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Behind the SNAP Program: Hunger, Policy, and Real People · Conservation Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:07
  Speaker B: It's me again. Tillery Timmins Sims, your host for another episode of Conservation Stories. Conservation Stories is a podcast, as you know, brought to you by the Sand Hill Area Research Association. And I am really grateful that you're here today because I'm so proud to have Brandon Lips, a very good friend of mine and my family's on today. Brandon is, I would call him one of my important friends. He's an important friend.
• 0:34
  Speaker A: Thanks, Hillary.
• 0:35
  Speaker B: You're welcome. So Brandon and I, we met through church activities and etc, when he and his wife Hannah were here in Lubbock for a little while. They've been back and forth to Lubbock and Brandon, give us a little bit of your background. You're an Odessa kid. Close.
• 0:55
  Speaker A: Midland kids don't like to be called Odessa kids.
• 0:57
  Speaker B: Oh. For some reason, I don't know why I thought you were. You're an Odessa kid.
• 1:01
  Speaker A: That's okay. I actually spent most of my growing up in the little town of Woodson in Throckmorton county, but I did move to Midland Greenwood my junior year of high school and then came to Texas Tech to study agricultural economics, which is, you know, where this all started. I did it internship in Washington, D.C. through the Texas Tech program when I was an undergrad, which started my work in politics. Met Drew DeBerry, who connected me with then Senator Robert Duncan, which was my first state internship, and ended up working for him throughout the rest of my time in college, and then got a job with him when I graduated. Worked a session down in the legislature, went to law school, spent some time practicing law. I'm now recovering lawyer. And since that time, I followed actually my wife Hannah up to D.C. and was counsel for the U.S. house Ag Committee during the 2014 farm bill. And we went back to Lubbock, where I served as then Chancellor Duncan's chief of staff during his time at the Texas Tech University System, and then came back to D.C. to be the administrator of the Food Nutrition Service. Their undersecretary nominee fell through and they slid me up in that slot, so ended up running the Food Nutrition Service during the four years of the first Trump term. And when that finished, Hannah and I launched Caprock Strategies, and we've been having fun consulting and doing podcasts ever since.
• 2:34
  Speaker B: Well, you know, Hannah is as much of a powerhouse as you are. The two of you guys kind of just are like the overachiever couple. Because Hannah was also working at Tech while you were at Tech.
• 2:50
  Speaker A: She was, yes. And she was working in government affairs in the ag industry when I was up here. She has done communications and, and government affairs for the sorghum industry for a long time. Has has a better resume than me and is a lot more enjoyable on a podcast. Make sure you hear on a future episode.
• 3:10
  Speaker B: Definitely. If we can tie her down. You guys are really busy. You guys have your, your four kiddos there and that's actually how we got to be so close. My daughter was a nanny for you guys when you're in, in Lubbock. And we just love your family and we miss you here in Lubbock, but we know you have important things to do there.
• 3:31
  Speaker A: Thanks. Our. All right. We have four kids. I should mention Tillery obviously mentioned my, my wife, my better half, Hannah. We have four kids, 15, 13 and 8 year old twins. And Hillary's daughter kept our oldest too, most of the time we were in Lubbock. We still get stories from the older two from time to time.
• 3:53
  Speaker B: I bet. I bet. Yeah, they, they had a lot of fun those years. They really did. Well, I, I wanted to have you on because we, we've had some conversations then. I've seen you really dig into the world of food banks and hunger and. Yeah, of course, when we were discussing this a couple of weeks ago, it was at the height of the, the shutdown and the, the SNAP snafu and all of this stuff. And so I kind of wanted to have you walk through. I know one time you said it's like the worst job to have because it's either either too much or never enough. Like you never make it to the job where you can never make anyone ever happy.
• 4:35
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 4:35
  Speaker B: Yeah. So I, but I would like to kind of build a foundation so that we can all understand when we're talking about people being on snap, what that means, the effort it takes, how much money they're getting, what that looks like, you know, and they're how it impacts their daily lives and, and the amount of fraud and those kind of things. So maybe let's start with like, where does it come from? I know it comes from the Food Bill. I mean the Farm Bill. Pardon me.
