Letter to the Editor: It’s a SNAP

The Iowa legislature has now turned its attention to SNAP. SNAP, for those uninitiated, is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program which is partly funded federally and partly funded by the State of Iowa. A new effort is being made to make it more difficult to get food assistance and other assistance, and one can only applaud the effort. From what I have read, a requirement with the new legislation will be for a person to receive SNAP benefits, begging will be required. And once one has actually received SNAP benefits, the use of those benefits and the continued receipt of those benefits will be closely monitored by a new group of public employees paid for that specific purpose — to monitor poor people to ensure they receive the least amount of public assistance possible.

According to Jeff Edler, a state senator from State Center, ‘Whether it’s a federal program or state program, these are tax dollars being issued to individuals erroneously. We have a responsibility as elected officials to ensure that tax dollars are being responsibly allocated.” I love this; we need more responsibility. As a criminal defense attorney I am always in favor of creating more criminals and the lack of responsibility is a sure bet. It’s good for my business. I’ve learned from some experience that most people need to eat and will do what is necessary to accomplish that whether responsibly or not. Now, you say “Go get a job!” Nope, that’s not going to cut it. Eating comes before working. One can say without hesitation: Less food, more crime.

Jeff Elder clearly has as much knowledge of our state and the people in it as the majority of the people in our state legislature; which, fortunately, borders on zero. And this is a good thing. Our legislature the past few years has made life more difficult for Black people, gays, transgenders, and now poor people. I, as a criminal defense attorney, applaud all efforts to create more criminals. By making it harder to get public assistance, you help my business. Pretty simple really. As I said, one finds it necessary to eat and one will do what is necessary to accomplish the obtaining of food legally or illegally. I’d be surprised if Hy-Vee or Fareway are in favor of less SNAP, but they need to get on board with it. Responsibility should come before profits — at least for them.

I also see that the topic of sex is never far from the minds of our legislators. Once again they are concerned that our children may learn something about it — in school of all places. This apparently frightens them no end and legislation is being proposed to make sure this isn’t so. I have always wondered about this obsession with sex our legislators have; they must think about it a whole lot. Whether this is because they don’t know what it is or it really scares them, is unknown; but there is obviously a problem here.

In summary, you have to say that our state legislature is accomplishing what it has set out to do which is to make life more difficult for black people, gays, transgender people, poor people, and those with sex on their minds. I’m trying to think who else they can go after, maybe someone can help me out on this.

We’ve got the momentum and we need to continue with our efforts.

Richard E. H. Phelps II

Mingo