Nov

Obamanomics! Taking the stigma out of food stamps!

How much stigma can their be when one in eight Americans (one in four kids) use food stamps? I guess we can chalk this off as another unprecedented accomplishment of President Barack Obama. Brian Faughn remembers “the bad old days of the Bush economy, when millions of Americans were forced to rely on private sector jobs to pay for their food.” Those were the days. Now we can rely on Uncle Sugar.

It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.

Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare…

From the ailing resorts of the Florida Keys to Alaskan villages along the Bering Sea, the program is now expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day.

[...]

Although the program is growing at a record rate, the federal official who oversees it would like it to grow even faster.

“I think the response of the program has been tremendous,” said Kevin Concannon, an under secretary of agriculture, “but we’re mindful that there are another 15, 16 million who could benefit.”

By all means, let’s put millions more Americans on the government dole. It should be easy, since pretty much anybody is elligible.

So far, few elected officials have objected to the program’s growth. Almost 90 percent of beneficiaries nationwide live below the poverty line (about $22,000 a year for a family of four). But a minor tempest hit Ohio’s Warren County after a woman drove to the food stamp office in a Mercedes-Benz and word spread that she owned a $300,000 home loan-free. Since Ohio ignores the value of houses and cars, she qualified.

Heaven forbid any American should have to hide assets in order to steal from their fellow citizens. Just think, they may stop voting for democrats if that were to happen. We can’t have that, now, can we?

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