FSP was a liberal device to get aid to the poor. It worked by coopting farm state types like Bob Dole. Not much of a lefty thing. But it worked. Context should not be forgotten. While AFDC eroded (from 1973 on, more or less), FSP and Medicaid kept pace with inflation.
FSP is our only universal entitlement, so we ought to be nice to it. It's really a guaranteed annual income in its own right. Cash would be better, but that ain't gonna happen for the time being. Increasingly FSP is provided thru Electronic Benefit Cards, so there is at least a superficial resemblance to a credit card and perhaps a bit less stigma. Since it typically provides less than a family would spend for food, it's the same as cash for practical purposes.
mbs
>> Angela:
that's what i thought, from way over here... in fact i thought food stamps
would generally be registered as a defeat for the working class, since
they've always been resisted here on such grounds. but i thought i must
have been missing something.
anyone have a potted history of food stamps in US welfare struggles? Angela >>>>
Piven and Cloward, Poor Peoples Movements. Tom Joe on the Reagan budget cuts (don't recall the book title). Piven is a dynamite lady -- so cool she's scary. Never met Cloward.
mbs