Venango County Tea Party Patriots

A non-partisan, non-profit, non-member, association dedicated to educating the public and promoting the principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free market economics, and all other lawful activities.

food stamps

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Creating Government Dependency One Mouthful At a Time

The number of Americans receiving “free” government benefits has soared, and this expansion seems unstoppable even as the economy recovers (see here and here).  Less obvious than the depressing numbers is how this assistance inculcates a dependency inimical to a free people.  The culprit is not free food, subsidized housing, and all the rest per se, though these certainly do not help.  After all, Americans have always received government help during tough times, but this aid scarcely undermined the spirit of independence.  Nor is the growing national debt the guilty party.  During World War II, for example, government borrowed billions, yet nobody spoke of this liability as breeding hopeless dependency.

The culprit is how these benefits are distributed.  It is their non-contingent, open-ended character that breeds destructive pathologies.  It is these traits that separate today’s munificence from past generosity, and this element is all too easy obscured by burgeoning costs.

In a nutshell, receiving a temporary handout that depends on doing something worthwhile is wholly unlike receiving the identical assistance sans any obligation and for however long as the recipient remains legally eligible.

Read more.

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Rampant Food Stamp Fraud

Food stamp fraud has more than doubled since Barack Obama took office in 2009. In 2011, according to the USDA, food stamp fraud was approximately $750 million. The type of fraud noted was derived from selling Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to food retailers for cents on the dollar.

The USDA stated, “In 2011, program costs totaled $75.7 billion. Using the most recent data on trafficking available, USDA estimated that trafficking would be 1 percent of $75 billion, or approximately $750 million.”

But in the years 2006-2008, the USDA stated, “Trafficking diverted an estimated $330 million annually from SNAP benefits – or about one cent of each SNAP dollar – between 2006 and 2008. About 8.2 percent of all stores trafficked.”

Kevin Concannon, U.S. Department of Agriculture undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, acknowledged the problem:

This is $750 million that isn’t being used to provide food to individuals and families and that issue isn’t lost on us. We want to maintain the confidence of American taxpayers because everyone is challenged in this economy – the payers as well as the folks who are benefiting from the program.

In January 2009, there were 31,939,110 Americans receiving food stamps; in November 2012, the number rose to 47,692,896, almost a 50% increase.

From Breitbart.

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Almost 50,000,000 Americans on Food Stamps

Last week the United States Department of Agriculture quietly released new statistics related to the food stamps program, officially known as SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). The numbers reveal, in 2012, the food stamps program was the biggest it’s ever been, with an average of 46,609,072 people on the program every month of last year. 47,791,996 people were on the program in the month of December 2012.

The federal government also says that in a given month in 2012, the number of households on food stamps was 22,329,713.

The state with the highest average number of participants per month in 2012 was Texas, with an astonishing 4,038,440 folks drawing from the program. The second highest is California, with 3,964,221, and then Florida, at 3,353,064.

Washington, D.C., with an estimated population of 617,996, had an average of 141,147 participants. Meaning, roughly 23 percent of folks living in D.C. are on food stamps, according to the numbers provided by the federal government. The participation rate in Texas, which has an estimated population of 26,059,203, 15.5 percent.

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