An eager reader puts two and two together and comes up with outrage.
The Senate passed the Farm Bill Monday, 66–27. Senator Tim Johnson voted for it, emphasizing the $250,000 cap on payments to farmers ($125K per farmer, doubled if the farmer's spouse is a partner in the operation... no word on whether two old Norwegian bachelor brothers living together get that deal). Senator John Thune bucked the bipartisan majority and voted against it, claiming the Farm Bill doesn't do enough about "redundancy and waste" in the food stamp program.
"Redundancy and waste" is code for "giving poor people who don't vote for me too much help." Senator Thune says we need to do less to help poor people just as a new study says we need to do more:
A new study finds that 103,180 people in South Dakota – including 36,110 children – do not always know where they will find their next meal. In all, 12.5 percent of the population in South Dakota struggle with hunger, according to research released today by Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger-relief organization.
...By analyzing household income levels, the study reveals that 60 percent of children at risk of hunger in South Dakota are eligible for federal nutrition programs, such as free or reduced-price school lunch or breakfast; but that 40 percent are not.
...The annual food budget shortfall in South Dakota is $43,735,050. This number represents the amount of additional money that food-insecure individuals in the area said they would need to put enough food on the table for an adequate diet [Feeding America, "Hunger Continues to Grow in South Dakota," press release, 2013.06.10].
Senator John Thune knows where his next meal is coming from. $44 million would give one out of eight South Dakotans similar certainty. Senator Thune's vote against the Farm Bill demonstrates the profound lack of empathy that plagues our Republican leaders.
Update 08:37 MDT: The Corn Growers are fine with the Farm Bill. They think the Senate Bill does enough to curb purported food assistance abuse.
I prefer private organizations feeding the hungry and you prefer the government to do it. But even if we were to say your way is better, food stamp enrollment is up 70% since 2008.
http://blog.heritage.org/2013/04/04/wsj-food-stamp-rolls-remain-high-despite-economic-improvement/
Were people starving to death before 2008?
Another problem of course is abuse of the system. Food stamps are often traded for drugs. Yes, drug dealers accept food stamps because they can be traded for cash. Even if you think people should be able to do all the drugs they want, taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2012/03/food-stamps-exchanged-for-drugs-weapons-contraband/
I prefer programs that give actual food rather than monetary equivalents to people such as food banks, soup kitchens, and meals-on-wheels. If a homeless person asks me for money I offer him a sandwich. I've even offered blankets and coats. I'm almost always turned down - they want the money. I've only had one guy accept a sandwich. And many of the homeless aren't actually homeless. They're con artists that make a killing of the naively sympathetic.
If you're going to help people you have to accept the realities of human nature. People will game the system so don't make it easy. I'd rather have the government provide free breakfast, lunch, and right after school dinner to all school kids that qualify than have taxpayers foot the bill to hand out cash equivalents to adult addicts. If we need to feed the children then let's actually do it, do it right, and stop throwing money down the drain.
I don't care who feeds them. I see nothing wrong with our working together as a community through government as well as private orgs to ensure that social needs are met.
Bob Dole and George McGovern figured out long ago that the surest way to insure the farm program was to include the food programs in the mix. Without them to insure urban votes the support for farm programs would evaporate.
Bree, I clicked through to read the Judicial Watch Blog you linked to and they linked to some Congressional testimony and the testimony said nothing about people trading food stamp benefits for drugs but rather concerned crooked retailers abusing the system. And even the number for that fraud seems like a small number in the grand scheme of things.
Cutting the amount of funds for food benefits doesn't address the incidence of fraud, the way to reduce the incidence of fraud is to include sufficient funds for investigators to uncover the fraud.
...plus, Nick's solution is much less likely to deny deserving people the aid they need.
Every program, public or private, is subject to inefficiency and abuse. As I've said on other issues, the waste in subsistence handouts to several poor people does less damage than the waste in corporate welfare handouts that give rich interests even more power.
Bree, I prefer that folks get a conscience and actually think before they post. Your blatant ignorance and bias is in full view for all to see. Thanks for sharing it.