• 5:07
  Speaker A: Sure. So the SNAP program actually stands for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It's commonly known as food stamps because it was known as the food stamp program for decades before it was renamed just in the last couple of decades. It was a program that was created, I should know the state, but I believe in the 60s to provide a safety net of food for Americans who had a very low or no income to make sure that everybody in the richest country in the world had something to eat. And I think, Hillary, that that philosophy, regardless of which side of the aisle you're on, still exists. The fight, the unhappiness, the ability to balance the politics exists in the question of. Of who should qualify and how much they should qualify for. But it started more as a commodity program where we took excess commodities from American farmers and provided them to Americans in need. And that created a beautiful partnership that worked for both the farmer and Americans in need. Over time, that has changed. The benefit level has gone up. It eventually converted to a cash benefit that's. Now, that was given on food stamps, which were sheets of paper that I'm sure all of you saw at the grocery store if you didn't use them yourself, and is now on what's called an EBP Electronic Benefit Card, which works much like a credit card. It's more complicated behind the scenes. But people, I believe in Texas, they're called Lone Star cards. You may see folks checking out with them at the grocery store. And, you know, the difficult questions really always do come down to who should qualify for these benefits and what should the level of benefit be? And, you know, you always have to remember that when you're giving out a government benefit, you're taking that money out of somebody else's pocket, and it makes for a very complicated, very complicated calculation.
• 6:58
  Speaker B: Right. So what, in your experience being in that position, what did you. What. What do you experience? What did you see about hunger? I mean, you know, because it's hard, I think, for most of us that, you know, me and most of us that are listening, it's not an issue that we've probably ever addressed, you know, and I've tried to educate myself through the years, and I've met folks that definitely needed that supplement and when. And we've been in a place when we went through our farm bankruptcy when it would have been super helpful to just have a little bit of money for groceries. And fortunately, you know, we had family around us that was very supportive during that time, but we did not qualify because, know, we had a vehicle, you know, I mean, so there's just a lot of. I think that was the. I can remember, you know, talking to the lady about it and her even just, like, tears in her eyes, seeing the need, but not being able to help, you know, and apologizing, like, there's just nothing we can do. Nothing we can do, you know.
• 8:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, and I'll say I recently had the opportunity to go with. Go on a trip to Kenya with Midwest Food bank, which we can talk about more. Who has food bank in Kenya where they provide food to partners who serve folks in need there. And I think one of the problems that Americans have is it's very difficult to compare the level of hunger that we see in Africa to the level of hunger that we see here in America. And so many of us live, work, and go to school in places where we don't ever see hunger. And so it's hard to recognize that that need is there. But there are truly hungry people in America for all kinds of different reasons. Tillery, as you mentioned, the individual, that Midwest food bank that I sat on the board was also a farmer, went bankrupt. And that, that's his story. That's how he started the food bank. Thankfully, things have turned out well for him. But there are all kinds of reasons that we can end up hungry in this country. Sometimes those are of our own making and sometimes they're not. But I think again, most of us can agree that in the richest country of the world, regardless of how we get there, we think that everybody in this country should have access to food. How much of that the government should provide? Different philosophical question for a different day, but that's really where food stamps comes down to. But I think we should all acknowledge that hunger does exist in this country. One of the issues in the food stamp program and the breadth of the number of people who should benefit from the program is, you know, are, are we talking about people who literally have no resources to buy any type of food, or are we talking about families who are having to make decisions on whether they make their car payment or they buy food this month? Right. Like what are the trade offs and should we have to make those trade offs to be able to afford food for our family? And then a deeper question certainly, which is an entire another podcast on the Make America Healthy Again movement, but the question of nutrition, it now the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. So, you know, some of us are very familiar. Growing up, you can survive a long time on red beans and rice, and you can stretch that meal for very few dollars a very long way. But that is not a balanced, fully nutritious meal. It's a good meal. I have no objection to red beans and rice, but should we provide more in this country? And those are complicated questions for, for the American public to answer and for policymakers to deal with.
• 10:45
  Speaker B: Yeah. And that I think there's, you know, a perception of a lot of fraud. And, and I, I know I've seen some the statistics that come. Of course, there was so much Fraud during COVID things were just moving and it was just crazy, you know. And so I saw some of the statistics that came out of like Alaska, you know, the amount of fraud that, you know, was going on and stuff. But I've also, you know, had the experience myself. I've also worked with several single moms as they've tried to get on SNAP and gone how in the heck, I mean, this got to be an inside job when you're talking about fraud. Because from the outside trying to get in, it's not, it's not necessarily an easy process.
