Food Stamps: A Microcosm of Out-of-Control Government
As I showed earlier this month, the economy has been extraordinarily and historically unimpressive since the recession as traditionally defined ended in June 2009. Nevertheless, during the intervening 26 months, according to the more comprehensive Household Survey at the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, seasonally adjusted employment, since bottoming out in December 2009, has grown by 1.67 million, or about 1.2% of the workforce.
This degree of job growth should have caused the number of those enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), still popularly known as food stamps, to level off or at least grow only slightly, right? Dream on. Food stamp enrollment during the eighteen months ending in June of this year increased by 6.2 million, or 16%. In the past 3-1/2 years, food stamp enrollment has grown by 72%, from 26.3 million to June’s 45.2 million. In 2007, about one in eleven Americans was receiving food stamps; now it’s about one in seven.
The food stamp program is a case study in good intentions gone wild, and a direct rebuke to those who believe we can’t reduce spending on government welfare and entitlement programs, and reduce or eliminate many other federal programs and departments, without harming the vulnerable.
The original 1964 legislation creating the program was a result of a classic “win-win” logrolling arrangement between urban politicians who wanted to feed poverty-stricken families and rural reps who sought increases in farm subsidies. Predictably, both groups got what they wanted, while taxpayers lost. Uncle Sam’s Agriculture Department originally predicted that the program “would eventually reach 4 million, at a cost of $360 million annually.” By the end of 1974, the number of participants (15 million) and the cost ($2.7 billion, or $1.6 billion in 1964 dollars) had both essentially quadrupled those original estimates. The tab in calendar 2011 will easily top $70 billion.
Individual and family benefits have recently skyrocketed for no defensible reason. During the last few years of the Bush administration, leftists ramped up an orchestrated PR campaign called the Food Stamp Challenge. It was designed to prove how absolutely impossible it was to survive on the program’s average benefit of $21 per person per week. Among those who agreed to participate in what they claimed was the grocery-store version of Mission: Impossible were several congresspersons, Oregon’s governor, and many journalists.
But the $21 benchmark was a fraudulent figure. It was the average net benefit after legally mandated deductions from gross benefits for family income and assets, the reasonable idea being that the government would make up the difference between 30% of a household’s income and what recipients could afford to pay for food from their own resources. Depending on household size, individuals and families deemed as having no available resources were getting $27-$36 per person per week in benefits — amounts that roughly coincided with what the U.S. Department of Agriculture at the time considered to be the cost of its “thrifty” but adequately nutritional meal plan. Rather than argue the merits of the income- or asset-based deductions, Food Stamp Challenge promoters refused to even recognize their existence, falsely insisting that the net benefit was all recipients had to spend on food. Meanwhile, during August 2007, Colorado activist Ari Armstrong and his wife demonstrated that they could live within even the artificially low Food Stamp Challenge amount without undue hardship, and spent a whopping 44% less than the gross benefit amount.
Even though benefits were already adequate, and even though the cost of food at home increased by a bit less than 5% during the two years involved, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid’s Congress, with George W. Bush acquiescing, increased gross benefits in fiscal 2009 by 9%. Once Barack Obama became president, gross benefits went up two times in just over eight months by a total of 13%. These increases, combined with rules changes in many states easing income, asset, and other eligibility tests, caused the average net benefit over those two years to explode by 40%. Gross benefit levels have stayed the same since October 2009, but they’re still way above the reasonable levels of three years ago. The bottom line is that we no longer expect recipients to be thrifty with their taxpayer gifts.
What ordinary people would see as obvious abuse is clearly on the rise. In Southwestern Ohio in early 2009, a couple with $80,000 in the bank and a paid-off $300,000 home qualified; it was not an isolated incident. Colleges have actively encouraged their students, no matter how well-off their parents might be, to get with the program. In a sign of how widespread student abuse of food stamps might be, Michigan has removed 30,000 of them from the rolls so far this year.
Duplication of benefits between other federal programs is rampant. Children in food stamp-eligible families are often if not usually getting free lunches and/or breakfasts at school. It’s not mean or nasty to observe that such families are getting 21 meals’ worth of benefits each week their kids are in school, but only have to figure out how to feed their kids 11 or 16 times. Many college students on food stamps are receiving financial aid based on their school’s officially published cost of attendance, which includes tuition, fees, room — and board.
Thrift being no longer necessary, the next stage is apparently removing the expectation that recipients prepare their own meals. The program’s new frontier is permitting the purchase of restaurant meals. This “feature” is currently limited to four states and is in theory only available to the elderly, disabled, and homeless. If you believe that every fast-food cashier is verifying whether every person paying with their SNAP card really qualifies, I’ve got a Microsoft Sweepstakes-winning email to forward to you. It should be no surprise that lobbying efforts to expand restaurant merchant eligibility are well under way. I sense that another “win-win” at taxpayers’ expense, which will also serve to cement currently too-high benefit levels, is on the horizon.
