The other day an info-graphic from the Heritage Foundation was making its way around social media and the Internet. I, myself, posted it here as well in order to demonstrate how the debate over the farm bill during the 2012 election was nothing but hot air.
The info-graphic broke down in the simplest of terms how the farm bill is stacked with SNAP program goodies and special interest payouts. In fact, the two are one in the same. How you may ask?
The latest progressive illogical nonsense argument by Chad Stone entitled, “The Facts About Food Stamps Conservatives Don’t Want You to Hear,” sets out to twist shaky numbers using bogus math and false presumptions in order to actually argue that the program is not bloated. According to Mr. Stone, who is the chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the program is actually “doing what it is supposed to do.”
Mr. Stone is both right and wrong.
The program is, in fact, supposed to funnel money to special interest, or rather Mr. Stone’s progressive friends and their big business corporate allies. However, it is also supposed to provide essential and “supplemental nutrition” to families who are in need.
Clearly, as can be seen in the graph, this is no longer the case. Unfortunately, because this is the nature of government, greedy corporations and their progressive allies in Congress have competed by placing bids in what used to be our legislative institution – but is now an auction house – to be included in the SNAP program.
Not only has the program moved past “supplemental nutrition,” which is really what the program “is supposed to do,” but requirements and eligibility have been loosened to the point where it no longer is a program reserved only for families who are in need.
As Rachel Sheffield and T. Elliot Gaiser of Heritage noted regarding eligibility requirements:
However, a significant portion of able-bodied recipients of food stamps perform little to no work. Of the roughly 10.5 million households receiving food stamps containing an able-bodied, non-elderly adult (there are approximately 20 million households receiving food stamps total), more than half—5.5 million—performed no work during a given month in 2010. Another 1.5 million to 2 million performed fewer than 30 hours of work per week. This isn’t unique to the recession, but is typical even during good economic times.
Their statement follows a bit of data from Heritage welfare experts, Robert Rector and Kiki Bradley, which referenced these “broad-based categorical eligibility” requirements being implemented in many states and resulting in SNAP benefits being directed toward families who simply do not need the funds:
In states using this loophole, a middle-class family with one earner who becomes unemployed for one or two months can receive $668 per month in food stamps even if the family has $20,000 in cash sitting in the bank. Because of this, food stamps has been transformed from a program for the truly needy to a routine bonus payment stacked on top of conventional unemployment benefits.
In other words, the administration wants us to believe that the economic situation is getting better everyday, yet more people are eligible for SNAP, which is not supplemental so much as an added bonus to their already sufficient income, and their isn’t any mechanism in place to determine when the benefits will no longer be needed in the future.
The truth, is that food stamp spending has roughly doubled in the past four years, and part of this is clearly due to the recession. However, food stamp spending has been on an upward climb since the program began back in the 1960s. In the decade prior to the recession, total government food stamp spending nearly doubled, from $19.8 billion in 2000 to $37.9 billion in 2007.
So if it is not recession and market failure causing economic disparity, which in turn causes an increase in SNAP spending, then what could account for the boom in the program’s growth?
This is where we come back to Mr. Stone, his organization that is nothing but a rubber-stamping hack job for big government, and his progressive political allies and their greedy corporate friends. They are the worst of the worst; the people who prey on the misery of our fellow citizens who are truly in need.
Lots of money and a permanent lobbying structure gets you special outreach programs from the Department of Agriculture which employ food stamp recruiters who are tasked with increasing the welfare rolls, all to make the food and beverage industry more and more money. Of course, when you apply with these individuals you are registered to vote – with a wink and a nod – but you can rest assure that the Democratic machine will come knocking in September-October to bank your early vote.
It’s a hoax, and indeed, so is Mr. Stone and his organization. He writes with some simpleton defense that “the Congressional Budget Office projects that SNAP spending will grow more slowly than the economy in coming years” and “SNAP costs did rise substantially between 2007 and 2011.”
Firstly, I should hope that SNAP spending will grow slower than the economy in the “coming years” – although in Barack Obama’s economy the CBO has overestimated GDP growth repeatedly through no fault of their own – but that is a non-argument. Secondly, the growth of the program between 2007 and 2011, he contributes to “overwhelmingly economic” reasons. Which one is it? Between the very same period, Mr. Stone and his progressive allies were all trying to convince Americans that 2007 – 2011 was a period of economic recovery. Furthermore, as the chart and Heritage clearly demonstrate, that cannot account for the overall growth in the SNAP program.
But do you know what can? Cronyism and big progressive government paying off their friends in the form of wealth-producing legislation; which of course, is all the better to proliferate dependence on them. They should be ashamed of themselves, poor and needy should start demanding that they are no longer made to be exploited, and so-called conservatives should start caring enough to frame the argument in this manner.
All in all, this is another reason to move these essential services back into civil society where they belong. But in order to do that, we must demolish the unconstitutional taxing power of the state. By the time you finish watching the video below, which outlines exactly what the SNAP program “is supposed to do,” then you will feel like doing just that.
http://youtu.be/FT_6g_MhoTU
