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NBC's Williams: 'Astounding' Food Stamp 'Numbers Would Come As a Huge Disappointment to' LBJ
NewsBusters ^ | 4 Aug 2011 | Mike Bates

Posted on 08/04/2011 12:30:07 PM PDT by mandaladon

On Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams reported on another development in the Great Obama Recovery:

"We saw some astounding new numbers that came out today. They showed the number of Americans relying on food stamps has hit another all-time record. These numbers would come as a huge disappointment to President Lyndon Johnson, who launched his War on Poverty back in 1964. Nearly 46 million of your fellow citizens are receiving food stamp assistance. That represents 21 million American households. Numbers went up in 49 out of 50 states."

Certainly discouraging numbers, but not astounding. Unless, of course, you somehow expected the machinations of President Barack Obama & Associates to do anything other than kill any hope of economic recuperation.

President Lyndon Johnson may have been disappointed, but the chief warrior in the War on Poverty shouldn't be given total credit, if that's the correct word, for the food stamp program. That distinction belongs to another liberal hero, John F. Kennedy.

According to the JFK Presidential Library and Museum's Web site, on February 2, 1961, Kennedy asked "Congress for program to help end recession, including food stamps, extended benefits for unemployed workers and welfare payments for their children." This was followed by his first executive order, which announced a three-year food stamp "pilot" program. We all know what happens to temporary government programs; his successor and Congress made it permanent with the Food Stamp Act of 1964:

The Department (of Agriculture) estimated that participation in a national FSP would eventually reach 4 million, at a cost of $360 million annually.

Kennedy brother-in-law Sargent Shriver ran LBJ's Office of Economic Opportunity. In 1967, when about $700 million a year was devoted to food assistance programs, Shriver estimated that another billion dollars would permanently solve the problem of hunger in America.

(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Extended News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: economy; obama; welfare
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To: beekay

Ya, why are liberals never called to account for the failures of the war on poverty???

Why don’t we hear it’s a quagmire and all that? Why don’t we hear that we should pull out because we can never defeat the enemy? We don’t we hear that we should pull out because we can’t impose our will in a place unable to accept our help?????

The ghettos of our cities today are in the same sad shape they were in 40 years ago, when we enthusiastically decided to fight a war on poverty. If anything, some matters are much worse, as the baby mama problem is much worse today. But I digress.

Some areas of Detroit and other cities look like a war zone. They look like all of the buildings have been bombed out.

It would be laughable to hear liberals talk about this, if the subject weren’t so serious. The liberals sincerely think that these problems are because we haven’t spent enough money, or created enough government programs, to deal with poverty.

The liberals say that there is residual racism and discrimination, but in that case, how do you explain Detroit and other cities, which have been run for generations by DEMOCRATS, and black Democrats at that in most places????? Are the black Democrats discriminating against their own residents in these cities????? Since the Democrats are the party of equality and celebrations of diversity, the good Democrats who run these cities cannot be at fault for anything, can they??????


21 posted on 08/04/2011 1:11:11 PM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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To: mandaladon

drug test anyone that expects stuff from the govt

arrest anyone cashing their food stamps (the buy goods & sell them immediately trick)

crack down on illegals (79% getting some form of subsidy). this would yield the added benefit of tossing 20-30m blue collar workers... providing more jobs for Americans, getting them off the dole (dems like ppl on the dole... more dem voters)


22 posted on 08/04/2011 1:12:56 PM PDT by sten (fighting tyranny never goes out of style)
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To: mandaladon

Whenever leftist socialist politicians pass such a law to end poverty. There can be only one conclusion for the farce, the outcome will be 180 degrees out from stated promises.


23 posted on 08/04/2011 1:14:14 PM PDT by Sea Parrot (Obama may not be a natural born citizen, but there is no denying that he is a natural born liar.)
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To: nascarnation

Speaking of obesity, some poor households are getting big amounts of food.

Some schools are sending home backpacks full of food with the kids. These kids are from families which already are receiving food stamps. So between the food the school sends home and the food they get with food stamps, some may be actually getting too much to eat.


24 posted on 08/04/2011 1:14:20 PM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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To: mandaladon

LBJ would NOT be disappointed. It is exactly what he had in mind. And I quote, “I’ll have those n*****s voting for Democrats from now until the end of time”.