Finally, the food stamp program, like so many other federal efforts, is riddled with fraud. Ohio alone replaces 200,000 supposedly “lost” food stamp cards per year out of a current pool of 1.6 million recipients, or perhaps 500,000 households. Many if not most of the cards are being sold for cash or drugs.
To contend that this and other federal programs and departments can’t be cut — real cuts, not just reductions in projected, artificially jacked-up spending — is absurd. Unless we’re gunning to be the next Greece but without anyone who will bail us out, we can’t afford not to.
I’d say it is expanding largely because so many people are out of work. That 9.1% is a misleading number –it doesn’t count the majority of those who’ve been out of work for more 2 years, nor those who’ve become too dispirited to keep looking.
Here’s the problem with food stamps. I know, because I was on them briefly when, as a full-scholarship college student, I was injured at one of my jobs (no-compensation, just loss of the job as a result and hospital costs to cover) and, because of the multiple broken bones in my foot and ankle lost my other two jobs (gymnastics instructor and security guard doing midnight-dawn shifts). I found a part-time telemarketing job but was still forced to go on food stamps to make ends meet. Several weeks into the job I was offered the chance of an extra shift one week when a co-worker called in sick and so, of course, jumped at it. For working ‘too many hours’ as a result of that one shift (total earnings $12 before taxes) the $70 in monthly food stamps I was getting –back in ’92 — was completely suspended for 3 months. I literally survived until my bones healed by getting food out of dumpsters when restaurants closed for the night and threw away the food they couldn’t sell the next day. Yes, you were penalized and penalized hard for trying to get ahead. There was no ‘well let’s just remove that 12 bucks from what the government is giving you’ –as, indeed, I expected when I took that shift, thinking this was a good thing — no, there was only the message of don’t be stupid enough to dare be industrious or try to put your life back together. That is the problem with the food stamp system.
We should pay close attention to Yaeli’s Comment. This is for the benefit of increased bureaucracy rather than help for the needy.
The whole thing goes back tor FDR and his Farm Subsidy Program. The subsidies bought surplus(?) food and then we needed to do something with that food, etc. etc ad infinitum. So we have our current program. It should not be called a misplaced good but a premeditated evil. The spirit pushing this is out for our destruction.
I could cite a number of problems centered in our USDA programs but then this would really get long.
Nothing in the US Constitution empowers the federal grabbermint even to HAVE a Department of Agriculture.
Oh, and by the way, for trashing the US Constitution, as well as for rampant anti-Semitism, it’s time we removed FDR’s ugly mug from the dime – which, in any case, is no longer worth what a penny had been worth back in the day.
Actually those all silver dimes are worth about $2.70 each for the silver content alone, which shows you just how much inflation there has been since 1964. Dimes of the sandwich copper balony kind issued from 1965 to present will still buy you? Well nothing actually, but they are handy for making change.
After I was hurt playing football because of a defective helmet, I got a job testing for accurate hat sizes in a homburg hat factory whilst I finished my PhD dissertation in Lobbyist Studies at U. Vermont. Hey, though it was a rather painful position, I had to make ends meet. I sure am grateful for all the help I got from taxpayers for food, clothing, and beer. So grateful am I that I began my efforts to become a lobbyist. I won’t rest until my work results in every single person in the good old USA having at least five lifetime federal subsidies for their various activities.
Yaeli;
There are plenty of charities out there that could have helped you avoid eating from dumpsters. Why didn’t you give them a call?
The Food Stamp Program is just a microscopic view of the entire United States Federal Bureaucracy. The fraud, waste and abuse and guidelines contained in the Food Stamp Program exists in every single Nanny State Program and in the Agencies, Bureaus, Commissions and Departments that run them.
Every U.S. agency, bureau, commission and department is a self-perpetuating empire and like all empires, the seek growth in size, power, employees, buildings and of course the associated spending that it requires to service the empire. So, in order for these Bureaucratic Empires to Exist and continue to Expand, they have to Expand it’s Service Base by ever adding Victims To Their Roles to Serve by continually re-defining what Makes Up a Victim.
Or, if the Agency, Bureau, Commission or Department was created to Solve a Specific Social, Environmental, or Other Phantom Problem, they never actively work to Solve or Eliminate a Problem, and in fact, they Find and or Create New Problems to Serve or Solve in order to Justify the Expansion of their Empires which, like all Empires, seek growth in Size and Power.
What we now have is a Federal Bureaucratic Empire and like all Empires that seek Growth in Size, Power and Spending and are forever in Expansionist Phase, they become totally dishonest, subversive and most importantly, they become Despotic. And, like All Empires that Seek Growth in Size and Power, these same Bureaucratic Empires Become More and More Despotic and Fascistic, and will do and or say anything to Protect their Empire Status which gives the Bureaucracy Power.
