Free Republic

Should the public know how much money Wal-Mart, or that convenience store down the street, takes in through the federal food stamp program? Or does that amount to a retail trade secret? Those are the questions at the heart of a request for public comment announced Monday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the food stamp program. Here’s the background: Last year we spent $76 billion tax payer dollars on the food stamp program (officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP). That money goes to about 47 million low-income Americans, who use it to buy...

America used to be decent, stable, and diverse — until the welfare state took over. “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” — Barack Obama on Trayvon MartinIt generally is taken as a given that the United States must become more Hispanic and less Anglo as a matter of demographic inevitability, but that assumption rests largely on the continuation of current patterns of immigration, which itself is predicated on ignoring the question: Does greater diversity serve the greater good? Glenn Loury once observed that the essence of conservatism is the belief that “human nature has no history.” Even...

The U.S. government borrows nearly half of what it spends, yet it gives billions to countries around the world, though foreign aid hasn’t led the Third World poor to prosperity. Exporting Welfare 07 August 2014 Back in 1979, the Department of Education was formed from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). But instead of shortening the name of the older department to the Department of Health and Welfare, it was re-christened the Department of Health and Human Services. The term “welfare” has since fallen into disuse in other areas as well. “Income security,” “entitlement,” and “public assistance”...

Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Rand Paul (Ky.) are trying to avoid an ethanol landmine in Iowa. Both Republican senators have criticized federal subsidies for ethanol, which are popular in Iowa, the state hosting the first Republican contest in the 2016 race for the White House. Iowa kingmakers in the party such as Sen. Chuck Grassley want the Republican presidential nominee in 2016 to champion ethanol. That’s a problem for Cruz and to a lesser extent for Paul, who are both crisscrossing the state this week in advance of possible campaigns for the presidency. Cruz has introduced legislation that would...

It was the last week of the month, and Shanique Brown had already spent her $515 in CalWORKs benefits. Other programs would prevent Brown and her 18-month-old son, Armani, from going hungry, but the 22-year-old single mom had no money for a necessity so basic it is often forgotten: diapers. “I cried and cried,” said Brown, now 24. Armani is now potty-trained, but a new state bill seeks to ensure low-income parents will never face the challenge Brown did. If passed, Assembly Bill 1516 would make California the first state in the country to create a diaper assistance program for...

The federal government paid $2,007,358,200,000 in benefits and entitlements in fiscal year 2013 from government programs, according to data from the Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s Monthly Treasury Statement. The treasury statement summarizes the financial activities of the federal government, including data on government receipts, outlays, and surplus and deficit totals. The September 2013 monthly treasury statement calculates these metrics for the entire fiscal year of 2013, which began on October 1, 2012 and ended on September 30, 2013. According to the statement, the federal government’s total outlays, otherwise known as spending, for means-tested and non-means tested government programs—not including...

Inflation, inflation, inflation! Obama and his merry band of propagandists can keep trying to smear lipstick on this historically, pathetic economy but the endless, reckless pumping by the Fed has resulted in a worthless dollar and mass inflation across the board. $6 for a pound of ground beef? A gallon of milk for $3.50! $4 gas for almost four years now? Oh yes, all is most definitely well! If the truth be known, the cost of owning and operating a business has nearly doubled since 2008. Energy costs are passed on to consumers, as is the fallout from a glut...

Representative Paul Ryan has a bold, ambitious proposal “Expanding Opportunity in America,” to completely remake the American welfare state. Along the way he would also change the federal government’s approach to education, revamp what we are doing in our prison system and much more. Here is a surprise. Although Ryan’s approach is based on well-known conservative ideas, some on the left are actually praising parts of the proposal – including the editorial page of the Washington Post. Ryan’s plan shows something I have believed for a long time. All the innovative thinking on how to solve public policy problems for...

The UK is to halve to three months the time EU migrants without realistic job prospects can claim benefits. David Cameron said the "magnetic pull" of UK benefits had to be addressed so people came for the right reasons and the rules "put Britain first". The prime minister also warned people in the UK illegally: "We will find you, we will send you home." Labour said the PM's rhetoric masked a record of "failure" on immigration and "firm action" was needed. Ministers have been reluctant to say how many people are likely to be affected by benefit curbs, although BBC...

The “Iron Maiden." She was the staunch and sturdy leader of Great Britain who once held up F. A. Hayek’s masterwork “Road to Serfdom” and declared “This is what we believe in.” Hayek’s work is a road map for what could go wrong when individual freedoms are lost and central planning becomes the answer for every ill. When truth is bent to meet the moment and government decision making is the proposed cure all, “serfdom” is the destination. Margaret, in believing Hayek’s cautionary, also declared that Socialism cannot sustain itself. Socialism can not last because eventually “you run out of...

