Corbett coddles the rich and gas companies while making life more difficult for the poor
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It is outrageous that Pennsylvania plans to remove from the food stamp rolls individuals under age 60 with more than $2,000 in savings or other assets and individuals over 60 with $3,250 or more. With this cold-hearted declaration, the Corbett administration is proving, once again, that it simply does not care about the needs of Pennsylvania's elderly and poor.
Under the guise of eliminating waste, fraud and abuse, the state Department of Welfare will make people choose between staying afloat in the undercurrent of this economic downturn and feeding their families.
Many folks eligible for food stamps don't have much savings, if any, and if they do it is most likely set aside for burial expenses or monthly health insurance payments. These individuals will be forced to dip into funds set aside to soften despair during fiscal emergencies in order to feed their families, thus further reducing their financial resources. This is unbelievable.
At one-tenth of 1 percent, Pennsylvania has one of the lowest food-stamp fraud rates in America. The need to target this program for fraud, waste or abuse is ludicrous and counterproductive. The anomaly of one person continuing to receive food stamps after winning a million-dollar lottery can be easily remedied by the Legislature or through regulation.
With many families, including many middle-class families facing food insecurity, individuals dependent on food stamps simply do not have the luxury to be cut from a program that is so critical to their lives. Gov. Corbett and his administration have consistently run roughshod over the rights and needs of the poor. This initiative is just another attempt to keep the poor in poverty.
Mr. Corbett has provided blanket tax breaks for the rich and given the gas industry a pass with no Marcellus Shale extraction taxes, yet poor people will be forced to spend their meager savings on food because they have been kicked out of the food stamp program.
What a cruel irony that Pennsylvania recently won a federal award for the efficient handling of the food stamp program, yet Gov. Corbett and DPW see nothing wrong with further setting back the financial efforts of these individuals.
With the nation moving further and further away from asset tests, the motives of Mr. Corbett and DPW should be called into question. It will cost the state more to verify these savings and assets than it will to administer the food stamp program. Given that 30 percent of food stamp eligible Pennsylvanians do not take advantage of the program, there is already a savings from underutilization.
In light of severe cuts to the rolls of Pennsylvania's AdultBasic health care program, along with Gov. Corbett's expected further cuts to programs administered by DPW, this valuable program must be kept available to all in need.
Asset tests will hurt senior citizens, low-income and middle-class families in Pennsylvania and also adversely affect small businesses in food retail. I am urging the governor and DPW to rethink this misguided policy. Many of my constituents are being punished enough by the severe economic crisis and the lack of effort by state and federal officials to promote employment and economic opportunity. Furthering their suffering is downright cruel.
First Published January 18, 2012 12:00 am