The Federal System is forever seeking growth in Spending and Power and to do this, they have to Find New Victims to Serve or New Problems to solve, and of course what ever problem they were created to Solve, Improve or Eradicate, never decreases in size and in fact, the Numbers of Problems and Victims will always Increase as the Size and Power of The Empire Bureaucracy Increases.
We have to stop this insane and out of control Federal Bureaucratic System this is an out of control Despotic System this is continually growing.
And, under the Obama Regime, the federal government has expanded by at least 270,000 new Federal Bureaucrats by expanding to some degree every single Federal Agency, Bureau, Commission or Department. For example, under the Obama Nationalized Health Care Bill, over 16,500 new IRS agents were added to the Out of Control Internal Revenue Service which is one of the most dangerous and despotic federal bureaucracies in the entire country, if not the world. And, also, under the Obama Regime, several new agencies and commissions have been Created Out of Thin Air to Solve Other New Problems that the Government bureaucracies and Policies have Caused to begin with, and every one of these New Born Federal Agencies or Commissions will immediately begin to Seek Growth in Size and Power.
This out of control Federal Expansionism of the Fascistic Nanny State Bureaucracies started out with LBJ in the 1960’s with his So-Called War on Poverty, which is where the Food Stamp Program and all the other so-called Entitlement Programs started, that to date, this so-called War on Poverty which was dubbed The Great Society Program, has squandered over 14 trillion dollars is this so-called War On Poverty, which is coincidentally the current National Debt, and today, the numbers of so-called people living in Poverty has more than Quintupled since the mid-1960’s and the inverse of this, is that in the mid-1960’s, over 80 percent of poor children lived with 2 parents of the opposite sex who were married which is the traditional definition of a family. And in this traditional 2-parent family, one or both parents had jobs, and also these families had dignity, self respect, respect for others and respect for their resources. Today, after 50 years of this so-called War On Poverty, not only have the percentage of people described as living in poverty Qunitupled, today, in 2011, less than 20 percent of the so-called poor live in traditional families with 2 married parents of the Opposite Sex with one or both parents working at a job and raising their own children with no assistance from the Nanny State.
You can apply this scenario and correlation to every single federal Agency, Bureau, Commission or Department. Whatever the supposed reason and justification for creating the Agency, Bureau, Commission or Department, you can rest assured that the Problem they were Created to Solve or To Improve Upon will Never Go Away and in Fact, you can bet that the Problems will not only Persist, they will grow Exponentially in Numbers as the Federal Despotic Agency Empire grows Exponentially in their own Self-Perpetuating Growth as they seek Size, Power and Spending and the degree of their Despotism and Fascistic rules and regulations will also grow, especially, if they fear any interference in their operations or if they are threatened with extinction.
Like all Despotic Empires, these Federal Bureaucracies will Fight to the Bitter End to Survive and will never willingly give up their Empire Status which gives them Power, Prestige and Status. That is why you see the Obama Regime using all the federal Bureaucracy to Attack Their Enemies or they are Finding New Problems to Solve or New Victims to Serve or legitimate citizens and businesses to target for attack in order to Protect Their Own Empires and to Expand their own Empires.
It is no accident that the numbers and percentages of folks now on Food Stamps has grown, as the Definitions of Poverty keep Changing in order to Add New Victims to the Roles to coincide with Size, Spending and Expansion of The Food Stamp Industry which is the Federal Model of Fascistic Nanny State Bureaucracy. That is why in Alabama, the state in which I live, there was a public service announcement, ( These Public Service Announcements which inundate the airwaves especially on Radio, is how the Feds Advertise all their Various Agencies, Departments, Bureaus, and Commission and Programs which are constantly Recruiting New Victims to Serve or to Create New Problems to Solve), which said that only 67 percent of Alabamians who qualified for Food Stamps were actually receiving Food Stamps. These Public Service Announcements were a Recrutitment Tool to get the other 33 percent of those qualified for Food Stamps to go out and Sign Up for them. These public service announcements which are paid for by Tax Payers, encouraged family members, friends, churches and social service agencies to Encourage those who Qualified For Food Stamps to Go Out and Sign Up. The Food Stamp Bureaucracy Was actively Recruiting Victims to Serve as they Sought also to Increase Their Budgets, Numbers of Employees on their Pay Rolls and of course to Protect Their Ever Expanding Empires.
This look at the Food Stamp Program is but a Microscopic View of the Entire Federal Bureaucracy and this Correlation in their Growth and How They Make Any Problem that they are designed to Fix, grow worse and fact, the problems are Guaranteed to Grow as the Federal Bureaucratic Agency Seeks It’s Own Growth and Survival and Becomes a Despotic Empire. And, of course along the way, they Create Even More Problems that requires a New Agency or Department to Solve.
There is not a single Problem in the USA today that the Federal Government itself, has not caused and or created.