• 11:35
  Speaker A: Accessing SNAP is a complicated process. I used to say that the application to apply for SNAP for most of these families is much more complicated than the 1040EZ that most of them file to pay their taxes. SNAP benefits are calculated on a number of factors, of course, including your family size, but also your amount of income and to some level your expenses. There are a number of deductions. So it can be very complicated. Fraud does exist, Hillary. Any program that has money, but particularly any program that has 100 billion of your tax dollars every year, is gonna, is gonna have fraud. And I think that the worst, you know, sometimes my Democratic friends don't want to talk about fraud. They don't want to pretend we have, they don't want to acknowledge that we have fraud and they don't want to focus any resources on that. I think that that's wrong. Not only from the protecting the taxpayer perspective, but if you want Americans to support this program, you need to convince them that this is a well run program. So we can start by talking where fraud is. And there is recipient fraud, Tillery. There are people that lie about their income, there are people that lie about their resources. Now there are a lot of folks who, who don't fill those forms out properly because they don't understand that's not what I'm talking about. There are people who know how to work the system. But that happens in any government, right? That does exist. Yeah, it's very small, but it exists. There are also international criminal rings who chase these hundred billion dollars in electronic benefits. And they can steal numbers, they can steal cards, they can run them through usda. This, this administration has done some raids with some of our larger federal government agencies. Again, we don't get a lot of headlines on this. I don't know why. I think, I think should talk about the good we're doing in cleaning up fraud. But there's everything from recipient fraud to international criminal organizations who are chasing this type of Money. The same thing happens in programs like Medicaid and Medicare, which are much larger, but they do, they do happen in food stamps. Oh. So I think that it exists.
• 13:42
  Speaker B: So interesting. And I just for. I'm going to have to look all this up and see what I can find about this. And then for people that are interested and weird like me, I'll put it in the show notes.
• 13:51
  Speaker A: Yes, great. We can help you find some stuff. Wow.
• 13:56
  Speaker B: I had no idea. I had no clue. You know, so what I remember, you know, growing up is the cheese and the milk and, you know, that kind of stuff. That. And then. Yes, you know, that kind of thing. But yeah, I, I had no idea that there were whole rings. But it does make sense. I mean, because even on the ag side, I mean, I, you. There's always somebody that's, you know, you know, is. Can. Is committing some kind of insurance fraud, you know, on the ag side or, you know, I know people who've gone to jail because they've might be. Have been related to some of those people.
• 14:32
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 14:33
  Speaker B: And we had advantage of government programs.
• 14:35
  Speaker A: I didn't stretch this point out earlier, but, you know, originally the, the government cheese was, you know, we made a purchase from the dairy farmers and we gave it to those in that. I'll call it a policy alliance instead of a political. It still exists. That's why food stamps are in the farm bill. And it's one of those two things typically, though not recently moved together in Congress. There is still a benefit on both sides. When you talk about $100 billion a year to the agriculture, the end of the agricultural food chain. Right. We don't think about that. But all of this starts on the farm and is made into food. Right. So per usual, the middlemen take a lot of that out as we go along. But that's a big dent in the, in the U.S. agricultural, certainly in the food retail marketplace. So it is, it is an important alliance. It's an alliance that frustrates some of my conservative friends because they feel like we don't do real reform on either side because of that political alliance, at least historically. But the reason I remember to bring this up is because you were talking about fraud in our, in our, in our farm programs. I think it's important to acknowledge that fraud exists in every government program. We need, we need to acknowledge it, we need to find it, and we need to clean it up. Because fraud exists in a program doesn't mean that program should go away. It means we have work to do. And when there's money to be chased. There are, unfortunately. We live in a sinful world. People are chasing bad things all the time. That's not going to end. The best we can do is try to stay ahead of those guys.
• 16:12
  Speaker B: Wow. Yeah, that is so true. So did you have a lot of experience? I mean like when you, when you were working in this? Because what I saw was here you were doing all the stuff in the, the, this world of food, nutrition. And then, you know, after the, that administration that four years ended, then you went, you went right into working with. That was the first time I heard about Midwest Food bank like you immediately, you know, became really active and vocal about hunger.
