SNAP is especially good for the gander!

Mind-boggling the shifting sands of the SNAP debate that merits resolute and sober disposition by this administration. But it has opted for the oxymoronic view that it is “costly.” Then it shifted to the moronic crybaby reaction of “credit theft” on an issue that merits real proactive partnership to hasten food assistance to our people. In fact, ALL of our people!

It is a fact that our country has become a nation of food stamps. In other words, people throughout all 50 states avail of supplemental assistance from SNAP to put decent meals on the family dinner table. It includes a large number of working folks whose work hours were cut in order for companies to stay afloat and keep their staff gainfully employed. Indeed, it also includes the unemployed, victims of the 9.2 percent unemployment rate nationwide.

A recent news item by Reuters detailed that even at $7.50 to $12 an hour, work hour cuts heavily disrupt the purchasing power of families. These families must still pay for house rental, healthcare, family transportation, health insurance, and other family obligations. Use of supplemental assistance isn’t a matter of option but survival prompted by necessity.

Here on the islands, we pay a humongous amount for the horrendous cost of utility on top of other family obligations, including having to endure the recent spike in basic food commodities. The governor and lieutenant governor are exempt from paying utilities. We, the economic bad-times-stricken taxpayers do. Imagine if they too were able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with ALL taxpayers who live below the hill. They could easily come to securing clarity of understanding what we the common folks had to endure daily.

There’s also the huge loss in foreign investments, flushed out of our floodgates by negligence and mañana. This led to the persistent inability of this administration to engage in “wealth and jobs creation” in order to restore work hour reductions and spur direly needed revenue generation to defray the cost of government operations. But there’s nothing encouraging up this alley—wealth and jobs creation—which makes it imperative that it (Fitial administration) swallows its pride and work jointly with Kilili to bring in SNAP in, yes, “snappy” fashion.

That major indicators now point toward the NMI becoming the Disneyland of Unemployment and Hopelessness is even more reason to level with the real needs of our people. Anything short of this is simply purposeful negligence and arrogance, the mantra spewing off Capital Hill. This must stop! A synergistic partnership is the more beneficial paradigm.