And, of course, as the Feds Bureaucratic Empire has expanded, due to the Feds Mandates on Local and State Governments, local and state governments have also Expanded their own Bureaucracies with their own Expansionist Ways, but the difference is this: The States have to Balance Budgets and cannot Borrow from Communists in China or Islamists in Saudi Arabia or From the Loan Sharks who run the Federal Reserve. That is why if we are to fight this Federal Fascistic Bureaucracy, we have to first Admit that this is exactly what we have at the Federal Level of Government, and then to begin taking back our Local and State Governments to insure they start their own downsizing along with the downsizing of their spending and power.
We can take the country back one town, county and state at a time, and then replace the U.S. President and Congress and begin the Dismantling of the Federal Fascist Bureaucratic System and the Agencies, Bureaus, Commissions and Departments which are not only bankrupting the nation, these same Federal Bureaucracies are Destroying Our Freedoms, Rights and Liberties with needless and endless regulations that are not trying to Micro-Manage every single aspect of our private and work lives.
This Federal Government is The Cause of Every Single Problem in the USA Today and to Clean this Country Up and Return to a Constitutional Republic, about 80 percent of this Fascistic Federal Bureaucracy Must Be Abolished in their Entirety.
There is not a single Problem in the USA today that the Federal Government itself, has not caused and or created.
You should be smart enough to know when government’s at fault and when it isn’t. Blaming all our ills on the government won’t help us – to the contrary.
Yep, that remark was overly broad. The federal grabbermint is not the foundation of all human error and fallibility. Other than that, though, he was pretty much spot on.
Greyhawk you have done a wonderful job of defining our bureaucratic ways. Only need a bit of fine tuning. You are wrong about this starting with LBJ,granted, he gave it a tremendous boost but the system started with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and was unconstitutional in its entirety.
As a farmer, I was robbed of my right to plant the crop of my choice since that choice was now government property. I was forbidden, in the name of fairness, from selling any farm crop that was now under government control. From this program we produced the food stamps so we could, in all fairness, distribute the “surplus” our government was buying and storing as a price fixing ploy that produces less and less till it can produce nothing at all.
So, yes, you are quite right in your assessment of the government bureaucracy. Just a little off on who was responsible.
Where did these notions see the light of day? The Russian Bolshevik Revolution is a good place to start looking. They were a violent bunch.
And the cute trick used by the Federal bureaucracy enablers in Congress is that if you mention maybe chopping this beast back to save the country from being consumed in debt, they quickly tell you that no we must first cut the “entitlements” namely the ones you paid your money into like Social Security and Medicare.
And then they wonder why we want to vote them all out of office.
Greyhawk, please run for some office and I’ll vote for you numerous times!
“Finally, the food stamp program, like so many other federal efforts, is riddled with fraud. Ohio alone replaces 200,000 supposedly “lost” food stamp cards per year out of a current pool of 1.6 million recipients, or perhaps 500,000 households. Many if not most of the cards are being sold for cash or drugs.”
Nice to see that our hard-earned tax money is being so “well” spent. This is what drives taxpayers crazy, seeing all of the fraud and abuse. Perhaps harsher penalties for people committing this fraud in order and will discourage other people from doing the same thing. Seems that the IRS has absolutely no problems throwing people in jail for fraud. Why should this be any different?
Thank goodness the blogger is taking such a strong stand against food stamps!
Because if there’s one thing we true conservatives don’t want, it’s for poor people to have food.
Next up he can demand that the minumum wage be reduced.
Because if there’s one thing we true conservatives don’t want, it’s for poor people to have money.
True conservatives — and proud of it!
Your uunderstanding of what conservatives want reads like a cut and paste ransom note. Do your parents know that you’re posting this sort of nonsense?
I’m a true conservative, and I want poor people to have food. I just want them to work for it, like I do.
I’m a true conservative, and I want poor people to have money. I am just tired of giving them mine.
How about you and birds of your feather fund the program from now on…let us ‘true conservatives’ opt out for some of that CHANGE we can HOPE in.
Sorry you think I’m mean spirited.
I’ll get over it.
Interesting point by Dr mercury,,,
But I am at a loss of understanding>
Many times in our life we have been Eligible for food stamps, but were dumb enough to ever apply, because regardless How Low our Income, food was a PRIORITY in our budget and we purchased FRESH what we did not grow or barter for.
FOOD (fresh food) is still within the purchasing power of most, who are in the Inflated POVERTY LEVEL
Dr. Mercury, you astound me. Why would we want the poor to be broke? Can you sell to a customer who has no money? Should I give you $12 to buy a $10 item from me? Except the people have money I am out of business.
“Because if there’s one thing we true conservatives don’t want, it’s for poor people to have food.
“Next up he can demand that the minumum wage be reduced.
“Because if there’s one thing we true conservatives don’t want, it’s for poor people to have money.”
These great swelling words of vanity are the fruit of Socialism. Capitalism requires capital in the form of pennies among the poor to millions among the rich and it all works together for good. It is essential that people can earn money so they can buy and sell. That is the best way to distribute this world’s wealth. The minimum wage is not a question the bureaucrat can answer. But, unless it can feed the worker he will not work long at that wage. However if you are hungry and can pick up a meal, why not? It is not necessary that you are working for another when you are working to feed yourself. Please explain how you are going to make gathering wood less work when you need it to cook?
