families receiving benefits (43.9%) as single-parent families with only a mother in the household (45.5%). As for the age of primary recipients, 44.5% of recipients fall into the 25 – 64-year-old age range. (Pew gives 25-44 and 45-64 separately. I have collapsed them.) The full history of the government program can be found here. Today over 12% of the American population receives this benefit. 

 

There is no way to determine the political affiliations of recipients, but I vividly recall one of my students years ago at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City, a self-proclaimed libertarian, who “did not believe” in government programs but acknowledged that her family relied on them. I did not then and do not now understand that. To me, what you do shows what you believe. If you believe in voting, for example, you vote. If you don’t vote, you don’t believe in it.

 

An important and often overlooked feature of food assistance in the United States is that it was inaugurated not only to alleviate hunger but also, essentially and perhaps primarily, to help farmers and business owners. Read about that here. The largest-ever expansion of government food assistance programs took place under a Republican administration for the benefit of American business. Communists? I don't think so.

 

Don’t fall for fake stories. And please don’t fall for name-calling and old, tired lies.