• 16:46
  Speaker A: Yeah, I met Midwest Food bank actually when I was at usda. They, they don't take any regular government funding. They don't take the, what's called the TFAT program that a lot of other food banks take. I think, you know, they may be interested in that in the future, but they just haven't historically taken those funds. But they participated in what was called the Farmers to Families program, which is when, when the pandemic happened and so much fresh food was going to waste, the government was paying folks to rebox that and hand it out to folks. Midwest Food bank, who has 10 locations across the U.S. participated in that and that's how I met them. A lot of food banks do amazing work across this country. Midwest Food bank came and offered me the honor of serving on their board. And obviously I mentioned a little bit earlier the story of their founder who was a farmer up in Illinois. And so a lot of connection there, a wonderful group of people, faith based ministry. And so I love that as well. But they're, they are solely focused on giving food to partners and local communities who know where the need is and get it to people in need without fee. Some of the food banks charge a fee from top to bottom to get that food up and down. I'm not saying that's a wrong, a wrong path, but it's not the one that the West Food bank goes down. They rescue food across this country and raise money to help move that and give it to organizations on the ground in the local community who are handing that out to folks in need. And then of course we have this location over in Kenya which is also a great mission and I've been genuinely honored to be a part of that group and its mission and the work that they do, the focus that they have and making sure that we're helping to do. I say that there are two kind of two kinds of hope. There is the hope for today, and there's the eternal hope. And I, of course, of course, want everybody to look at eternal hope. But. But everybody can have hope today. And sometimes that is in a. In a thing we can touch. Sometimes that's the thing that we. That we can't see. Right. When you hand out food to people, you are providing them hope for a bad day. We can provide them hope to change their lives. This is why I get so excited about programs that help people move into, like, work training programs. We talk about people getting trapped in poverty. Sometimes that's used as a political buzzword, but there really are opportunities to help folks move forward in their economic situation. And I really love to see those things.
• 19:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, that really is amazing. And if you, you know, coming from that, what we would call, like a Christian, Western, Christian worldview, you would be recognizing that Jesus said, if you've done that, you know, to the least of these, you've done it to me. And, and what a valuable, I think, lesson that he showed of, you know, just being willing to give to people that are in need, you know, seeing those needs. And. And I think part of it is just having your eyes open to that, you know. Yeah, it doesn't. Like you were saying earlier, it just seems like it doesn't. It doesn't seem like we're really aware of it as much. So. So we had someone on not long ago from South Beans Food bank, you know, talking about, we're trying to raise awareness that they have food. If people needed food, they, you know, it was available, and whether they were getting SNAP or, you know, they could go and get help, you know, so did you. Was there. What kind of disruption? Was there really? A disruption to stamps or did we. I mean, to. To SNAP benefits or. It's really hard to know exactly what happened because you hear one side that says, you know, everyone is now starving, and then the other side says, yeah, during the shutdown, I mean, like, that was a very confusing time because one side was like, no, people are getting what they need. And then the other side is like, no, ever.
• 20:50
  Speaker A: You know, people.
• 20:50
  Speaker B: People are, like, starving. And so I'm like, where. Where's the truth in all of this?
• 20:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, you know, the political narrative in this country, unfortunately, I think we Americans are desiring a divisive political narrative. Politicians are giving us, unfortunately, what we're asking for. And so particularly when you look at programs like this that are so important to people on the ground, sometimes the political narrative, it not only drives division in us, the Voters, but it can drive fear and those who need to access these programs, it did affect real people on the ground. The November SNAP benefits did not go out on November 1st as they typically do. And if you're a family that's genuinely living on the edge and, or you have no income and you depend on those benefits coming in November 1st and you know people, I could tell you all the things people would say, right, well, you should have planned better. Well, that would assume that these families who are living in small town Texas just trying to find a job, hold a job, take care of their children, are paying attention to the nonsense in the town I live in and most of them probably aren't. Right.
• 22:06
  Speaker B: Right.