Last year in 3 food stamp fraud raids in IL,OH and IN,it was discovered that $3 million was sent to terrorist groups out of the $5m stolen.That 3 stores committing fraud out of how many?
And please show us families, that are legal citizens ,that are hungry.The majority of Americans are OBESE.
Let us not forget,48% of illegals are on food stamps.
And our schools turn out helpless creatures that can’t cook a meal without $100 and a microwave.
Welfare programs have destroyed our economy and created generations of lazy,helpless,apathetic people.
“Uncle Sam’s Agriculture Department originally predicted that the program “would eventually reach 4 million, at a cost of $360 million annually.”
Where are the illegal Hispanics…? Bring in the illegal Hispanics!
Why..?
Because Uncle Sam’s Agriculture Department didn’t predict anything. What they did was set an immediate goal for themselves. A goal, thanks in large part to big-businesses aid and comfort which has been exceeded so far above what was expected that it is incredible.
In example, I live in Prince William Find A Caucasian If You Can County, Virginia. Go to any supermarket. Pick one – your choice. Watch convoys of illegal Hispanics; each with a minimum of 3 anchor babies pushing their shopping carts loaded with the most expensive fruits, produce, vegetables and meats that the store sells.
When they go through the checkout cashier they do not pay one dime for anything they put in their carts. Then as an after thought reach into their pocket to pull out a wad of cash that would choke a horse to death and slap a 100 dollar bill down to pay for a crummy 79 cent candy bar.
All of this while our illustrious local politicians pat each other on the back while telling the local TV channel reporters that they’ve cleaned Prince William Find A Caucasian If You Can County, Virginia up of all illegal Hispanic immigrant problems.
Where are the illegal Hispanics…?
Stop that part of America’s social madness and you will have solved the food stamp problem.
Anything short of that means that you are just whizzing in the wind for something to do because you are either bored, clueless or a combination thereof.
“Thank goodness the blogger is taking such a strong stand against food stamps!
Because if there’s one thing we true conservatives don’t want, it’s for poor people to have food.
Next up he can demand that the minumum wage be reduced.
Because if there’s one thing we true conservatives don’t want, it’s for poor people to have money.
True conservatives — and proud of it!”
As much as I hate to say it, this guy is absolutely right! This whining about giving American people food just completely makes us conservatives fit that bad stereotype that the liberals portray us with. What a waste of time this artice is. The food stamp service or SNAP is very well regulation as it is impossible to by anything else but food with it! As far as people trading them in for drugs, show me the evidence that this is rampant. Even if someone did do this at least the other person who needs the food is getting it! We give away so much food to other poor countries HOW ABOUT AMERICA FIRST!!
I had a woman offer to buy my groceries using her food stamps, the other day at walmart, and in return……she wanted my cash…food stamps are not free$$$. And if you think this doesnt happen all over the country, you may need to WAKE UP!
“Thank goodness the blogger is taking such a strong stand against food stamps!
Because if there’s one thing we true conservatives don’t want, it’s for poor people to have food.
Next up he can demand that the minumum wage be reduced.
Because if there’s one thing we true conservatives don’t want, it’s for poor people to have money.
True conservatives — and proud of it!”
As much as I hate to say it, this guy is absolutely right! This whining about giving American people food just completely makes us conservatives fit that bad stereotype that the liberals portray us with. What a waste of time this artice is and it seems like it’s written by someone who wants to make conservatives look bad. The food stamp service or SNAP is very well regulated as it is impossible to buy anything else but food with it! As far as people trading them in for drugs, show me the evidence that this is rampant. Even if someone did do this at least the other person who needs the food is getting it! We give away so much food to other poor countries HOW ABOUT AMERICA FIRST!!
That’s right. That’s what we do. We whine about corruption in government. We whine about public unions. We whine about the poor education our children are receiving. We whine about taxes. We whine about the economy. We whine about the MSM. We whine about the national debt. We whine about not enough drilling in the Gulf. We whine about Obamacare. We whine about too much spending on green energy projects. We whine aabiut government subsidization of some industries. We whine about spending increases in wefare programs. And the list goes on.
After all that whining, how dare we whine about a 70% increase in food stamp spending in 3-1/2 years? Whine, whine, whine, whine. I’d like some cheese with that. No wonder the Democrats and Progs don’t respect us. I am so ashamed.
“This whining about giving American people food……..” This is typical of the culture of the Progressives in Washington. Buying votes, while increasing welfare programs and public dependency. Why has Federal spending increased so dramatically. Don’t you see the pattern here, cottonbaler?
Are you and “Anonymous” the same person or do you just both steal your “ideas” from the same talking points?
sorry for the duplication as my first comment was a rough draft.
