Free Republic

Welfare spending overall has increased 41%, food stamp enrollment has gone up by 70% since Obama has been in office, 5.4 million people have signed up for Social Security Disability payments. Tack on the massive abuse of EBT cards like this heroin dealer: Kimball Clark, 45, was locked up Friday on drug-dealing charges — again — when he was overheard using his one phone call to ask the person on the other end of the line to “get my EBT card and go to the ATM and get the money to bail me out, get me outa here tonight,”...

The U.S. government has been caught promoting the delivery of taxpayer-funded welfare benefits to foreigners, and Judicial Watch’s conclusion is that the Obama administration “cannot be trusted to protect our borders.”… the U.S. Department of Agriculture is working with the Mexican government to promote the U.S. food stamp program to illegal aliens. The report said the program,called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,features a Spanish-language flyer supplied to the Mexican Embassy by the USDA “with a statement advising Mexicans in the U.S. that they do not need to declare their immigration status in order to receive financial assistance.” Just so they don’t...

The latest buzz about food stamps is that benefit amounts will be “cut” beginning November 1. But what is this “cut”? Basically, it’s the benefit amount returning to the level it would have otherwise been if not for the 2009 stimulus. In 2009, President Obama’s stimulus package temporarily pumped extra dollars into food stamps in an attempt to stimulate the economy [2] . The temporary increase is now ending. On average, household benefits for those receiving the maximum amount of food stamps will decrease by about 5 percent. Of course, the whims of Washington are now making it difficult for...

A disgusting $3.7 Trillion was spent on welfare since Obama took office. And this obscene figure accounts only for free benefits paid out without any sort of contribution having been made by the recipient. It does not include Social Security or Medicare. Under Obama’s reign of Socialism, the amount spent on welfare was almost 5 times greater than what was spent on transportation, education, and NASA, combined. And this figure doesn’t include the $200 Billion spent on welfare by the states. According to a CATO study, the cash value of federal welfare benefits for one household can equal almost $50,000....

Food stamp recipients are turning the government handouts into quick cash with ads on Craigslist, despite efforts to stem fraud. The federally-funded grocery assistance coupons -- which are issued by states in the form of debit cards under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) -- are being sold on the online bulletin board as well as auction sites like eBay. FoxNews.com found several offerings at Craigslist sites around the country, where the sellers offered the welfare benefits at large discounts from face value.

It may not happen this month, or even this year, but food stamp riots are coming to America. In fact, we got a small preview of the coming food stamp riots this past weekend when a "temporary system failure" caused food stamp cards to stop working in 17 U.S. states. Within hours, there were "mini-riots" at Wal-Marts and other retailers that rely heavily on food stamp users. So what would happen if food stamp benefits were cut off or reduced for an extended period of time? As you will see below, if Congress had not pushed through a "deal", the...

“Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher,” Justice Louis Brandeis famously pointed out in his Olmstead dissent. “For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.” When the government acts like a banana republic, the people will behave as though they live in one. Juxtaposing the chaotic footage of EBT cardholders conducting a legal looting at a Louisiana Walmart this past weekend with the constant cable-news loop of lawmakers conducting a legal looting of future generations affirms this. Both demonstrate the perils of letting one set of people spend another set of people’s money. “I...

Proud to be an American... Something is really wrong with this picture...

Every time an American signs up for food stamps in one of 23 states, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) adds to its revenue stream. That because JPMorgan Chase contracts to operate as the processor of the Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards in those states. JPMorgan earns a fee for each recipient, ranging from 31 cents to $2.30, depending on the state, every month for the term of the contract. JPMorgan's seven-year Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, the official name for the federal food stamp program) contract with New York state, for example, brought in more than $126 million of...

The $1 trillion farm bill will serve as the first test of how deeply the shutdown fight has damaged relations in Washington. Congress has made the legislation its first order of business as it pivots away from the battles over government funding and the debt ceiling. The leaders of the agriculture committees in Congress and K Street lobbyists are eager to put the finishing touches on the bill, which could get wrapped into a year-end budget deal that replaces automatic sequestration cuts. But some fear Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who has vowed to complete the legislation, might be too wounded...

WASHINGTON, Oct 17 2013 (IPS) - Near the Martin Luther King Jr. Library in downtown Washington, just a few blocks away from the federal district, dozens of homeless men and women wait for the evening shuttles that will take them to their dinners at one of many food shelters around the city. They can get by during the day with the few dimes and quarters spared by passersby, but the only daily meal they can really count on is the one they will get at the local food shelter, and so for them, hunger is a very real problem. Two...

Lost in the news shuffle of the government shutdown and debt ceiling debate this week was the story progressives are quite happy you likely missed. But the story is important to note now, especially since we are on the verge of a massive expansion of the welfare state. The Electronic Benefits Transfer system went down for a couple of days. The EBT system replaced food stamps with a debit card to remove the stigma attached to using food stamps and is “reloaded” with a recipient’s government allotment once per month. When the money is gone, it’s gone, until the next...

By now you’ve probably heard about the EBT card breakdown during a power outage in which shoppers at a couple of Louisiana Walmarts purposely took advantage of the situation by “buying” a huge number of groceries for amounts that greatly exceeded their EBT limits in normal times. You might say the Walmart managers were stupid not to ban the use of the cards for the duration of the problem, or limit the amount that could be charged on them. And if you said that, perhaps you’d be right. But perhaps they thought that if they did that they would face...

There is currently a letter floating around the internet from United States Department of Agriculture addressed to all (SNAP) Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program state agency directors. The letter states in pretty plain terms the USDA is directing States to hold or delay transmission of State Electronic benefit transfer (EBT) until further notice.

Under the POS’s presidency, the number of Americans receiving food stamps (now called Electronic Benefits Transfer or EBT) exploded. Today, one in five U.S. households are on food stamps. Worse still, we are taking two steps back for every step forward: For every new job that’s been created, two new recipients (let’s call them food-stampers) are added to the food stamps dole. Given our exploding national debt and the impending bankruptcy of, first, Social Security Disability (in 2016!), then Social Security itself, followed by Medicare, anyone with half a brain whose head isn’t plunged deep in the River of Denial,...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Walmart has no regrets about allowing a wild shopping spree at two of its Louisiana stores when an electronic glitch lifted the spending caps on the cards of food stamp recipients. "We know we made the right choice," Walmart spokesman Kory Lundberg told ABCNews.com today. The chain has no regrets even though Louisiana's Department of Children and Family Services said food stamp recipients should have been limited to $50 each during the emergency and that Walmart will have to pay the difference. Lundberg declined to comment about how much the company may have lost or why it did not follow...

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan will withhold money from Xerox Corp. because a technical problem crashed the state's debit card-style food stamps program over the weekend...

<p>States across the country are being told to stop the supplemental nutrition assistance program for the month of November, pending further notice.</p> <p>That’s according to a letter from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Fox 13 obtained a copy from the Crossroads Urban Center in downtown Salt Lake City. Crossroads says if Utah families don’t get food stamps, they’ll turn to the local food pantries, which are already strapped due to the government shutdown. Homeless people Fox 13 talked to, some who use SNAP, say losing food stamps would mean going hungry.</p>

<p>States across the country are being told to stop the supplemental nutrition assistance program for the month of November, pending further notice.</p> <p>That’s according to a letter from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Fox 13 obtained a copy from the Crossroads Urban Center in downtown Salt Lake City. Crossroads says if Utah families don’t get food stamps, they’ll turn to the local food pantries, which are already strapped due to the government shutdown. Homeless people Fox 13 talked to, some who use SNAP, say losing food stamps would mean going hungry.</p>