Here's some more links, Nick.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ig-welfare-recipients-traded-food-stamps-cash-buy-drugs-and-guns
http://www.newson6.com/story/22000302/del-city-police-woman-trading-drugs-for-food-stamps
http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/story/21812079/2013/03/27/food-stamp-fraud
http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/shortorder/2012/05/food_stamp_recipients_go_onlin.php
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/01/15/2-accused-of-trading-drugs-booze-for-food-stamps.html
The problem of trading food stamps for drugs is pervasive and well known to police officers.
I would rather use taxpayer funds to subsidize food banks and soup kitchens. Or increase the scope of the school meal program. That would still be a government funded solution but it would be less vulnerable to abuse and food stamps could be cut back significantly. Of course I'd rather let private organizations step in to provide food to the hungry, but if we're going to use taxpayers money it would be nice if we made an effort to stop fraud and corruption.
Vincent, check out this post.
http://t.radaronline.com/radaronline/#!/entry/ny-homeless-man-given-boots-by-cop-has-30-pairs,519ad025da27f5d9d0cafb63
Agreed Cory that corporate welfare is just as serious a problem.
You want shaming Bree. Make those poor people head down to the soup kitchen every evening so we can go see them in line and know who they are. If you're working the swing shift and the soup kitchen isn't open when you go to work and is closed when you get off then tough luck you go hungry.
Fraud and abuse is bad and should be rooted out and stopped. The way you do that is to investigate for it and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law, and investigation is impossible unless sufficient funds are provided to pay investigators and staff.
I didn't say "just as"; I said more.
I appreciate the links to specific instances of food stamp abuse (and I apologize for my spam filter, which temporarily held your linkful comment). Now, Bree, let's look at the big picture. If you trust the USDA, 3.8% of SNAP's $71.8 billion in 2012 payments were "improper." That's $2.7 billion wasted. Even as food stamp enrollment has expanded, the Obama Administration has reduced that improper payment rate from the 5% and 6% rates that occurred under the Bush Administration.
That government website also says of SNAP, "For every $5 in new benefits, $9.2 is generated in total economic activity." That's a 184% return, right? Take away that 3.8% waste, and economically, we're still coming out way ahead, right?
Now, hand corporate welfare out to rich and powerful dudes who can then use their increased clout to keep regulators off their backs, and what do you get? Oh, I don't know, could it be... the 2008 recession?!
Bree, sorry but you are just simply offensive.
Because someone somewhere traded their food stamp benefit to some crooked businessman for booze or cash to buy drugs I have to tell a lower middle class family here in Highmore "tough luck"? Four kids, dad works construction, mom is the church secretary, one kid has a disability and needs special accommodations and medicine, not an illegal drug or bottle of booze in the house, nor does anyone suspect there is, but tough luck, the program is cut, you'll figure something else out.
If South Dakota was a union state maybe Dad would be a union member and make a living wage.
Oh, I forgot, unions are evil socialistic organizations and are bad for business.
If you don't like the idea of a soup kitchen Nick perhaps subsidizing food banks would be more to your liking? If receiving government welfare is supposed to be a source of embarrassment for a person then a don't see a relative preference between soup kitchens, food banks, and food stamps regarding that issue.
I am currently simply suggesting using taxpayer money in a more effective practical manner, not getting rid of government funding for food programs. This is a position of compromise for me, since a fiscal conservative such as myself has a preference for privately funded charitable programs. Meanwhile the liberals on the other side of the argument are stubbornly advocating for the same wasteful broken system while attempting to declare themselves morally superior.
It is high time social liberals unshackled their belief system from fiscally insane methods that have repeatedly failed through out history. If you want to try to solve a problem you must use methods that actually work in the real world and stop pointlessly throwing money at failed solutions.
If monetary equivalents are handed out to drug users and those same drug users are not even required to find employment, what exactly do you think you are accomplishing in the real world other than financing overdoses and drug-related deaths with taxpayers money? Why should we spend more money investigating and paying the court costs of tossing drug users defrauding the government in jail? What exactly does that solve?
Stop giving people monetary equivalents that can easily be used to buy drugs. If the problem is hungry children, then the solution is to feed them not finance drug use. One possible taxpayer funded solution would be to expand the school meal program. Another possible solution is subsidized food banks, soup kitchens, and meal-on-wheels type programs. I'm sure there are other possible solutions that are practical and actually work. Whatever we do let's stop wasting tax dollars on socialist pipe dreams that fail to produce results in the real world.