Sorry for the duplicate post, the first one was a rough draft.
Just wanted to know. Was the second duplicate post a draft of the second post or was that supposed to be in the first post or first duplicate post?
And do you always change the names you post under on your first and second draft?
I am glad we have a safety net, unfortunately the people who need it most benefit the least. For those of you who want an education I recommend giving your time to a local food bank. Our church has a food bank and like many I would get a warm feeling when it was announced how many families we helped each month. I decided to help out one day by giving my time to our food bank, it was an eye opener. Month after month I would watch the same people show up thirty minutes early to be first in line. I asked the people who usually get inline first why they show up early. I want to get the good stuff and I have nothing better to do was the response. Once the doors are opened we give people numbers so the no longer have to wait in line. After watching and talking with these people I found some to be in need but most are professional handout takers. The professionals know each other and educate each other of new ways to work the system. They talk openly about how to work the system, as I listened I got an education. I found out that I can go to the local flea market and buy food cheap, my ears perk up at the opportunity to make our food bank dollars go further. Some of us went to check it out, the food was cheaper but we did not buy any. The people selling the food are the same people who are first in line at our food bank. By the way, around Christmas time toys can be purchased at this flea market dirt cheap. The professional handout takers are basically stealing resources from those who truly have a need, this is a worse crime than selling drugs or sex to willing buyers. Keep working hard, just don’t pay attention to where your tax and charity dollars go if you want to keep maintain your fantasy about helping people in need. How many hours do you have to work to buy a week’s worth of groceries? Maybe we should all chat with friends for two hours and get a week’s worth of groceries instead of working for them.
I, a retired fixed income, social security recipient, 69 year old male living way out in the boonies have only one ?. Where do I sign up? It would certainly allow me to eat a bit better, fewer beans and rice meals, for one. Yes, I currently get along with my 15 year old auto that I drive very sparingly, my 6 year old computer that I use mainly to stay aware of the news that I can’t get from the MSM on my 9 year old television. Spending fewer of my socsec dollars for food would free up some of that cash to update some things I’d really LIKE to have. Isn’t that a ‘right’ these days?? Happiness is guaranteed in the constitution isn’t it? Oh, that’s right, it’s the PURSUIT of happiness. Think I’ll go pursue some ‘SNAP’.
Coeurmaeghan, 20 miles east of 29 Palms, CA ‘the boonies indeed’.
The primary problem with any Food Stamp program, to the degree that it is a Fed program, is that it is unConstitutional. Find me the line in the Constitution that authorizes Congress to take tax money from a waitress in Des Moines to use to buy food for a citizen of Duluth. It’s simply not there. Quit breaking our foundational Law! To the extent that anyone, ‘conservative’, ‘liberal’, ‘independent’, or ‘none of the above’, pays no attention to the issue of Constitutionality, or doesn’t care, they are traitors to this nation. Read the Constitution!
Do you know anybody on Food Stamps that is not fat? Did you know that a family of 4 in Arkansas gets between 7 and 8 HUNDRED dollars a month for food? Something is wrong with this picture.
After 35 successful years in targeted publishing operations management I became a bail bondsman and bounty hunter at the age of 58. I have three guys working for me and three teams of bounty hunters.
Here are some thoughts on food stamps and welfare and those who participate:
1. After a year and a half of hunting we just picked up a felon on the south side of Chicago who was on the run on a $10,000 bond we had to forfeit. When we snagged him he had a Michigan Bridge card (food stamp credit card) on him in fact he had just gotten back from the store when we nicked him. I can say from experience that many if not most of the folks we deal with, their families and friends have Bridge Cards.
2. A law is now going forward in Michigan, yes this is true, to stop Bridge Card holders from getting cash from ATM’s at casino’s, no I am not making that up. And included in this same bill is a statute to prevent criminals with pending charges and/or on the run from getting Bridge Cards (currently there is no communication between Dept of Human Services and the Dept of Corretions, the left hand does not know what the left is doing. Criminals on welfare, ain’t that a hoot.
3. We know for a fact that Bridge Cards are regularly sold for cash usually at a discount. We know for a fact because all to often Bobby calls us from jail and tells us to call Jimmy and have him go sell his Bridge Card so that he can get out of jailf or a family member or friend they’ll get Bobby out as soon as they run down the street and sell their Bridge Card.
4. If you have a history of drug use and/or alcohol abuse there is nothin to prevent you from getting a Bridge Card. The card is then sold for drugs and alcohol. 99.534% of our clients and most of their friends and relatives smoke. 90% of the clients, friends and relatives we deal with look healthy (even the drug users usually), in fact many are chubby, certainly dress well (except for the baggy low rider thug pants, utterly tasteless in my view, but heck I’m an old guy), smell good, probably dropped out of school before 16, have at least two kids if they are 17 or 18 (the record was a young lady who was 20 with six kids by 4 different fathers, she was cute as heck), and probably never worked in their life as they have no skills whatsoever, no education, have no idea how to apply or interview for a job, have learned a faux English that at times is very difficult to understand (I am forever saying please repeat that and talk slow). AND THIS IS TRUE OF WHITE AND BLACK equally, just so you know I am not a racist, although I guess I am because no I don’t like Obama’s policies.