• 22:07
  Speaker A: So when that money didn't show up on November 1st, they had, some of them had no idea. And then we can get the government open. So we didn't know how long it was going to be before they got benefits. That's the place again where food banks come in. There's always, in this country, I think there are always places to access food. Sometimes it's more difficult, sometimes the level of food is not what you need. But I do think you can get by. And there were a lot of folks chipping in to make a lot of wonderful stories to help. But there was a time period where families didn't get their SNAP benefits. Now if you have other sources of funds, you can move around. If the SNAP benefits are marginal for you, was it an immediate crisis that folks were starving to death? No, you know, but, but there were certainly a number of families who didn't get their benefit and, and didn't know how long it was going to be before those benefits came in and either had nothing or had to stretch.
• 22:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, I just think about the kiddos that get impacted when that kind of stuff happens. But you know, in that I think it's important to. Another thing to, to talk about. And I know Lacy and I sat through a, a hearing one time when Midwest was testifying before the, I think it was ad committee on, on SNAP benefits. And I learned a lot in there like, so let's talk about how much because it is supplemental. So it's really not, it's not very much money per day when you consider, you know, it's not, you're not, you're not meeting the entire nutritional needs of these families. And, but it's really not intended to do that. And I think really it never really was.
• 23:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's true. Tillery. This is part of, this is part of where the discussion becomes so difficult when you're talking about benefit amounts. And the last administration significantly increased benefits by an action of usda, not by an action of Congress. And there's a, there are some, some leftover political feelings from that that remain. A statistic that you will hear a lot in this space is that snap benefits provide $6 a day per person per month. Right. I mean $6 a day per person. Right. And if you think about what it costs to feed your family, that doesn't stretch very far. That is a real statistic for most people on snap. But it is intended to be a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. So you're required to contribute 30% of your income, adjusted income. Right. Not your overall income. This is why you have to fill out that complicated. You're required to contribute 30% of that. The flip side of that coin that the other side will throw out is that A family of four who gets the maximum benefit gets $1,000 a month in food stamps. Family of six the size of mine gets $1,580 a month in food stamps, assuming that they have no income. So there's no doubt we have some listeners sitting out on the South Plains going, that sounds good. I work really hard to keep my family's food budget under those amounts because we don't that kind of money. And again, when you're thinking politically about wanting to preserve a program that the general American populace, I think you have to keep these programs in reasonable amounts and you have to be honest with the public. This $6 a day stat is not wrong, but it's also not the full truth. Again, saying that A family of six gets $1,600 a month to get people's blood pressure up is not wrong. It's also not the full truth. It's all policy is complicated. And anytime you make a move, it's going to affect real people in positive ways and negative ways. You can raise everybody SNAP benefits, but you're taking money out of the pockets of those hard working earners out on the South Plains.
• 26:01
  Speaker B: Right.
• 26:02
  Speaker A: You can, can lower the benefits, but you're shrinking that family's access to nutrition to put money back in the pocket of other Americans. It is not a zero sum game. It has an effect on everybody. So it's very complicated. It's an extremely important program. I think it's one that most Americans, not all, but I think most Americans on both sides of the aisle support. But the question of what's right is very, very complicated. And one of the, one of the most significant discussions other Than benefit amount is work requirements, which were significantly increased in the one big beautiful bill, or however you'd like to refer to it, but that is its official title. You want to talk about work requirements?
• 26:43
  Speaker B: I do. You know I do.
