Moochers, takers, leeches, freeloaders, animals, sponges.

Such words are common to conservative rhetoric referring to recipients of government benefit programs including Social Security, Unemployment Insurance and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps.

The use of these derogatory terms stem from the fear of many members of the Republican Party that there is an entire class of jobless Americans sustaining a life of leisure by bilking the government and siphoning cash from the wallets of hard-working taxpayers.

And as reflected in a recently proposed bill by New York State Senator Patty Ritchie, a Republican, this sentiment is true of her constituents, 20 percent of whom live below the poverty line, according to a report from the St. Lawrence County Community Development program.

Ritchie’s bill intends to place a series of restrictions on SNAP purchases targeting what she refers to as “luxury foods items,” ensuring that food stamp recipients cannot buy certain foods deemed to be too extravagant or nutritionally lacking.

Ritchie claims the ban is in the best interest of her constituents, citing that the bill would promote health and nutrition, prevent obesity and “protect taxpayers from abuse of a program that’s intended to help those who have fallen on hard times.” But with lobster and steak being foods that are not traditionally associated with obesity — and two of the prominent foods to be banned under the bill — it is obvious that her motive is driven by the former notion.

Although the bill isn’t likely to pass in the Democrat-controlled assembly, its proposal only highlights the overwhelming stigma and delusion that exists surrounding the poor. Receiving food stamps is not a luxury that recipients take with pride and such policy only adds more hurdles and shame to being impoverished.

The idea that welfare programs, such as SNAP, are riddled with abuse and bestow the poor with lavish lifestyles took root decades ago when Ronald Reagan, in his 1976 bid for presidency, coined the term “welfare queen.” In a series of stump speeches, Reagan grossly exaggerated a case of welfare fraud in which a Cadillac-driving, fur-donning Illinois woman cheated the system by the means of multiple aliases and fake dead husbands.

The welfare queen was an easy villain that fit the beloved narrative of small government. And just like Reagan himself, she has been immortalized in conservative legend ever since.

Rather than proposing to improve the integrity of such programs they claim to be abused, this concept has Republicans like Ritchie targeting the vulnerable, with the fundamental belief that the social safety net has instead become a hammock.

Following in the conservative footsteps of such “junk food” or “luxury item” bans, Ritchie isn’t the first to initiate restrictive legislation on SNAP benefits. Since 2003, more than 10 states have proposed similar measures with largely unsuccessful results, considering that the United States Department of Agriculture published a statement in 2007 determining that such bans are unfeasible. But that hasn’t hindered Republican lawmakers.

The SNAP program already places common-sense restrictions on alcohol, tobacco products, prepared foods and non-food items, but Ritchie’s bill aims to prohibit the sale of foods including high-end meats, seafood, decorated cakes and energy drinks, effectively ensuring that the hungry do not indulge themselves on the government dime.

But with the average SNAP recipient in 2015 receiving a monthly allowance of $126.39, according to the SNAP to Health project — which roughly equates to $1.40 per meal — one might wonder just who these swanky welfare recipients are.

It seems lawmakers have ignored that SNAP is “supplemental” nutritional assistance, often leaving the poor to either scramble up money to foot the grocery bill or rely on food banks. It isn’t luxurious to run out of money to feed yourself long before the end of every month and, with more than 60 percent of SNAP recipients actively working while receiving benefits, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, it certainly doesn’t breed complacency.

But it is undeniable that welfare fraud happens. Just last year, two Syracuse men were sentenced for $1.7 million in food stamp fraud. Abuse exists in every government aid program and realistically always will. But it is obvious that with a decrease in SNAP fraud by three-quarters over the past 15 years and an error rate at an all-time low of less than 3 percent, the aggrandizement of such instances is a serious case of “bad apple syndrome” — one that each time only results in policy and stigma that punishes those who’ve done nothing to deserve it.

Andrew London, a professor and graduate director of sociology in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, said that legislators should be working hard to ensure food security for everyone.

“The sensationalism of such anomalous cases of welfare fraud is used as rationale for policy based on outliers,” London said.  “Such legislation is not representative of who is using the program.”

It does not require a high level of scrutiny to recognize that Ritchie’s implicit aims of addressing wasteful government spending by disenfranchising those that need it most is under the guise of assisting the poor nutritionally. This only emphasizes the hypocrisy of self-regarding small-government Republicans who desire to micromanage everything from a woman’s right to her own body, who we can love and marry, right down to the cuts of meat lower-income populations can eat.

SNAP “junk food bans” are debatable across party lines, but the fact that lawmakers like Ritchie are shamelessly proposing “luxury item” bans is deplorable. Ignoring the fact that SNAP recipients pay into the program, like everyone else, during better times, such “disciplinary” policy only serves to perpetuate disparaging stereotypes that vilify the poor and demean their worth through classism.

We must not allow the welfare queen stereotype, which is simply a reliable tactic of demagoguery, to infiltrate or justify policy that humiliates the poor with the suggestion that they are complacent, greedy and undeserving.

Mia Tomasello is a junior environmental communications major at SUNY-ESF. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at atomasel@syr.edu and followed on Twitter @MiaTomasello1.

Published on March 3, 2016 at 12:53 am