I support the Food Stamp program, it provides a necessary buffer for families that have food insecurity issues. I believe the government needs to stamp down on Food Stamp fraud however. There are two types of families on these social benefit programs; the first are those enduring economic loss (job, etc.) during the great recession and are working hard to get off of public assistance and move forward. With the improving economy a good number of these individuals got better jobs and are no longer on food stamps. The second category are families that are perpetually on public assistance and have no intent of getting off of the programs. These are the individuals who are most likely to abuse the system (trading EBT benefits for drugs/alcohol). There needs to be a greater effort to work with these families and set them on the path of education, personal responsibility and employment. This is not an easy task and there are no simple solutions.
Realistically, Rictard is so "butt hurt" from all the factoids that you've been throwing at him for the past five years, that he is no longer capable of an "honest debate". Once upon a time the guy had some semblance of sanity...but alas those days are long gone. He's over in dbgarland territory these days, just playing it up for a couple of "attaboy's" from that crowd... It's time to just tell him to "get fucked" and be done with the commie piece of shit...
I can't find my username there and can't log in. A problem to be fixed later. So here is another view of the article. Wed Sep 03, 2014 at 12:26 PM PDT Food stamp use is falling, and even the Wall Street Journal has noticed by Laura ClawsonFollow for Daily Kos Labor "Food stamp enrollment numbers have been dropping from post-recession highs, as they were supposed to do all along. But it's official now, because the Wall Street Journal has noticed: And experts expect enrollment and costs to keep falling: As more Americans find jobs and collect paychecks, fewer will be eligible, lowering program costs. The Congressional Budget Office sees food-stamp costs—now running at $80 billion, or 0.5% of gross domestic product—returning to 1995 levels around 0.35% as a share of GDP in five years. This is exactly how the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is designed, of course. It gets bigger when the economy is bad and people need more help, and smaller when the economy improves and more people have jobs. All the Republican attempts to slash the program to the bone ignored this, because it was more convenient for them to use food stamps as a tactic to stigmatize people struggling in a terrible economy and distract from the ways Republican policies made the economy and the struggle worse. And we can expect Republicans to continue to pretend policies like SNAP don't work, despite all the evidence. Because that's what they do: they break the government so they can say "see, government doesn't work." They make people poor, then blame them for being poor. They divide and conquer. But for now, food stamps present a smaller target." Considering that spending as a percent of GDP, it's ludicrous to call the US a "nanny state".
this is a complete fricken shame. I commend you for trying... what evil it is to continue to deploy these family destroying terrible incentives. Its is totally unfair to the kids.
I can virtually guarantee that any slowdown in enrollment or actual decline in enrollment is directly attributed to stricter means testing in a select number of states. The "job creation" has proven to be a canard; tons of bartending and waitressing "service sector" type jobs that aren't likely going to put a major dent into a decline in public assistance... And should we even mention seven years of ZIRP and the hollowing out of senior citizens...surprised nobody has looked into what effect this has had on enrollment...
Moving on to other programs in the US's monstrous-creating-widespread-dependency-nanny-state... TANF Cash Benefits Have Fallen by More Than 20 Percent in Most States and Continue to Erode October 30, 2014 by Ife Floyd and Liz Schott "Cash assistance benefits for the nation's poorest families with children fell again in purchasing power in 2014 and are now at least 20 percent below their 1996 levels in 38 states, after adjusting for inflation [emphasis mine]. While eight states raised Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits between July 2013 (the start of fiscal year 2014 in most states) and July 2014, the remaining states did not, allowing inflation to continue to erode the benefits' value. (No state cut TANF benefits in nominal dollars in the past year.) For 99 percent of TANF recipients nationally, the purchasing power of their benefits is below 1996 levels, after adjusting for inflation. As the country moves past the economic downturn and public coffers regain strength, states should halt the erosion of TANF benefits and begin restoring the purchasing power lost over the past 18 years. "The erosion of TANF benefits since 1996 comes on top of even larger benefit declines over the preceding quarter-century. Between 1970 and 1996, the value of cash assistance benefits for poor families with children fell by more than 40 percent in real terms in two-thirds of the states. "As of July 1, 2014, every state's TANF benefits for a family of three with no other cash income were below 50 percent of the poverty line, measured by the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) 2014 poverty guidelines. Most states' benefits were below 30 percent of the poverty line. Also, benefits for a family of three with no other cash income were below the Fair Market Rent (the Department of Housing and Urban Development's estimate of the rent and utility costs of a modest housing unit in a local area) for a two-bedroom apartment in every state; in 29 states they covered less than half of the Fair Market Rent. Even when SNAP (formerly food stamp) benefits are added to TANF family grants, families with no other income remain below the poverty line. "TANF provides a safety net to significantly fewer poor families than in the past: in 2013, just 26 families received TANF benefits for every 100 poor families, down from 68 families receiving TANF for every 100 in poverty in 1996. But for the families that participate, it often is their only source of support, and without it, they would have no cash income to meet their basic needs." More >>
A healthy family tends to exist in the early phase of families. After the children leaves the nest, the original family disintegrates. Grandparents are shipped off to nursing homes, rarely to be seen again. Adult siblings fight each other, even litigate to get the spoils of the elderly. Nothing healthy about that. The difference with most/many modern day blacks is that they don't get the benefit of early (first 20 years) healthy family life. Note that our two most recent presidents, Obama and Clinton, were both raised by single moms. http://www.sciencecodex.com/obama_bill_clinton_have_common_ground
No, that's not the point. The Daily Telegraph wasn't just making an observation, but suggesting a course of action to remedy that observation - stop reading to our kids because this confers 'unfair advantage'. How about all the moronic bottom feeders READ to their children, so their poor little victims aren't so victimized by their own stupidity and laziness?