• 26:48
  Speaker A: Again, my friends on the, on the left side of the aisle will say most of those who can work, do work. That's an accurate statement. I don't think it's an honest statement, though. I think some of them believe that it is. And my friends on the right side of the aisle say nobody that can work ought to be receiving SNAP benefits. Well, Hillary, I think you and I know plenty of people who can work but can't find a job or who can work or they're underemployed or technically can work, but they don't have the support necessary to do that. The thing that was, I mean, I knew some of this from growing up, right. But the thing you know, by looking at those around you, if you don't, if you don't watch from your ivory tower is that for folks who, who even if you work two jobs, if you're in West Texas, you have to have a car and if your car breaks down, you have to have money to fix your car before you can get your car fixed, before you can get back to work. And what are the odds that your employer is going to hang with you during all that period that you can't get to work? These situations are very complicated for folks who live on the edge. And that's what we don't pause and think through oftentimes when we're making policy. All that to say SNAP does not, has not had what I would call genuine work requirements for anyone except for what we refer to here in the Beltway as abods. It's an acronym for able bodied adults without Dependence. So if you were, if you were 18 to 54 and you had no dependence and you were able bodied, then you're required to work. I'll just leave it at that. To stay simple, I can make it a lot more complicated. The one big beautiful bill now says that it's 18 to 65. People in America don't retire at 54 anymore. Right. We're, we're working way past 65. So, you know, many in Congress said if, if you can work past 65, you ought to be working until at least 65 if you're able bodied. So able bodied is still in there. The biggest change, though, is that you're only exempt from that requirement if you have children under the age of 14. So previously, if you had a child at all, you weren't subject to work requirement. Congress is now saying if you have a child under 14, you're still exempt. Many wanted to say a child over five. Right. Once your child enters school age, you ought to be working because the work requirement is only 20 hours a week. But they settled on age 14 and they raised the age to 65. So it is a more broad work requirement. You'll hear a lot of noise out there, but it exempts those who are not able bodied, it exempts those with children under 14, it exempts those over age 65, and it exempts those under the age of 18. So on the surface, I find it very reasonable in practice. You will hear a lot of my advocate friends talking about the chaos and the pain that it's going to cause. There will be some of that. As with any policy, it's difficult. Some states will not implement it. Well, states run this program. Many states do not have the resources necessary to help families navigate when their car breaks down or their child caretaker is sick or their mother who keeps their kid moves away or they get a divorce. And they're a one parent household. Right. There are a lot of tough complications. But I am generally a supporter of well thought, well run work requirements because I have seen both in my personal life, but also in my professional life. Yeah. I went to a Goodwill in Georgia when I worked at USDA and this young man who was probably 25, he worked at Goodwill, he came up and greeted me. I was going for an official visit and I said, tell me how you got here. He was an employee of Goodwill at the time. And he said, well, I was sitting at home and I got this letter because he was an a bog that said, you have three months to get a job or you're getting off of food stamps. And he said that made me really angry. But you know what I did? I got up off that couch and found a job. And he actually went to Goodwill who, not all Goodwills do this, but that Goodwill provides work training services. They helped him navigate when his car breaks, broke down. And if he had kids when he didn't have child care, they help him navigate that stuff and then move into a job. And his life was changed. He was on a new trajectory.
• 31:38
  Speaker B: Wow.
• 31:39
  Speaker A: For himself and the taxpayer. Right. And he was no longer on food stamps. So what a great story. Positive story. Yeah. Which you won't often hear.
• 31:46
  Speaker B: Right.
• 31:47
  Speaker A: But there, there are also some, some painful stories out there as well.
• 31:50
  Speaker B: Right. Well, but ultimately, I mean, really, that that is our goal, I would think, is to help people get to where they can begin to live the American dream.
• 32:01
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 32:01
  Speaker B: But I, I do know. You know what? I think you make a great point about people not really understanding how on the edge. I mean, you know, if you have two kids or three kids and one gets the flu, then what's going to happen? The next one's going to get the flu and the next one and then you're going to get the flu. And at the end of the flu epidemic at your house, you don't have a job. Yeah, you do not have jobs.
• 32:27
  Speaker A: And, and you know, a lot of these hourly wage employers will not hold their spot. And we can blame that on the employer artillery, but it, but they may not be able to hold that spot. Right. It's complicated. Up and down the chain.
• 32:40
  Speaker B: It is, yeah.
• 32:42
  Speaker A: So I'm a big advocate. There's a program called SNAP Employment and Training which the government funds that every state can draw down has to be matching dollars. So you got to find a goodwiller or somebody.
• 32:55
  Speaker B: Our goodwill does do really good job training programs.
• 32:59
  Speaker A: Good goodwill is one of the best. There's a, there's a place in one of my favorite in Birmingham, Alabama called Hope Inspired Ministries. Same type of thing. They go find people on the street, they bring them in, they talk to them about opportunity, they give them a choice. If they come in, they have to meet metrics in the program, but they assign them navigators who help them with all these challenges. Folks who don't know how to balance their checkbook, folks who don't know how to pay their bills, folks who don't want to do in their car breaks down, so you just give up. That's what life's taught them. Right. But the government funds that 50, 50 on drawdown dollars if the states will take the initiative to find the match to pull those dollars down. Some states do it really well and some states don't. But it, it was one of the. You talked about at the beginning how it's a tough job because, because nobody's ever happy. I've talked a lot about how folks on both sides of the outfield, not everybody loves employment and training, but it is a place where we can all come together and agree on helping move folks towards that American dream. And the, the government funds that are invested are moving people off of the long term, long term government down. Not just that an individual, but poverty's generational.