25 posted on 08/04/2011 1:20:49 PM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Dilbert San Diego

If you are talking about food from the cafeteria going out the door, that would be verboten in NC.

If a kid takes a carton of milk, then brings it back unopened it goes in the trash.
Nothing leaves the cafeteria, legally.
It’s criminal how much food is tossed.

Thank lawyers for that.


26 posted on 08/04/2011 1:33:34 PM PDT by Vinnie
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To: mandaladon

Liberals are proud of putting people on welfare. Conservatives are proud of creating good paying jobs.


27 posted on 08/04/2011 1:35:31 PM PDT by dragonblustar
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To: PhilDragoo
Obama said he wanted to 'even us out'. Soon 'we' won't be able to afford the 'comforts of the poor'..........


28 posted on 08/04/2011 1:46:12 PM PDT by potlatch (They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind......)
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29 posted on 08/04/2011 1:47:05 PM PDT by devolve (. . . . . . . . . . . . Fat & Furious - Burger & Fries Queen*s 1700+ calorie lunches . . . . .)
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To: Opinionated Blowhard

Working about as well as the war on drugs.


30 posted on 08/04/2011 1:48:33 PM PDT by ully2
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To: aquila48

Before the common era of food stamps, the poor got commodity cheese from the government.


31 posted on 08/04/2011 1:51:26 PM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks (Eh ?)
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To: WayneS
Hmmm. That's interesting information. Does Maria know her father was a moron?

I doubt it because so is she as well as the rest of the morons on both sides of that family!

Now, instead of getting 'food stamps' they get a CREDIT CARD where they can withdraw MONEY to buy things besides food. They also use them at the CONVENIENCE STORES where the food is already prepared. We wouldn't want their precious little fingers actually WORKING to prepare the food, now would we?! /s

32 posted on 08/04/2011 1:57:14 PM PDT by kcvl
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To: mandaladon

And how many of them has names like:
J, Fernandez, i.e. an illegal immigrant that is soaking up what the US welfare departments offer, going from county to county with different addresses, I know it is happening in MD. Same woman has gone to 4 different aid agencies and gotten food stamps, welfare, etc.
Supposedly the “officials” are working on it but it’s still going on.


33 posted on 08/04/2011 1:57:45 PM PDT by conservativesister
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To: mandaladon

Throughout the years the cost to maintain the program has risen due to inflation, and an increase in demand as the program sheds its stigma.

“It’s clear that the historical stigma of being on food stamps is quickly eroding because there are so many people on it. People don’t feel bad asking for help,” says Colas.

“If people are struggling to make a mortgage payment, there’s less money to spend on other things like food,” says Colas. “If you think of suburban as the philosophical heartland, the fact that food stamps are on the rise in suburbia’s been accepted as a program people do not feel embarrassed about accepting help.”

In 2010, the program cost U.S. taxpayers $68 billion, compared with $250 million in 1969 when the program began, or $1.4 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars.

“If a politician wants to propose cutting food stamps they’re going to run into the 20 percent of Americans using it.”

Overall, 1 in 5 people in the U.S receive food stamp assistance and the average household receives $284 a month from the program.

“The growth of the food stamp program has been dramatic since the financial crisis,” said Colas. While many economists say the recession has ended, he says, “for a lot of people the recession has not ended. It’s no longer a program that has 5 to 10 percent we’re talking about 20 percent of all households now.”

“There’s already more people on food stamps than there are in the U.S.’s most populous state [California] and the growth rates are still there,” says Colas

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/surge-demand-food-stamps-united-states/story?id=14231657


34 posted on 08/04/2011 2:00:45 PM PDT by kcvl
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To: mandaladon

Another Brooklyn Woman Guilty in $7M Food Stamp Swindle

NEW YORK — Another Brooklyn woman has pled guilty to stealing $7 million worth of food stamps from the city.

This week, 34-year old Tori Jackson, a former city welfare worker from Brooklyn, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and will face up to four years in prison

Earlier this month, Alice Bradford, 50, of Brooklyn, pled guilty to embezzlement from a federally funded program, and Lois Johnson, 57, of Staten Island, a former employee of the city’s Human Resources Administration (HRA), pled guilty to mail fraud conspiracy.