Just the other day when I was home in Dunn, a woman standing in the checkout line told me that she felt as though she had less money in her pocket. And, unfortunately, she’s right. Did you know that the average clothing cost for children has risen $310 during the president’s term and that food costs have risen an average of $210? Or that an average family of four is missing as much as $1,120 from their monthly budget? I bet women do. No one understands the true implications of these missing dollars better than women. Women are the ones...

At this point we are losing our battle against Barack Obama’s Democrat Voter Importation Scheme. This is not to say that we will not eventually regain our sovereignty and control our borders once again; America is too great to ultimately collapse under Obama’s attacks no matter how vicious. The fact that the Uniparty’s Ministry of Information had to post the latest Reuters-Ipsos survey showing Obama’s support at just 37%–and tried to hide it on a Saturday yet–shows we are making progress. The fact that Uniparty’s Big Business wing – the U. S. Chamber of Commerce felt it was time to...

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A Minnesota Democratic congressman is leading efforts to bring to the state more unaccompanied children who've fled Central America for the U.S. However, immigration advocates and nonprofit groups that serve refugees are concerned Minnesota might not be able to handle a crush of children who need care and have complex legal issues. Rep. Keith Ellison says Minnesota is as well-equipped as any other state to handle the children. The Democratic congressman has been a leader in the national push for immigration reform. "We have capacity to help here and we should," Ellison said Monday at...

So you want to write about poverty, joblessness, homelessness, and general misery in America. Let me give you some advice, and I'll cut right to the chase and be as blunt as possible. First, consider your audience. It’s white people. If you are trying to tell a sob story that ends in “we need more social services” most minorities are already on your side and the ones that aren’t have their own sources of information. You’re talking to mainstream white America, so you need to tailor your story to them. Start with a young white couple who has fallen on...

NY Post Columnist: ‘Sense Of Shame Is Gone’ For Entitlement Recipients New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin appeared on Fox & Friends to discuss the increase in food stamp recipients and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s refusal to allow New York City to fingerprint residents who receive nutritional assistance to root out fraud. Goodwin said recipients of food stamps have ballooned while barriers to entry into the program have decreased; as a result, the “the sense of shame” among entitlement recipients is gone. “Shame used to be part of this,” said Goodwin referring to the culture that used to accompany...

“What better way to give a boost to the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Act and the remaking of American neighborhoods than to start injecting illegal immigrant populations into targeted cities and towns in the suburbs all across the country?“ That was national radio talk show superhost Rush Limbaugh commenting on a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulation, “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.” “The concept, as it is properly understood, is to change the enforcement paradigm in order to allow the Department of Housing and Urban Development to essentially decide what every neighborhood in America should look like,” Limbaugh explained....

Friday’s landmark decision by the Supreme Court that permanent foreign residents of Japan are not entitled to welfare benefits will discourage more municipalities than ever from doling out such aid amid ballooning public assistance expenditures, experts said Saturday. Responding to a lawsuit filed by an 82-year-old Chinese resident of Oita, the top court stated in the first ruling of its kind that, legally speaking, permanent foreign residents don’t qualify for public assistance because they aren’t considered Japanese nationals. The ruling is significant in that it finally clarifies whether permanent residents are eligible to claim welfare...

Liberal Democrats and their media allies are waging a War on America and it is well past time that we recognize this fact. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks a commission examined our relationship to the Islamists who had slaughtered our people and concluded that Islam has been at war with us for quite a while but that we have failed to recognize it. Recent polls on the subject confirm years of previous polling showing that liberals are not patriotic, they don’t love America and they wish they could change our country into something else-probably France. The bottom feeders...

Ever wake up somedays and wonder why you work and put in the effort for others to leech off your hard work, especially those who are not even citizens. Ever just think about just throwing your arms up in the air and saying to hell with it and quitting your job or shutting down your business and becomming a deadbeat like the other people that some of your hard earned tax money goes to. Ever just wonder if we will never wake up again as country if you keep working hard to prop stuff up. Realizing that the only way...

MIAMI, Florida—once again is getting a hefty bonus from the feds “saving” taxpayer’s money. This year, the state’s Department of Children and Families managed to misspent only $47,829,887 in food stamp benefits. That’s out of almost $6 billion the state received from the federal government. Nevertheless, Florida’s error rate of .81 percent the second lowest in the nation, and only a slight dip from the previous year when the state received $8 million for having the lowest in the nation at 0.7 percent. Vermont had the highest waste rate at 9.66 percent, while the national average was 3.2 percent. “We...