Altimont owns Carmen’s Corner Store in Hagerstown, Maryland, a community where around 20 percent of people rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to buy their groceries. But a federal agency decided that Altimont can never accept SNAP as a form of payment at Carmen’s.
That decision isn’t because Altimont has done anything wrong as a business owner, but rather because of unrelated crimes from 2004, for which he’s already served his time.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) permanently bans anyone with drug, alcohol, tobacco, or firearms convictions from participating in the SNAP program—a harsher punishment than the agency dishes out to those who have actually defrauded the program. That’s not just irrational, it’s also unconstitutional, which is why Altimont teamed up with our organization, the Institute for Justice (IJ), to file a federal lawsuit against the agency on Tuesday.
You can thank the Prison Industrial Complex for sponsoring the Republican “Tough on Crime” propaganda. Reactionary idiots think there’s a one step solution to all of society’s ills, and if it doesn’t work, it’s the other political party that made it fail!
Dems are fully on board with the tough on crime bullshit, even if they do stand against discriminatory punishment. They want to be tough on everyone equally.