Free Republic

The big Agribusiness corporations are some of the most corrupt corporations in America. The New York Times had an article in 2013, on the Agribusiness corruption in the $1 trillion farm bill. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/business/richer-farmers-bigger-subsidies.html?_r=0 The Food Stamp programs and free school lunch programs, are a means by which Agro-business corporations can increase their revenues, by selling food to the Federal and State governments at above market prices. The food stamp program was never intended to help the poor. Even the USDA website admits that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was intended to help Agribusiness corporations sell surplus food that they were...

<p>AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — More than 9,000 Maine residents have been removed from the state's food stamp program since Republican Gov. Paul LePage's administration began enforcing work and volunteer requirements late last year, officials said.</p> <p>The number of people that have been dropped from the program has exceeded even the administration's expectations.</p>

It’s poor-paying jobs, not unemployment, that strains the welfare system. That’s one key finding from a study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, that showed the majority of households receiving government assistance are headed by a working adult.

One CEO tests how healthy low-income families can eat under the U.S. governments’ food assistance program.

12,000 non-disabled adults were in Maine’s SNAP program before Jan. 1 - a number that dropped to 2,680 by the end of March. More than 9,000 Maine residents have been removed from the state's food stamp program since Republican Gov. Paul LePage's administration began enforcing work and volunteer requirements. The new rules prevent adults who are not disabled and do not have dependents from receiving food stamps for more than three months - unless they work at least 20 hours a week, participate in a work-training program or meet volunteering requirements. DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew said the goal of the...

Kansas is poised to put a stop to the practice of welfare recipients using government aid to pay for psychics with a bill that cracks down on the use of welfare for fun. It aims to encourage those receiving government aid under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program to spend "more responsibly," as Kansas state Sen. Michael O'Donnell told the Topeka Capital-Journal. Having a great life, per the bill, means that welfare recipients cannot spend their government aid on body piercings, massages, spas, tobacco, nail salons, lingerie, arcades, cruise ships or visits to psychics. The bill also forbids spending...

re you sick of seeing “welfare leeches” in the grocery checkout line with carts stuffed full of junk food snacks, soda and even porterhouse steaks and crab legs? So is Missouri House Rep. Rick Brattin, who has begun pushing for legislation prohibiting welfare abusers from buying foods that most hard-working Americans can’t always afford. After Brattin heard a food stamp recipient say, “This is the way I want to live and I don’t really see anything changing,” he knew something needed to be addressed. “The intention of the bill is to get the food stamp program back to its original...

Kansas welfare recipients will be unable to get more than $25 per day in benefits under a new law sent this week to Republican Gov. Sam Brownback's desk by the state legislature. The bill also prohibits welfare recipients from spending their benefits at certain types of businesses, including liquor stores, fortune tellers, swimming pools and cruise ships. "We're trying to make sure those benefits are used the way they were intended," state Rep. Michael O'Donnell (R) said, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal. "This is about prosperity. This is about having a great life."

In 2013, Fox News proudly broadcast an interview with a young food stamp recipient who claimed to be using the government benefit to purchase lobster and sushi."This is the way I want to live and I don’t really see anything changing," Greenslate explained to Fox. “It’s free food; it’s awesome."That story fit a longtime conservative suspicion that poor people use food stamps to purchase luxury items. Now, a Republican state lawmaker in Missouri is pushing for legislation that would stop people like Greenslate and severely limit what food stamp recipients can buy. The bill being proposed would ban the purchase with food stamps...

Anger toward those living below the poverty line seems to only be increasing. Maine and Missouri have proposed bills limiting residents’ food choices if they use SNAP. Missouri House Bill 813 would bar the state’s 930,000 food stamp recipients from using their benefits to buy cookies, chips, soda, energy drinks, steak and seafood. (The legislature also implemented mandatory drug testing for TANF applicants in 2011.) If the bill becomes law, a Missourian can’t buy a can of tuna with an EBT card. Tortilla chips to go with salsa? Nope. Flank steak — tough, stringy and the only cut of beef...

