[Girlene]

Paul Ryan on Fox talking about the Food Stamp program - it’s blown up 400% (since when?). The question for Congress is: Is it your job to help make poverty easier to live with or help people get out of poverty?

[aruanan]

The question for Congress is: Is it your job to help make poverty easier to live with or help people get out of poverty?

Neither. It's the job of Congress to pass laws to ensure the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. Within that context of liberty, it's each person's job to do what he can to improve his own life and, in voluntary association with other private citizens, to offer help to improve the lives of others.

[kabar]

The Obama administration is actually pushing for more food stamp usage thru an aggressive advertising campaign and rewarding states with bonuses if they increase usage. Oregon got $5 million.

In its quest to promote taxpayer-funded entitlement programs, the Obama Administration has actually rewarded one state with a $5 million bonus for its efficiency in adding food-stamp recipients to already bulging rolls. It’s part of the administration’s campaign to eradicate “food insecure households” by improving access and increasing participation in the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Incidentally, the program was recently changed to SNAP to eliminate the stigma that comes with a name like food stamps.

Just a few months ago the federal agency that administers the program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), launched a multi-million-dollar initiative to recruit more food-stamp participants even though the number of recipients has skyrocketed in the last few years.This week Oregon officials bragged that the USDA has given the state $5 million in “performance bonuses” for ensuring that people eligible for food benefits receive them and for its “swift processing of applications.” The money comes on the heels of a separate $1.5 million award from the feds for making “accurate payments of food stamp benefits to clients.” So welfare recipients are clients? .It marks the fifth consecutive year that Oregon has been “recognized” by the federal government for “exceptional administration” of the entitlement program, according to the announcement posted on the state’s Department of Human Services web site.