Posted on 03/20/2013 7:00:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
The food stamp program seems to be a breeding ground of waste, fraud, and abuse. Some of the horror stories I’ve shared include:
With stories like this, I’m surprised my head didn’t explode during this debate I did on Larry Kudlow’s show.
So exactly how bad is the food stamp program?
One way of measuring the cost of the program, both to taxpayers and to the people who get trapped in dependency, is to see what share of a state’s population is utilizing the program.
I just did a “Mirror, Mirror” post on states with the most education bureaucrats compared to teachers and got a lot of good feedback, so let’s do the same thing for food stamps.
Here’s a rather disturbing map from the Washington Post.
A couple of things stand out. I can understand Mississippi, Louisiana, and New Mexico being among the worst states because they have relatively low average incomes. And that’s sort of an excuse for Tennessee, though it’s worth noting that economically and demographically similar states such as Georgia and Alabama don’t fall into the same dependency trap.
Why such a significant handout culture?
But the state that stands out is Oregon. Based on the state’s income, there’s no reason for more than 20 percent of resident’s to be on the dole. The state does get a “high” ranking on the Moocher Index, so there’s some evidence of an entitlement mentality. And welfare handouts also are above average in the Beaver State as well.
It’s also disappointing to see that food stamp dependency has doubled since 2008 in Florida, Rhode Island, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho. Though it’s a credit to the people of Utah that they’re still in the least-dependent category. But the trend obviously is very bad.
And it’s also depressing to look at the bar chart on the right and see that spending on the program has tripled in the past 10 years. Heck, food stamps were about 70 percent of the cost of a recent Senate “farm bill.”
P.S. A local state legislator asked an official in Richmond why Virginia got such a bad score in the ranking of teachers compared to education bureaucrats. The good news, so to speak, is that Virginia is not as bad as suggested by the official numbers. According to the response sent to this lawmaker, “VDOE has determined that the data it reported on school division personnel and assignments to NCES for 2005-2006 through 2009-2010 through the US Department of Education’s EdFacts Portal were inaccurate.”
The bad news, as you can see from this table, is that there are still more edu-crats than teachers, but the ratio apparently isn’t as bad with this updated data.
As a Virginia taxpayer, I suppose I should be happy. But it’s hard to get overly excited when other states are taking positive steps to bring choice and competition to education, and the best thing I can say about the Old Dominion is that we’re not quite as infested with bureaucrats as we originally thought.
P.P.S. I guess I should give the left-wing Washington Post some credit for sharing the map on food stamp dependency. And, to be fair, the paper did reprint this remarkable chart showing how bad Obama’s record is on jobs compared to Reagan and Clinton. And the paper also printed this chart showing how the economy’s performance is way below average under Obama.
Awesome data, thanks!
I’ve only visited Oregon once, so others will have far more insight, but I perceive it has sort of a slacker culture widespread across the state
Has there ever been a case with such extreme handouts where people were actually weaned from such programs, the budgets were cut, and they again become productive citizens?
None come to mind
Rather, it seems the likely course that the US Gov’t will expand welfare for all, including favored banks and politically-connected corporations, until it simply can not continue, and then it all collapses
Yes, there is: the spotted owl, endangered salmon, and Eugene.
But Western Oregon is where most of the big cities (Portland, Eugene) and population live. They are pretty much San Fransicko north along with their northern neighbors in Seattle and Tacoma.
I don’t imagine it would have anything to do with the almost 9% state income tax in Oregon? (If you want less of something, like employed people, tax it.)
Take a look at the red/blue voting maps from 2008 and 2012 - the ones that drill down to the county level. Look at the Mississippi River, from New Orleans to Memphis. Yes, it is a demographic issue, from which springs economic problems. New Mexico's problems are similar overall, despite being demographically different in origin.
Great post. As a CA Freeper, am I reading this correctly? Texas has a higher SNAP than California?
As a percentage.
No, I don't believe so... not at this extreme level. German Reunification came close, but many people in East Germany *wanted* to be free of Communism and to live productive lives. Over fifty percent of this country is ideologically headed in the opposite direction.
The Germans had an easy time of it, compared to what lies ahead for us.
So how does California have a lower rate of participation that Texas?
Oregon has more than it’s share of old hippies. If it is the same there as here in NM a lot of those old hippies got government jobs and government grants to create new government jobs and when you have so many government workers you need clients so you get them any way you can.
I don’t think so. Tennessee has no state income income tax. Whereas some high tax states such as Minnesota, Illinois and Massachusetts have lower food stamp usage rates than many low tax states.
Just a guess but remember that calif still has a robust tech population as well as a robust entertainment popluation
That population may be enough to bring down the participation rate compared to Texas which also has a 1100 mle border where the economy really really sucks resulting in more people on welfare
Sure...but it usually requires the fall of an empire and a mass die off for those that couldn't become productive citizens.
I agree...
But CA also has open endorsement of immigration amnesty, refuge cities, etc.
Surely their illegal population exceeds that of Texas (as a percentage?)
Very strange...
“Eastern Oregon, not so much. In fact, they are similar to their neighbors in Idaho more so than to their neighbors in Western Oregon.
But Western Oregon is where most of the big cities (Portland, Eugene) and population live. They are pretty much San Fransicko north along with their northern neighbors in Seattle and Tacoma.”
like commierado. front range (plus aspen and vail) libtard cities and the rest real colorado.
maybe they should list all illegals getting food stamps. then they could include mexico as the highest state.
I think the % is about the same
using 2010 figures it was estimated tht Ca had 2.6 illegala and a pop of about 32.6 Million
Texas had estimated 1.8 million and population of 26.1
so give or take a few illegals here adn there the % is about the same.
We are all getting screwed.
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