Free Republic

(CNSNews.com) - The number of beneficiaries on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program--food stamps--has now topped 46,000,000 for 36 straight months, according to new data released by the Department of Agriculture (USDA). From September 2011 through August 2014, the latest month for which data is available, the number of persons participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has exceeded 46 million. In August 2014, according to USDA, there were 46,484,828 beneficiaries of the SNAP program. That was down slightly—2,060 beneficiaries—from the 46,486,888 who got food stamps in July.

NEW YORK – Wall Street is getting the good news it wants on the economy's biggest problems: banks and housing. Investors reignited a two-week rally Monday, cheering the government's plan to help banks remove bad assets from their books as well as a report showing a surprising increase in home sales. Major stock indicators jumped as much as 6 percent, including the Dow Jones industrial average, which soared more than 400 points. The Treasury Department's bad asset cleanup program would tap money from the government's $700 billion financial rescue fund and involve help from the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit...