While the farm bill meanders, food stamp rolls keep expanding

Hot Air ^ | July 8,2013 | ERIKA JOHNSEN

[Hojczyk]

That pesky ol’ “farm bill” — i.e., the gigantic bill that includes both food stamp programs and agriculture subsidies and therefore brings together an urban-rural coalition of votes that ensures minimum transparency and maximum momentum — is still a lingering action item on Congress’s agenda, after the House version’s tremendous crash-and-burn last month. Some unruly conservatives had the audacity to object to a mere three percent annual cut in the $80 billion/year food stamp program, while some precocious Democrats at the same time thought that that and additional work requirements were far too draconian. (Trillion dollar deficits, people. Trillion. Dollar. Deficits.)

Certain lawmakers wondering what to do with the legislative pickle in which they’re suddenly finding themselves, and several are considering whether they mightn’t have a shot at finally splitting up the omnibus farm bill — but it’s a move to which, as you might imagine, the agribusiness lobby is outrageously opposed, and Democrats don’t seem to be too keen on food stamps getting their own individual treatment, either. Food stamp rolls usually rise and fall with with the economy, but the Obama administration’s expanded qualifications and our ongoing stagnation-economy have seen food stamp participation grow larger and larger still, as the WSJ updates:

Food-stamp use rose 2.8% in the U.S. in April from a year earlier, with more than 15% of the U.S. population receiving benefits. (See an interactive map with data on use since 1990.)

One of the federal government’s biggest social welfare programs, which expanded when the economy convulsed, isn’t shrinking back alongside the recovery.

The number of recipients in the food stamp program, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), is at 47.5 million, or nearly one in six Americans.

[DannyTN]

The problem is not people signing up for food stamps. The problem is the lack of jobs.

Nobody on the political scene is talking about jobs. If you want people off of food stamps there has to be jobs for them to take. But we've outsourced our jobs to china.

Because it's so much better to buy cheap stuff from China and pay to feed 100 million Americans on food stamps. /s

[EinNYC]

Yesterday I was in the supermarket behind a guy whose cart was filled with various beverages, such as Powerade, soda, etc. None of these could be said to have had much nutritive value and certainly his obvious huge thirst could be slaked by regular water. There was no food in the cart, just these beverages.

"Having a party?" I asked him.

"Nope," he replied. Then whipped out his EBT food stamp card. I was absolutely dumbstruck. This guy certainly did not look needy in the slightest. And he was wrong; he WAS having a party. On our dime.

[DonaldC]

“Because it’s so much better to buy cheap stuff from China and pay to feed 100 million Americans on food stamps. /s “

America’s chickens have come home to roost....

[DannyTN]

"America’s chickens have come home to roost...."

I wish something would come home. Chickens seems to be one of the few industries we have left.

[Pining_4_TX]

The real problem is our rotten government school system. It does not educate people nor prepare them for a career. Kids would be better off skipping high school and going to work and would learn a lot more in doing so.

There are many jobs going unfilled, because so many Americans lack the skills to do them. Combine that with welfare and food stamps being much easier than an entry level job, and you have a the recipe for the mess we have now.

Food stamps were never about poor people. They are for farmeres and big ag businesses. They are the ones who truly benefit from food stamps and the school meals programs. It’s all a giant con.