5. Many of these people, white and black, are on Social Security Disability. Those on SSD are young, in their 20′s & 30′s and also old. Most have learned how to game the system, usually a bad back works the best, and the game is to keep going back until you get the checks rolling in for life, you never leave SSD and it is something highly desired in all low income cultures. Welfare, subsidized housing is a way of life. So they got themselves a life, a bad one and a sad one, but it is all they know.
The welfare system from top to bottom is gamed and abused by everyone and keeps the low income end of our culture entrenched from generation to generation. It is all they know. Poverty in 1960 America 12%, Poverty in 2010 America 12%, poverty in 2011 under Obama 15%. What a waste.
Bottom line is I have coined a phrase that pretty much sums it up:
“The Federal and State governments pay the poor to stay poor, no hand up, just a check down”. At this one thing the Bureaucrats excel beyond our wildest dreams.
Thanks
FYI For the record roughly 70% of our bonds are White folk the remainder Black and Hispanic. Hispanic’s are generally always good bonds with little fear of them running. African Americans for whatever reason are the most likely to skip court and run. We figure about 2 to 3 % of our clients will run. In four years of doing this we’ve only lost one skip. He had a heart attack and died before we could get him.
Thanks
A really great insight. Thanks for taking the time to share your story.
I’ve been receiving food benefits in New York State since April, 2010. (What I got is a plastic card with my photo ID. The card is scanned at checkout counters. I did not get “food stamps” or scrip. I thought of applying for the card because by the end of each month, my $1,065 monthly Social Security check left me with enough money for a roll and coffee a day. I have no bank account, no phone, no credit card, no employment. My only periodic work is as volunteer arbitrator at Bronx County Small Claims Court, and as an arbitrator with the attorney-client fee dispute program at NY County Lawyers Assn. The 90 I got on the Census Bureau test did not lead to a job. Applications at, say, Barnes & Noble, did not lead to a job. NYC (under Mayor Giuliani) a bit more than ten years ago and backed by HUD, manipulated property taxes to destroy my family’s real estate management business — but that is another story. (I will add that one Anthony Weiner sent an improper letter to the bankrutpcy judge in that matter, filled with lies and smears against my family.)
What I have learned, as recently as today, by way of my poverty status, is that the notion that liberal politicians are compassionate is a crock.
I had a hearing for seat-belt only violation, this morning. After realizing that I lost my case on the facts, notwithstanding technically unreliable testimony from the police officer and his acknowledgment that he did not give everyone he stopped for seatbelt violation a ticket, I applied to the hearing officer for relief as a hardship case and offered as proof my benefits card.
The hearing officer said he could not consider that request and told me that I must pay in two weeks and have 30 days to appeal. The fine– $130, which is 12.2 percent of my social security income. He directed me to the payment counter for more information. At the payment counter, I was told that I could
request an additional two weeks to pay, but I had to return on another day to make that request. Could I get mroe time? No, was the abrupt answer.
Where, in all the instructions from the hearing officer and the payment-counter clerk is a sense of empathy for poor people? There is none, of course.
Note that the fine for a seat belt violation in New York is the same as the fine for cell phone violation. Common sense should counsel that a cell phon violation is rather more serious than seat belt, but we have scant exercise of common sense by liberals in NY state (with conservatives meekly following the left’s lead).
I would also note that when Gov. Mario Cuomo (Cuomo I) gave us seat belt laws, he assured us that summonses would not issue for seat belt violation only. And so, the fact that we now have seat belt-only summonses is proof of the duplicity of public officials in New York.
Just one other point. My hearing was conducted in a building on East 125th Street in Manhattan. One does not see people in suits and ties as defendants here. Now as to the suits and ties who perhaps drive cars(or are driven in cars) with heavily tinted windows — I doubt that such people will receive seast belt only violations. How can the police officer serve a summons for seat belt violation only if he cannot see through the car window?
And so — where is the anti-nanny state conservative who will demand an end to seat belt only violations — OR the requirement that heavily tinted windows in cars should also be prima facie indication that a violation for a serious traffic offense is taking place on the other side of the tinted class?
And where is the conservative who will demand a human face be applied by government toward the poor who get hit with seat belt only violations and are
liable for a fine that is the same amount as a fine for cell phone violation?
I would add that if liberals can establish violations for seat belt only violations, accompanied for draconian fines — vis-a-vis poor people, why should we be surprised the left believes it can get away with Obamacare — and, indeed, any laws it the left can think of, provided the laws are tied to a health peg. Also, if healthcare costs are the justification for seast belt only violations, how soon until seniors will be fined for getting ill, and, therby, adding health care expenses to society at large?