Budget legislation passed by Congress last week includes cuts to some welfare programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The cuts have already attracted backlash from left wing activist groups like the feminist group UltraViolet, which launched a campaign to petition Congress to restore the funding. “Overnight, the U.S. Senate voted for a budget that literally takes food away from hungry children,” UltraViolet’s campaign pleads. “The budgets that have now passed both the House and Senate make deep, painful cuts to the food stamps program.” TurningPoint USA responded with a little digging. Here’s what they found: After a brief...

“Primarily you are looking at taxpayers’ dollars that provide EBT cards, that are ultimately buying drugs,” said Sheriff Deryl Loar, of the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office in Florida. Electronic Benefit Transfer cards (EBT) allow individuals receiving government benefits such as food stamps to charge products to the government when they shop. The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office tells WPEC-TV that career criminal Anthony Wheeler is not the first accused drug dealer found taking payment for drugs with taxpayer-funded electronic benefit cards. …

Taxpayers fund food benefits for the poorest families among us. Tonight, CBS12 investigates why those food stamp cards are becoming a common currency for purchasing illegal drug deals. The Indian River County Sheriff's Office says career criminal Anthony Wheeler, 44, is not the first accused drug dealer detectives found taking payment for drugs with taxpayer-funded electronic benefit cards. But the Sheriff says the abuse of the benefit cards seems to be getting worse, and the cards are too easily transferable from person to person. "Primarily you are looking at taxpayers’ dollars that provide EBT cards, that are ultimately buying drugs,"...

Republican senators want to restrict products that may be purchased with Electronic Benefit Transfer cards used in state aid programs for the poor and disabled. Under Senate Bill 169, recipients would be banned from using the cards or cash drawn on the cards to purchase alcohol, tobacco, lottery tickets, firearms, or for adult entertainment, gambling, tattooing and body piercing. A similar bill passed the Senate last year, but was killed by the House which instead studied the issue. The result, House Bill 219, which restricts using the cards at locations such as smoke shops, tattoo parlors or marijuana dispensaries. State...

With a grocery bills priced as high as $1,300 per month as of late, some American workers simply cannot afford all of their groceries on top of everything else they already have to buy. This is why the government offers food stamps. The USDA Food and Nutrition Service reports that as of September 2014, there were around 46.5 million individual food stamp recipients (22.7 million households) receiving an average benefit of $123.74 each (around $257 per household).

DENVER — Public tax money very likely paid for welfare recipients to smoke the equivalent of about 17 pounds of weed (or approximately 9,000 joints) in 2014. Compared with what the rest of Colorado ingested, that’s a small percentage, but controversial none the less. ... the Colorado Department of Human Services calls the “Quest” Electronic Benefit Transfer Card under its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Cash Assistance program. This account is not meant to be used for food, rather “a family’s most basic needs.” It’s essentially a bank debit card, loaded up with from $200 to $1,000 in cash every...

SPRINGFIELD - Police arrested a 23-year-old Springfield man who threatened to kill a Sumner Avenue convenience store clerk during a 2 a.m. dispute over $14 in merchandise and an out-of-state electronic benefits debit card, police said.

The number of beneficiaries who receive compensation from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps, has topped 46,000,000 for 37 straight months, according to data released by the Department of Agriculture (USDA). In September 2014, which is the latest data from the USDA, there were 46,459,998 Americans who received assistance from the SNAP program. The number of beneficiaries has exceeded 46 million since September 2011, a total of 37 months, or more than three years. [snip]Households on food stamps in September got an average of $252.69 during the month, and the program benefits cost taxpayers $5,748,809,023....

MADISON, Wis. — Some of the boldest reforms to public assistance in the nation may arise from the Wisconsin Legislature in coming months. Armed with the largest Assembly majority in 57 years and comfortable control of the state Senate, Republican leadership appears to be putting together the kind of ambitious reform agenda that could rival 2011, when the Republican-led majority introduced and passed a spate of conservative — and controversial — initiatives. On Tuesday, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, announced the creation of the Public Benefit Reform Committee. While the new committee’s chair or its members have yet to be...

Facebook post: Selling my leftover food stamps for this month, black Friday just killed my bank account. Interested? Message me." (Reply: "Just saying...you do know that this is a pretty public page and you can get stripped of your benefits if the state gets wind of this?") Rep. Shauna O'Connell is on the Howie Carr show now; probably not much can be done to the woman who posed the question.