According to the indictment filed in Manhattan federal court, Bradford provided mailing addresses that were used in creating fraudulent food stamp cases and then collected food stamp cards mailed to those addresses. She then sold the stamps for cash.

Johnson would receive and then use the fraudulently obtained food stamp cards that were mailed to her. She had the stamps mailed to her post office box in Manhattan.

Meanwhile, Jackson used fake Social Security numbers and names to obtain food stamps, and also swindled over $200,000 in child-care benefits.

“This former HRA employee should have safeguarded public funds, instead she squandered them on herself and her co-conspirators,” said city Department of Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn. “Their crimes facilitated the churning out of phony food stamp cases and cards to benefit themselves and their co-conspirators rather than the individuals the funds were intended to help. With their guilty pleas, these defendants are now convicted felons who face possible prison terms for stealing food subsidies that should have gone to New York’s neediest.”

http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=4&id=45176


35 posted on 08/04/2011 2:02:29 PM PDT by kcvl
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

When I was younger my family got commodities. LOVED the cheese!!!


36 posted on 08/04/2011 2:06:53 PM PDT by tal hajus (ever the cynic)
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To: WayneS

7/16/2011 12:53:00 PM
Eighteen indicted in $700,000 food stamp fraud case

PHOENIX — Indictments have been returned against 18 individuals, including four merchants, involved in defrauding the government of about $700,000 in food stamp benefits.

The charges, announced Thursday by state officials, involve a scheme where legitimate food stamp recipients were selling their electronic benefit cards for cash, mostly to retailers. The buyers would give the sellers one half the value on the card and pocket the balance.

Three of the stores involved are in Phoenix, with one in Mesa. State officials declined to identify any of those involved the investigation is ongoing.

a typical action would involve a food stamp recipient going to a store and buying a small amount of eligible groceries, handing the merchant the debit card that is now used instead of the old “food stamp’ coupons.

But the retailer would deduct the full balance on the card, giving the recipient half of that, with the other half being credited to the retailer’s account.

http://verdenews.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=42932


37 posted on 08/04/2011 2:07:53 PM PDT by kcvl
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To: Opinionated Blowhard

An Alamance County Department of Social Services employee charged last week with food stamp, Medicaid and welfare fraud resigned from her position.

Nannetta Davis, 33, of Birkdale Court, Mebane, resigned Friday from her job as an income maintenance caseworker. She began working at DSS in October. Her annual salary was $25,710, said Sherry Hook, Alamance County’s human resource director.

Davis and her husband, Jevon Davis, 42, a Cox Toyota employee, were both charged July 26 with felony food stamp fraud, felony welfare fraud, felony Medicaid fraud, common law robbery and common law uttering after they allegedly provided DSS with false documents regarding Jevon Davis’ income. They were each placed under $15,000 bond.

In addition to the criminal investigation by the Alamance County Sheriff’s Department, which was initiated by DSS after the alleged fraud was discovered during a six-month review of the Davises’ benefits, DSS is conducting its own investigation into the matter.

http://www.thetimesnews.com/news/fraud-46446-resigned-dss.html


38 posted on 08/04/2011 2:10:02 PM PDT by kcvl
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To: mandaladon

City police blocked off the entrances to the Chevron station at Aviation Boulevard across South Marietta Parkway from the CCT bus depot before 10 a.m. while U.S. Department of Agriculture investigators seized evidence from the convenience store, WSB-TV reported.

Neighbors told WSB they could buy beer, cigarettes and gas with food stamps, usually at a big markup. The USDA-run Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program does not allow the purchase of such items.

Fox 5 reported allegations that the store also paid cash for food stamps. The USDA estimates that 8.2 percent of stores accepting food stamps illegally traffic in them.

http://marietta.patch.com/articles/food-stamp-raid-hits-gas-station


39 posted on 08/04/2011 2:12:45 PM PDT by kcvl
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40 posted on 08/04/2011 2:34:41 PM PDT by TheOldLady (FReepmail me to get ON or OFF the ZOT LIGHTNING ping list.)
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