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INDIANAPOLIS – I recently read an insightful item I wanted to share with my fellow citizens of Indiana House District 77. The column below was issued Thanksgiving week by State Rep. Greg Porter (D-Indianapolis). Rep. Porter is the Ranking Minority Member of the House Ways & Means Committee of the Indiana State Legislature: In November, millions of families in Indiana and across the nation saw their Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits cut through a planned phase-out of a temporary increase in funding that originally took place during the 2009 recession. Unfortunately, this cut in what used to be known as the food stamp program could not have come at a worse time for Indiana. Our state’s unemployment rate still exceeds the national average, and too many of the “new†jobs being created carry wages around the poverty level. Many do not include any essential benefits such as health care. In addition, more ominous trouble for the SNAP program looms, as the Republicans in control of the U.S. House consider even more cuts over the next decade. Under such dire circumstances, it would be good to report that our state is ready to step into the breach and offer some relief for those facing persistent hunger. That is not the case. Those who control the executive and legislative branches in Indiana state government have done little to nothing, preferring to engage in symbolic gestures rather than take tangible steps to stop hunger. Last February, the majority leadership of the Indiana House decided to “highlight” an area of “charitable need” by having representatives provide daily testimonials about the great work that food banks do across our state and placing a drop-off box for food donations. In the days before Halloween, the governor chose to raise money for the hungry by selling pumpkins on the Statehouse lawn. However, when it came to actually doing something substantive for the cause of food insecurity, there was a gigantic chasm between the rhetoric expressed and the actions that were actually undertaken. Based on the governor’s recommendation, only $300,000 was appropriated to our state’s food banks for each year of the biennial state budget, despite repeated attempts by myself and other House Democrats to provide more. That is $300,000 in a $14 billion state budget. These same leaders have shown a demonstrated zeal when it comes to bestowing tax breaks to those who do not really need them. But when it comes to addressing one of the most persistent un-met needs of our state, the silence from our leaders is truly deafening.
First, even though 2014 is not a budget year, our state has a $2 billion surplus in the bank. A small fraction of this surplus could be directed to food banks as a “supplemental appropriation.†Even a ten-fold increase would be only $3 million. That wouldn’t be remotely enough money to make up the $98 million we are losing through reductions in SNAP, but it still would be a respectable start. Secondly, the governor could ask the State Board of Finance at its next monthly meeting to transfer money to food banks. This group—consisting of the governor, state auditor and state treasurer—has almost unlimited power to transfer money between funds for almost any reason they choose. In recent years, governors in our state have been very nimble in using this board for exactly this purpose. Not long ago, Gov. Pence secured a transfer of almost $150 million in Family & Social Services Agency (FSSA) funds to help clean up an accounting mistake involving local option income tax allocations. If the State Board of Finance can make these transfers for political reasons, policy preferences or correcting clerical errors, surely the same approach can be undertaken to ensure that something as essential as alleviating the hunger pains of our residents. Now that we are in the heart of the holiday season, I truly hope that public officials in our state realize that there is an opportunity here to take substantive action on a problem that afflicts too many people in our state. Rather than empty public relations gestures, I think the time has come to take more direct action to help stop hunger. We have the chance…and the ability…to do so much more. State Rep. Greg Porter (D-Indianapolis) is Ranking Minority Member of the Indiana House Ways & Means Committee. He represents the citizens of Indiana House District 96. |
      Hopefully, all hope is not lost, and we can try again to address a need that is NOT going away. I have two suggestions that could make a real difference in addressing the hunger problem in our state.
The real problem is paltry rtw wages. Fox news has you convinced everyone on food stamps doesn’t work and sits at home and smokes dope all day. Not necessarily the case. It’s a vicious cycle, poverty. How do you expect a person to get educated, get a better job, so on and so forth if they don’t have basic human necessities?
“How do you expect a person to get educated, get a better job, so on and so forth if they don’t have basic human necessities?”
AMBITION !,,,,,And duh guberment don’t provide dat.
Its never been easier in the history of mankind for one to educate oneself, heck, I have a virtual encyclopedia on my belt in the form of an I-Phone. Buck Up !
BTW, I just looked up how to spell encyclopedia on my I-Phone, that’s what it’s capable of.
No one on food stamps should qualify if they have cable/satellite TV, a smart phone, ….
64% of people in “poverty” have cable/satellite TV. These people don’t deserve free food because they are poor. If these people are hungry, it’s because they are making poor decisions, not because they are financially poor.
And why do these people need free food? I haven’t seen any statistics that hunger is a problem in Indiana. I find it hard to believe that a truly hungry family cannot get help from their local church.
Rather than just “give” to the people who buy into the “freedom from want” con I would suggest making participation in a program that teaches budgeting and the value of a dollar mandatory before getting their freebies.
I see about 10% of my rental business customers drive up in ratty vehicles full of beer cans, three dogs they smell like an ash trays and talking on fancy cell phones complaining that they don’t got no money. Well Duh !
You’ll never get it, but I have an alternative. Massive investment in our crumbling infrastructure. They get a decent wage and offset the need for food stamps and at least we get a new asset from the money. The point of my last comment is that poverty is cyclical and you, like most people who lack the ability to empathize, grossly oversimplify the nroblem.
Oh I get it brother, answer me this question, where do you propose to get this “massive investment” from ?
Don’t forget this vote for me and I will give you ice cream country is 17,000,000,000,000 dollars and counting in debt.
One more thing, you better not be anti birth control.
I am not anti conception control but when to kill babies is above my pay grade.
The bible thumpers teach abstinence only which is proven statistically to be ineffective. Why do you think the bible belt south has the highest teen birth rate and consequently the highest rates of young mothers on welfare? I have no tolerence for those that are both anti welfare and anti contraceptives and real sex ed.
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