Guest Post by Star Parker
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is high on the Republican list of programs targeted for reform — and justifiably so.
The program has gone from 17 million enrollees in 2000 to about 43 million today, with outlays up from about $25 billion to more than $70 billion.
The Trump administration’s budget submitted last February includes major reforms to the program, designed to save $216 billion over the next decade.
Now the House Agriculture committee has put forth its own reforms as part of the bill reauthorizing the budget of the Department of Agriculture for the next five years.
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The problem with the food stamp program is similar to the problem of the other anti-poverty, welfare programs on which we spend almost 25 percent of the federal budget.
That is, what is directed in the spirit of compassion, to provide temporary assistance to those who have fallen on hard times, transforms into a way of life.
As we might expect, food stamp enrollees skyrocketed as the recession set in heavily in 2008. The number of recipients went from approximately 26 million in 2007 to a peak of 47.6 million in 2013. With the economic recovery, the number has dropped off to about 43 million.
The Labor Department now reports that unemployment has fallen to 3.9 percent — the lowest since December 2000. Unemployment peaked during the recession at almost 10 percent. Why, when unemployment has dropped by 61 percent, has the number of food stamp recipients dropped by only 10 percent? The number of recipients is about 17 million higher than before the recession.
The answer is that it’s a lot easier to get aid recipients onto a welfare program than get them off.
Although the unemployment rate has dropped dramatically, the employment rate — the percentage of the population over 16 working — is still far below where it was prior to the recession. The latest jobs report shows the employment rate at 60.3 percent. Just prior to the recession in 2007, it was at 63.4 percent. If today’s employment rate stood where it was before the recession, there would be 8 million more Americans working.
These 8 million Americans are not sitting on the sidelines just because of food stamps. Disability insurance and other welfare programs also leave the door open to not working.
How to solve this problem? Start with the Reagan rule: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government IS the problem.”
The more government we have, the more we make food stamps into the big business it is today. Why do we want corporate lobbyists for firms selling to food stamp EBT cardholders — Walmart, Target, Kroger, and even Amazon — lining the halls of Congress to lobby for these programs?
The Department of Agriculture is proposing that the government provide a food basket instead of cash. There is also the idea that government should manage the nutrition of food stamp recipients. The House bill incentivizes purchases of fruit, vegetables and milk. But do we really want a huge new government bureaucracy buying and packaging food baskets for 40 million enrollees?
I say no. We should not expand government interference in anybody’s life.
Instead, the best idea is to expand work requirements for getting benefits. The House bill requires 80 hours of work per month to receive ongoing benefits. This for those 18-49, with no dependents, and parents of school-age children, up to the age of 60. For any new or changed requirements, let’s have the states decide.
Government assistance should not be about changing anybody’s life. Changing lives should be left to family, friends and private charity.
This program, like all other government programs, cannot be reformed. It should just be abolished entirely. Of course, that’s not going to happen.
“The number of recipients is about 17 million higher than before the recession.”
I wonder how many of these were American born citizens before and how many are American born citizens now?
I’m sure there are statistics but I don’t exactly know where to look for them among the thousands of results that pop up when inquiries are made.
Maybe it’s not significant, but it would be interesting to know anyway.
Ftmfw.
And lets have quotas as a percentage by race, so no race is overly represented. As a percent of asians, thus a percentage of negros etc. So the least represented group sets the standard.
How would you determine race? Self-report, DNA test, ???
Elizabeth Warren might be able to expand on that with practical examples.
I’m not a progressive, but sometimes they make sense: 70 billion dollars a year is about 1/10th the amount we spend to keep 2000 soldiers in Syria if it takes 1 million dollars to deploy a soldier overseas for about a year.
Given your math skills, are you sure you’re not a progressive?
The government can and does take everything people own, gives corporate welfare, offshores entire industries, taxes you until death, taxes SS that they have no requirement to give back to you, gives farm subsidies, disallows farming, shuts off millions and millions of acres for umpteen reasons, prints $$ out of thin air, plunge protection for wall street, sends you kids to fight and die in corporate wars, import every useless turdworlder in existence. This list doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.
Their goal is to control the entire world and you all want poor people to starve to death in the streets? Your fellow citizens?
Fuck ya’ll. You might be dumber than fuck.
When I was a kid we used to get those huge blocks of cheese that came in a white rectangular box. After about a week you couldnt even slice it because it would crumble and break off in chunks before it would cut. A lot of stuff we got came in a generic white box…
They should just hand out big bags of rice, dried beans, macaroni and maybe canned spinach. Anyone who’s truly hungry could make do with those. To the extent that they give out “cash” (via EBT card) it could be far less than is currently given out. You can get a lot of chicken @ $.99 / pound, bunches of collards @ $1 each. You want fancier than that, pay for it yourself.
Maintaining and staffing that vast distribution network may well exceed the current SNAP budget
That’s my gripe with the current SNAP program: there is almost NO restrictions on what ppl can use the EBT card to purchase. They can’t buy alcohol, and they can’t buy hot prepared foods. Anything else is open season.
In my young dumb days, I watched friends with food stamps purchase cases of energy drinks (that they would sell to the foreign-ran gas stations for cash), cases of high fructose corn syrup (soda), packages of rib eyes & New York strips, blocks of the fancy cheeses and meats from the deli, etc. Everyone I ever knew who was on food stamps ate WAY more expensive shit than they ever would buy with their own money.