Fiscally insane methods repeatedly failing? Whoa, rhetorical horse! We have a 96.2% payment efficiency rate. We're inevitably imperfect, but far from insane. Food stamps are practical and actually work as well as anything else you've laid out.
Food stamps are working in the real world. The parents I mentioned are feeding their family and not partaking in fraud, as are the vast majority of families on food stamps. Plus they are buying their food at the local grocery store thus helping in some small way to provide local jobs.
Talk of eliminating the program is type of "yadda-yadda" talk conservative partake in when they get together for cocktails after the big dollar fundraiser. Fun to make, if you are a conservative, but everyone knows and hopes it will never happen.
Get back in the real world Bree, food banks are at best a bandaid and will never be able to address the full extent of the problem. The variety and healthiness of the foods even at my small town grocery store here in Highmore can never be matched by a food bank. Plus you would have every grocer in the country calling their members of Congress demanding they oppose the elimination of the food stamp program.
The real world solution is to crack down on fraud by investigating allegations of fraud, prosecuting, and issuing maximum sentences. But then that is a real world solution to a problem and not as much fun as demagoguing against poor people, after all they are only 47% of the population.
Yes, Nick, talk efficiency: why base food assistance on a whole 'nother layer of volunteer food distribution, a food bank, when we can use food stamps in conjunction with the existing free-market food distribution system? And are volunteer-run food banks going to be any better at preventing undeserving (I feel so callous, but you know what I mean) people from getting food aid? To get food stamps, I've got to show some income eligibility, right? Who checks qualifications at food banks? Don't they often just run on the honor system?
I'd like to know what percent of people in Hyde county are on food stamps and what would happen to our local grocery store if their business and dollars were shifted away to the food bank store for the poor people. It might be enough to push many stores over the brink into insolvency.
And talk of shaming, "No honey that's the store where the poor people get their food. We don't go there, we go to the real grocery store."
to all of the above. I would rather my tax dollars go to food stamps than a bunch of over subsidized farmers who really don't need the money but take it to bid up the price of land and complain about the poor getting too much government help!!!!!!!!!
It's amusing that Democrats created the farm subsidy system, causing overproduction of certain commodities and driving up land prices and now they complain about. Farmers who barely survived the 80's and 90's and are forced to deal with a broken system created by liberals are now lazy takers because they have a couple of good years. Good luck getting elected in this state. I guess you didn't get the memo from the national Democratic strategists.
I would rather my tax dollars go to the hungry, and not drug dealers and gunrunners. And that's the problem with liberal logic, which tries to use emotional rhetoric and assumptions of moral superiority to defend corrupt, inefficient, and unproductive methods. Let's not introduce reality, critical thinking, or problem solving into the conversation.
1 in 7 people receive food stamps in America - the richest first world nation - and are able to spend that cash on gum, pop, and margarita mix. And while we're on the subject of actual poor people who are actually starving I can feed, cloth, house, and educate 4 AIDs orphans in the third world for the average cost of one person's food stamp benefit here - and that one person in America has access to food banks and soup kitchens that starving children in the third world do not. So if liberals were really morally superior to conservatives they would gladly cut back on those food stamps that get spent on candy and drugs in order to subsidize orphanages in the third world.
I don't find the solution of tossing everyone in jail to be good one Nick.
There's nothing wrong with private entities feeding people, but it will never substitute for a systematic government program. I've volunteered in food banks in both Rapid City and Madison, WI, and had clients who receive food from an agency program that provides food from food banks, as well as the SNAP program.
Food banks are simply not set up to provide food to poor individuals. Food banks will tell you that their purpose is not to be the primary source of nutrition for the poor. In fact in most food banks if an individual comes in, they will not be provided food. Food banks don't have the ability to tell who is and is not needy. They depend of government agencies and other social welfare organizations to do that.
Most food banks provide food only to organizations and agencies in the community---day cares serving low income families, church or other non-profit social welfare organizations who provide food to needy people, etc. In a pinch one of these organizations may provide food vouchers to an individual, which may be redeemed at a food bank or a grocery store, but most food banks prefer not to be overrun with individuals.
