What he wants is more people dependent on the Central Government, owing their allegiance to Obama and the Democrats, as opposed to finding ways to get the economy moving so that people have the money to purchase food on their own with government help
(CNN Money) More than one in seven Americans are on food stamps, but the federal government wants even more people to sign up for the safety net program.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been running radio ads for the past four months encouraging those eligible to enroll. The campaign is targeted at the elderly, working poor, the unemployed and Hispanics.
The department is spending between $2.5 million and $3 million on paid spots, and free public service announcements are also airing. The campaign can be heard in California, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, and the New York metro area.
“Research has shown that many people — particularly underserved seniors, working poor, and legal immigrants — do not understand the requirements of the program,” said Kevin Concannon, a USDA under secretary.
Just to be fair, the story does point out that that President Bush did some of the same under the USDA. We all agree he wasn’t a fiscal conservative. However
In fiscal 2011, the federal government spent more than $75 billion on food stamps, up from $34.6 billion at the end of fiscal 2008, according to the USDA.
Obama doubled the amount being spent. Can’t blame that on Bush.
“We ought to be looking for ways to save money in the program, not to encourage more people to use it,” said Chris Edwards, an economist with the Cato Institute, a libertarian organization.
Actually, we ought to be looking for ways to empower the jobs market so that people are making money and able to purchase food for themselves.
Hilariously, the official USDA pre-screening tool to see if one is eligible for food stamp assistance keeps timing out. But, hey, you can scroll the USDA website to see if you meet eligibility requirements. Looks simple enough.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.
[…] Everyone, Republican and Democrat alike, who is in any way connected with this program, with this idea, should be fired. ________________________________________ Update: I found a youtube of the advertisement thanks to William Teach: […]
HOLY FRACK!!!
Who the hell doesn’t know about food stamps? Why advertise free money?
$75Billion for 1/7 of certain Americans? Can’t count all of 300 million Americans as eligible to even be counted. I’ll suggest 250 million people. 1/7 of that is 35.7 million people. Except, more people than that are on foodstamps. We are actually closer to 50 million people now. Thus the real ratio is 1/5 people on foodstamps.
That also works out to $1500 per person. Per year?
However, I find that we may be spending so much more than $75B.