• 34:12
  Speaker B: Yes, it is.
• 34:12
  Speaker A: It is. A friend of mine told me recently that the most difficult thing in America is to move out of your current economic class. The dream sets out there, but to actually move out of that economic class is one of the most difficult things you can do in America.
• 34:30
  Speaker B: Yeah. We just recorded a podcast just before you with Jason Hedrick from Texas Tech, and he's a student, social science, and he's got a program called I Love West Texas. And he. He said in their surveys, so interesting. What's the. What's the biggest benefit or, like, what's the, you know, the greatest positive about living in rural community? And they said, cost of living. What's the hardest thing about living in rural community? People said cost of living. And, you know, and I think you used a term underemployed. And, you know, that is. That's a real deal. And I was telling him a story about meeting a young man, was really hustling in a McDonald's in a rural community, and, you know, and commenting on his work ethic, and he was saying, it doesn't seem to matter. You know, I don't make enough. And, you know, so it is complicated. And, you know, I probably. You've read the book by Tim Keller, Generous justice, where he talks about that. Just the complexity that we want to take problems and sound bite them. And that's something that I learned when we were in that hearing, is that I saw legislators not be in there for the hours that we were in there and then show up and say something for the camera, and that would, like, be a sound bite. And I don't mean just one of them. Pardon me. I mean multiple.
• 36:05
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 36:06
  Speaker B: And then get up and leave.
• 36:08
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 36:08
  Speaker B: You know, and that. It really made me. And it was both sides. It wasn't one. I'm not pointing out one side or the other. They were both doing.
• 36:15
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 36:16
  Speaker B: You know, and. And so, yeah, it feels like people don't want to solve problems, they just want to use them.
• 36:23
  Speaker A: Yeah. It's hard.
• 36:25
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 36:25
  Speaker A: I say that in general, Tillery, and this is. This was one of my greatest frustrations as a staffer on House, that trying to write this policy for the members in the farm bill, but also trying to carry it out at usda, is that in general, there are some good ones. But in general, Republicans want to spend less money on the SNAP program, and Democrats want to spend more from often a fundamental good belief of why those things are true. But very few want to sit down and roll their sleeves up and try to solve those problems. We're not electing a lot of those type of people to Congress.
• 37:02
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well. And that is Such a good point, too, because it seems like it's just a blanket thing. If you spend more, it's good. If you spend less, it's good. When actually we're dealing with failing infrastructure in the state of Texas and water issues, because in some cases we've, we've thrown money at it, but haven't actually done anything with it. And in some cases we haven't done anything, you know, and so it is. Neither one of those things are an answer. Spending or not spending is not. Is never a full answer to a problem. But it sure does make you feel better if you think, you know, well, at least the people that are, you know, taking advantage of the government can't do it anymore.
• 37:48
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 37:49
  Speaker B: You know, but I'm super curious to learn about these raids.
• 37:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, Hillary, in, in 2001, in roughly 16Americans were on food stamps. You know what the number is today?
• 38:05
  Speaker B: No, I have no clue.
• 38:07
  Speaker A: One in eight.
• 38:08
  Speaker B: Whoa.
• 38:09
  Speaker A: That's, that's not a trajectory we want to be on, right?
• 38:13
  Speaker B: No. And, and how do you. Yeah, because the way we're going to, it's, it's not a solution driven way.
• 38:21
  Speaker A: Right? Yeah. So it's natural for a small government conservative to say, this program's out of control, we got to cut money. But from who, how? To what end? What's causing, I mean, has eligibility expanded too far? Are more people accessing it? Like, what's driving all of this? Nobody knows all those answers. There's a lot of questions out there.
• 38:44
  Speaker B: I have a question. Okay, so, okay, so this began as the idea of taking a surplus of food and giving it directly to people so that farmers benefit. Well, we don't really. I mean, in some cases we grow food, but in most cases we're growing ingredients.
