Keen insights from an Andrew Sullivan reader:
First, everyone has a story about someone they know of, usually a friend or family member, who cheats the welfare/food stamp system. It’s no surprise that people abuse and cheat government programs. The difference is that the conservatives I talk to take this as a personal insult, rather than an unfortunate but basically unavoidable reality. When the program in question is so visible, they place an outsize importance on SNAP, and they tend to exaggerate its size and corruption.
Second, and I think more importantly, many conservatives I talk to see people at the grocery store, supermarket, or corner store using food stamps day in and day out. It’s this daily grind that wears on them, and leads them to obsess over these programs. Again, the issue is more emotional than rational: even if the people I talk to have a fairly decent sense that SNAP and other assorted welfare programs don’t constitute a major part of the government’s expenditures, it just does not matter. Food stamps are real to them in a way that farm subsidies or defense spending or any other government program just are not. Food stamps rub their noses in it.
Food stamps are the most visible, tangible manifestation of a broad range of government actions they despise. Its conservative’s perfect storm: people they feel are undeserving gaming the system, and you have to stand in line and watch them do it.
I think this also explains the divergence between elite conservative and “grassroots” conservative opinion on SNAP and other welfare programs. How many conservative economists, who may dislike social welfare spending but worry more about larger programs, have stood in line at the supermarket after working 12 hours at a job they hate only to watch someone pay for their food with an EBT card? Combine this with a preexisting distrust and dislike of government, mix in a narrative about cheats running the system, and you’ve got a recipe for conservative pressure to cut food stamps while more people than ever need access to them.