There is, I believe, another word for “nanny-state.” The word is — tyranny.
An intelligent and well presented arguement for the complete hypocracy of the Left. I couldn’t agree more. I have run into the new “revenue” enhancement strategy of all the Blue State Inner Cities myself and the fines are totally out of wack with the offense. Good luck to you and best wishes for a better tomorrow.
The food stamp – free school lunch overlap is the biggest systematic ripoff.
Its usually lunch, and breakfast, and in many places, starting to include sack meals sent home in the afternoon for *dinner*.
On top of that, there are other federal programs that open the school cafeterias in the *summer* to feed these kids year round — the regular students, not just summer school students. Crazier still, it is not just kids, but anyone in the ‘community’ if you know what I mean — funny how this is only done in certain neighborhoods.
Now add in further overlap from those gaming the system for SS ‘Supplemental Income’ on their kids with fake problems and you’ve really got a racket going. The proverbial ‘crazy checks’ are real — my wife, a 21 year teaching vet has had first graders admit they were repeatedly wetting themselves becasue mama told them too.
If food stamps were accompanied by an IRS Form 1099-GOV I wouldn’t have any problem with them at all. On that basis, I believe that the electorate could easily be convinced that my family should get 200% of the government determined food ration minimum because I earned it myself. It should certainly free that money from taxation. It most probably won’t. Neither Republican or Democrat really wants ALL people to be self-sufficient because then they don’t have anybody to scare or buy off.
Food stamps could be much less… this is the same all over the world, the US is not the only place where someone has done the ‘how well can I live on the dole’ experiment — in Germany, Thilo Sarrazin (then Finance minister of Berlin) did exactly the same test with his wife, with very much the same result: they were extremely well fed for much less than the dole handout. He even published a cook book (the first book he was hated for!) before his famous ‘Germany abolishes itself’ book).
But, the actual problem is that the ‘customers’ often are not able to plan and cook.
This is why there is the extra payment in the handout — so that people who are not smart can buy things they know they can eat — KFC is not as cheap as cooking. And the fact that cooking has turned into a posh foodie hobby doesn’t help the people who would need to be able to cook the most.
So, I would be against food stamps(or cash handouts), offer personalized soup kitchen/fast food vouchers instead, this gets everyone fed to a basic standard, which is the actual goal here. We have plenty of McDonalds(KFC,etc) everywhere, why not use them!
The lefty idea that we should use welfare to ‘educate’ people into self-responsibility is insane — the sad fact is, that we have lots of people who are barely functional, and giving them money/food stamps they cannot use properly (and end up drugged/starving/robbed) is not help at all but sabotage — sometimes teaching a man to fish ends up getting them drowned!
We used to call that “thinning the herd”, it worked.
Let me get this right. We are now since the poor can’t cook for themselves to pay for fast food. This is nuts. Instead, if we are to continue the snap program, limit what can be purchased to basic foods that need to be cooked. Gee maybe some will learn a very basic new skill how to survive. Maybe they will learn to cook well enough to be employed in the resturant business.
And let’s not forget that other food giveaway: WIC. Eliminate both programs, Food Stamps and WIC. Or tighten the eligibility. Take away from those who turn down jobs, are in this country illegally, or have quit a job within the last year.
Elect Mittens Romney or any other RINO and we will not improve these problems one bit. Can any of us really afford 8 more years of this insanity? It isn’t just Obama, although he is clearly close to the perfection of stupidity, it is both sides of the aisle and they ain’t giving up that money without a fight.
ONLY VOTE FOR SOMEONE WHO WILL MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE IN 2012.
Panem Without the Cicenses: Food Stamps
Before the collapse of the Roman Republic, politicians were no less devious than contemporary pols.
One way or another, they tried to buy plebeian votes, to ply the rabble with goodies in hopes of winning their approval come election time. The tactic came to be known as providing panem et circenses or bread and circuses. Our politicians call it food stamps.
There is no doubt many Americans are hurting in President Barack Hussein Obama’s dismal economy with a continuing high rate of unemployment unrelieved by multi-billion dollar federal stimulations and a climbing poverty rate. Reflecting that failure, the Census Bureau reported in September that the number of people in the United States living below the official poverty line rose in 2010 by 2.6 million bringing the grand total of America’s poor to 46.2 million, the highest number in 52 years.
Way to go, Barack!
There is also no doubt that most of those poor would be considered rich by half the world and that some Americans take advantage of the system. Anyone standing in line to buy staples at the local A&P behind someone purchasing lobsters with a food stamp card can attest to that abuse.
Haphazardly throwing more and more money at a problem has never changed anything but the Obamians have no clue what else to do. They could just get out of the way of the chained giant that is the American capitalistic industrial base, lift restrictions and regulations and let it roar but that option is a non-starter with socialists.
However, there are those pesky things called elections so how do they make the discontented more content?
Why, bribe them, of course! . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=9840.)