Food banks generally depend on a few main sources for food. That largest source by far is grocery stores who provide expired or damaged goods through the Second Harvest or similar programs. This food is mainly canned or boxed goods. Most Second Harvest programs prefer cash donations to food donations because cash can buy more food on the "seconds market" cheaper than it costs to collect and store the food collected in food drives.
Of course, local food drives provide needed food as well, but the selection is usually pretty narrow. Everyone seems to donate Mac & Cheese and canned beans, if it isn't just dumping the back of the pantry stuff like artichokes that no one eats. Local farmers and gardeners donate in season produce, which is really, really important. Sometimes meat packers, cheese producers, etc., will donate, but it's usually very sporadic. In Madison, WI, some stores provide customers with the opportunity to donate $20 worth of off-the-shelf food to agencies that qualify.
If you wanted to scale up the food bank system to feed all the poor, you would need to vastly increase the infrastructure. Instead of Little Town, SD, having one grocery store, you would need a second facility, and a separate distribution system. It would be terribly inefficient and cost about double or triple the SNAP program.
Bree there is no way with the SNAP card, that food stamps can be traded for drugs. Maybe that happened back in the day when people received coupons to use for food. As far as private organizations feeding the poor, I don't know of any that do that. We have the Banquet here, but it is volunteers that do the cooking, serving, and a lot of the time providing the food. People that go to the Food Pantry, get enough to last for a week, and can only go back every three-six months, depending on where you live. The food stamp program is only a supplemental program, meant to supplement a families food budget. You don't get enough to feed a family for a month. When people used to get the food coupons in the past, it was easier to trade them for things, than it is with the SNAP card. IF you know for sure this is being done, report it.
Bree s, who ever you are!!!!! If you will check it out you will find that it was liberal D Mcgovern and conservative R Dole from Kansas who set up the food stamp program to pacify the east coast people so they could get there votes on the farm programs that came to the rescue of the plow jockeys who over spent and over payed for the land they purchased in the 80's!!!!!!! Remember the chapter 12 these plow jockeys filed?????? Now they are heading in the same direction!!!!!! But still living high!!!!!
Bree, Joan is right that with the SNAP card it is extremely hard to trade benefits for drugs. What happens is a crooked store will swipe the card and give cash to the card holder. A clear violation of the law. When I talk about investigations, trials and jail time I'm talking about jailing those crooked businessmen who abuse the system in that manner. They are scum and deserve to be locked up. Although you disagree and would apparently rather see them walk.
I have no problem with not allowing the purchase of non food items with the SNAP card.
I'm surprised that one of the great and real Christians on the right hasn't brought Matthew 25 verses 31-46 into the debate over feeding the vulnerable.
I'm guessing that they will remember the end of those verses.
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Maybe John Thune or Kristi Noem can help us with this particular passage and the choices they are making.
Heck, they can probably find the passage that promotes corporate farms sucking cheap labor from vulnerable immigrants and the virtuousness of giving the big corporate farms a risk free environment with crop insurance and farm subsidies.
No I don't want to see the crooked businessmen walk, Nick. I thought you wanted to toss all the drug users in jail which I didn't find to be a good solution to the problem of corruption in the food stamp program. I think it's probable that switching to EBT has made it harder to trade for drugs, but I still see a lot of recent articles online all over the country about SNAP drug rings so its clearly still a problem.
Also the average monthly benefit for a family of 4 is $508 a month. That will cover reasonable grocery costs for a family that size in most areas of the country. And the program has exploded in size in the last few years. It's too easy to game the system. It only took me 3 seconds to figure out that partners could remain unmarried so that one could collect food stamps while the other worked. Also some states have relaxed asset requirements which doesn't seem at all smart to me. If states are going to relax asset requirements, they should cover the costs for the increase in the size of the program, not taxpayers on a federal level.
Clearly 1 in 7 Americans should not be on food stamps. 17 million people were on food stamps in the year 2000. Now almost 45 million people are enrolled in SNAP. Even with a recession that increase is too large to not be mostly due to abuse or poor program parameters.
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell THE GOVERNMENT, whatever THE GOVERNMENT did not do for one of the least of these, THE GOVERNMENT did not do for me.’
