With Food Stamps, Uncle Sugar Is Fattening Up the Poor

The poor used to be skinny. But in the western world today, they are far more likely to be morbidly obese. And one of the risk factors, it seems, is being on food stamps:

Whenever Republicans talk about trimming the federal food stamp program, Democrats decry them as cold, heartless or worse. But new research shows that cutting food stamps could actually make the country healthier. The U.S. Department of Agriculture looked at data from 2007 through 2010, then compared average weights of those on food stamps — officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — to those who weren’t.

The findings, released on Tuesday, are striking. Food stamp recipients are far more likely to be obese than poor people who are eligible but don’t take the help. And they’re even more likely to be obese than those with higher incomes. Fully 40% of food stamp recipients are obese, the study found, compared with just over 30% of those who don’t participate in the program. Children of families on food stamps were also more likely to be obese than children in the other two groups, as were older adults.

At the other end of the scale, there was almost no difference among these three groups in terms of the share who were underweight — all were in the low single digits.

The Leftist “solution” to everything is instant gratification. Emotions without consequences. Policy without planning. And it always involves your money.

Shouldn’t Democrats be concerned that a program meant to improve the health and nutrition of the poor is making it much worse for millions of them? Don’t these USDA findings cry out for a serious look at this food stamp program and a sober discussion of how it can be targeted better or designed more effectively?

Apparently not. Seems many Democrats would rather score baseless political points than fix an unhealthy aid program.

What the Right never realizes is that, for “liberals,” not fixing a program is the entire point of the program in the first place, because that way it can continue forever.