Family Values

Trump Budget Calls for Cutting Assistance for Large Families

Written by SK Ashby

Buried deep in Trump's budget proposal for fiscal 2018 is a provision that would cap the number of children per family that qualify for nutritional assistance.

The administration’s plan would cap the maximum monthly benefits for all families at the current threshold for a family of six, [Deputy Agriculture Secretary Michael Young] said. That effectively means that additional family members would be indiscriminately booted from the program.

Although the affected population is not large — slightly fewer than 200,000 SNAP households have more than six people — USDA data suggests that it is highly vulnerable. To qualify for SNAP, a family of eight must have a gross annual income of $53,000 or less. The majority of these large households include children under 12 years old and also tend to include more women than men.

It's mildly amusing that an overwhelming majority of conservative evangelical Christians, the kind of people who believe in "quivering," voted for this. And don't be under the mistaken belief that families with "19 kids and counting" are feeding all of them out of their own pockets unless they're rich.

This Republican proposal is brought to you by the party that doesn't believe in abortion or birth control or even family planning of any kind. The Republican party is a party that says (white) Americans need to have a lot more children, but they also don't want to feed or educate any of them.

Democrats would never call for capping benefits for children. I personally believe there is such a thing as too many children, but I also don't believe we should punish children who are brought into the world by adults for whatever reason. It's not their fault.