• 39:07
  Speaker A: Right.
• 39:08
  Speaker B: And those ingredients are ultimately going to large stores where people who have this money are going and spending this money. So it would seem to me that these people are getting food. Yes. But at the end, there's also like a lot of other people that are benefiting from this money as well.
• 39:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, without a doubt. And you know, the hunger advocates in town, one of their top lobby tactics is to talk about the multiplier effect of the SNAP dollar up and down the food chain of the economy, which is real. But I caution that when you're trying to convince a small government conservative not to spend a government dollar, the answer is not to tell them that it multiplies in the economy. Right. There are lots of other things they would like that to multiply in the economy on.
• 40:05
  Speaker B: Right.
• 40:05
  Speaker A: So There is no dou out that the Lubbock economy benefits from the SNAP money that comes into that community.
• 40:12
  Speaker B: Okay, but. But wait a minute now, also, let's think about this. So I have also heard that, like, that the largest employee group of employees who are on SNAP are Walmart employees. I don't. This is what I have heard. I don't know if it is true, but just say, I could imagine that there are quite a few that are. So if. Are we actually paying for supplementing, are we supplementing food or are we supplementing minimum wage?
• 40:49
  Speaker A: Maybe both. I don't know about that statistic. Walmart's certainly not publishing how many of their employees are on food stamps. That wouldn't be appropriate. But people are making these assumptions.
• 41:00
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 41:00
  Speaker A: And so we can very quickly move into a discussion on minimum wage. Right?
• 41:05
  Speaker B: Right.
• 41:06
  Speaker A: The minute you move into a discussion of minimum wage, you move into a discussion on inflation, which moves food prices up. Right. We can start to circle all over again. It's not simple. No, I. I just think we have to go. My comment would be, I'm not in office, I don't intend to be. So I can talk from the cheap seats. But we need to focus on who truly needs the help, and we need to make sure they have it. We need to focus on who we can move forward and how we get them that help. Even if it's expensive today, it's a good investment of the future. But Congress, Congress is not inclined to invest today on a solution that works out in 20 years, because they're not getting elected in 20 years. So the very system somewhat cripples these opportunities. If we don't have, you know, the handful of folks who are willing to take tough votes like that are not getting replicated by voters. Y' all have it. Y' all have a chance to think about that hard locally. Yes, and I hope you do.
• 42:06
  Speaker B: Yes, we do. Yes, we sure do. And that's a pretty unique opportunity for us. So I think you're right. Just in case anybody is confused about what we're talking about, Jody Arrington's not gonna be running again, so we have a congressman that we need to elect. And so we've already had a few people throw their hat into the ring, so we'll see where that goes. Brandon, this has been really interesting. I have learned a lot. So definitely there's cases of fraud. I'd never thought about them being, like, so.
• 42:44
  Speaker A: Organized.
• 42:45
  Speaker B: Organized crime. Yeah. So that's really interesting to me. And I don't know, I guess my mind just doesn't go that way. But really is great to hear. I think you bring a really good balanced approach to like, hey, we need this, but there are things that we have to think about. We really do need to look at the truth of it. But also we, it goes back to, at the end of the day, it's going to go back to are we putting people in place that want to make a difference and move things forward? Are we putting in people in a position that want to be just simply be reelected?
• 43:19
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 43:20
  Speaker B: And those two are, are probably don't always go together. Maybe when you do what is right and you make some decisions that actually do good for people, you might not know it for 20 years.
• 43:33
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
• 43:35
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 43:35
  Speaker A: It's real people making decisions about real people and there's good and bad and all that.
• 43:40
  Speaker B: That's true. That's true. Okay. Well, thank you. And friends, this will be the second time we've talked about this kind of thing and so I hope you've enjoyed it and a little bit of a different perspective on things. So, Brandon, I appreciate you taking the time to. To drop by and come in and out of focus.
• 43:58
  Speaker A: Sorry about the camera. No clue.
• 44:01
  Speaker B: So, friends, thanks for joining us and we look forward to having you back as we have another episode of Conservation Stories coming up every Friday. Thank you.
• 44:10
  Speaker A: Thanks for having.