Why can SNAP program restrict things like alcohol & hot prepared foods, but not sugar-filled sodas and New York Strips? When people are allowed to buy shit like that, there is NO incentive for them to ever get off food stamps.
Iska is right, give them access to boring but nutritionally complete foods like beans, rice, veggies, and maybe a little cheap lunch meat or ground beef. Using our tax dollars to buy Red Bull and Lucky Charms is bullshit.
Whole spices & condiments are your friends !
You can spice up just about any food, taking something otherwise dull and transform it into something beyond generic restaurant fare …. an exotic journey, but without the expense of travel .. AND it’s easy to do !
It sure beats consuming of the crap found in most supermarket and bigbox aisles …
So try a few recipes for a start, then your on your way to adventure ..
But Wip’s comment (which reads like sarcasm, or regressive-left “feels”) does demonstrate a point.
The biggest evil of the US government is the MIC and their illegal, immoral wars they wage around the world. Obviously these psychopaths do not care for the interests of the American people, especially any poor here at home.
But it’s all late-stage empire, the prelude to collapse. And the bread and circuses will continue as long as they can print the fiat to pay for it.
It isn’t just the wars and the cost of wars. It goes way beyond that. Expand your mind. How much effect does the Federal Reserve have?
One of the problems with all of these benefits is that you just can’t tell anymore who really needs them and who’s taking advantage of the system. That’s even true with the private sector food banks. We volunteered to help hand out food for the Second Harvest food bank up here in Northern Idaho. Half of the people who showed up for the free food probably needed it to some extent. The other half were people we recognized from the area who are far wealthier than us and were there just because it was a “no questions asked” free food giveaway.
I’ll bet most of those ‘wealthy’ folks are up to their eyeballs in debt, sure as carts to horses !
.. and if not, then they’re just scummy low/highclass grifters !!
WELFARE BUM IN THE HOUSE
Why would unemployment drop by 61% but food stamp recipients only drop by 10%? Perhaps it is because (and I know this may astound some of you) the government LIES about the true extent of unemployment.
When a person becomes unemployed and remains unemployed they are simply no longer counted as being a part of the work force. The 3.9% unemployment rate is a mathematical trick more than a reality. In reality, the true unemployment rate hovers around 22%.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts
What kind of lazy loser needs food stamps? I do!
In 2007 I had a thriving business, a home and investments. In 2008 my home construction business was financially wiped out. I couldn’t find a job that paid more than $10/hour. As the town slowly became depopulated due to job losses, even those jobs started disappearing. Eventually, I lost my home. After my savings were depleted, I was forced to move with my wife and two children across country to live with relatives. As I drove across country I saw town after town looking like scenes from the great depression, with abandoned store fronts, streets filled with pot holes and dilapidated homes. The job situation where I moved (Southern NJ) was even worse than where I’d come from. As far as the job hunt went, being over 50, I discovered that “old white guys” need not apply. Having two advanced college degrees, I eventually found employment teaching as an adjunct professor part time. My monthly income is around $1600/month without benefits and with no guarantee of employment from semester to semester.
According to the government, I count among the “employed” (their 3.9% figure makes no distinction between working 4 hours or 40 hours per week). When I am laid off during the summer months, I am not counted as being “unemployed” (so can’t collect unemployment) because the government has declared that I am merely “on summer break”.
I have applied to every type of position for which I am conceivably qualified. I have also applied to Walmart, BJs, Acme, etc. Though I am never given a reason, I am routinely rejected.
My wife helps to support the family by cleaning other people’s houses. We are hoping to perhaps grow that as a business, since opportunity elsewhere seems in short supply.
So who are these “bums” that need to have their benefits cut off so that the government can spend billions more on the military and give bigger tax breaks to the wealthy?
I am one of them (as are my children and my wife).
Cut off your benefits and maybe you’ll take a job instead of holding out for an executive position.
I applied to entry level positions at Walmart and other places asshole.
Anonymous is a racist asshole. He hates white people.
Two times I have benefited from food stamps. First time was 40 years ago. My alcoholic father left our home and us basically destitute. My mother got on welfare, got an education and became a bookkeeper and we got off welfare. The second time was about 10 years ago- i was unable to work due to a vaccine injury, lost my job, and similarly, got on food stamps, recovered from the injury, went back to work and got off the ‘stamps. I don’t understand folks that make it a lifestyle. And I’m dang grateful it was there when we needed it.
We can’t decide what we want, either its charity or its an entitlement. Actually, its neither; its a social palliative to keep the poor from rioting or turning to crime when life turns harder than many can cope with.
In older days the churches could handle this: the local pastor, reverend or preacher would get contributions from the congregation and do Jesus’ work with the poor. But the local preacher KNEW who these people were, and could tell if they were deserving or not. Poor but decent and working people got help, drunks-wife beaters -layabouts didn’t . But that was DISCRIMINATORY – people the preacher approved of got help, others did not. Biased, opinionated, local yokels were not able to apply charity without prejudices, which Others did not approve of. Over time, Jesus’ work became a government function, by bureaucrats who could not apply criteria like lazy, drunken or abusive to the applicants, so EVERYBODY got charity, deserving or not.
This is where we are today: paying the poor to live, deserving or not. When the Crunch comes, it will get real again, and those who cannot provide for themselves – will suffer. It won’t be pretty, but then what is going on now isn’t pretty either – it’s just quieter.