Was that the quote you were looking for Jana? You won't find it in the Bible. You see, Christian Charity is a matter of personal responsibility not government interference.
Obviously the way to reduce fraud is to go after it and the big fish in the fraud game are the crooked businesses. Stop them and the fraud rate approaches zero. Hunger exists Bree and without SNAP there would be much more. As the economy slowly gets better the use of the program will diminish.
Bree, you keep forgetting that the government is the people...you know...just like you and me.
The working poor, elderly and vulnerable are people too...and they fall under the very preamble to the Constitution's commitment to the general welfare of the people.
As to what I meant, I simply was quoting the Gospel, if you want to parse it to fit your own views, I'll leave that up to you.
If you want to quote Ayn Rand, I'll certainly listen and evaluate what she had to say as well. After all she did write a good piece of fiction.
Bree, "Even with a recession that increase is too large to not be mostly due to abuse or poor program parameters."
You underestimate the total and complete failure of Reaganomics, Wall Street greed, the impact of declining wages/benefits, the off-shoring of jobs and capital and the impact of the policies that favor corporate greed over humans. I know, corporations are people too...
Of course if you have facts that back up the rapid rise of safety nets being mostly tied to fraud, I'm sure we are all willing to evaluate those facts.
Nick is right. Another hidden expense is the pressure that the sugar kings have weighed upon the SNAP system. When the K Street lobby gang bribes Congress to put empty calories into the SNAP eligible category of acceptable foods we end up paying again in the side affects of poor nutrition and obesity.
Always cracks me up when the righteous scream about unhealthy foods in a SNAP shopping cart and then don't even try and think about how those foods became eligible.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity_child_09_10/obesity_child_09_10.htm
The question remains though whether our increase in obesity is caused by an overload of poor food choices, too much food, or lack of activity. Possibly an increase of all three problems. Interesting to find that Mexican American boys and non Mexican Black girls are increasing in obesity faster then all other classifications.
In the 80's and 90's many farm families qualified for reduced school lunch payments and it was the evil commodity brokers who were breaking the system according to Ag writers. Today the Wall St. Journal writes anyone wanting to become wealthy in America should become a farmer. What changed in 10 years? Can the American Farmer continue increasing yields enough to stem world starvation? Will China become our number one export partner of agriculture products? Their recent developments in purchasing Smithfield Foods says nothing we gaze at 10 years forward will resemble the state of Ag in America today.
Jana, the Government is not the people. I think the NSA scandals prove that.
And I'm not parsing scripture to fit my views. Socialists may choose to interpret "you" as "the government," but I think the most likely translation for "you" when Jesus said "you" is "you." That would be the most logical conclusion. Clearly he spoke of the "kingdom of God" often enough that I'm pretty sure he knew the meaning of the word "government." But the word he used was "you" because Jesus was speaking of Christian brothers caring for each other not Big Brother redistributing wealth.
Jana, your entire argument is just another example of illogical emotional rhetoric and a pretense at moral superiority. Giving money to the government does not feed the poor - who mostly live in other countries. Giving money to the government gives it the money it needs to build huge computer systems to monitor all the behavior of its citizens. Giving money to the government allows it to build expensive drones used to kill its own citizens. Giving money to the government lets it hand billions to countries who hate us. Giving money to the government lets it build bridges to nowhere and put traffic enforcement cameras on every stoplight. Giving money to the government lets it give weapons to Jihadists. Giving money to the goverment let's it give itself wages above the market and pay millions for useless conference.
The GOVERNMENT is the enemy that attempts to control the PEOPLE. I don't want to feed the GOVERNMENT. I want to feed the POOR. For 35 dollars per month I can feed, clothe, house, and educate a third world orphan. You would rather steal that 35 dollars from me and feed the government with it. What illogical philosophy is this? Trickle-down poor-feeding?
gawd.
Bree, how about we feed, house, cloth and educate you for $35/month?
Hee hee, the NSA scandals finally made it into the picture. I was reading and reading and finally, the new goofball talking point. Of course Bree is as far behind the 8 ball on the NSA (been up and running since about 2001) as she is on SNAP. Food stamps help people and without them, people get sick and need medical help and it costs taxpayers a whole lot more than a loaf of bread. Why do you hate your fellow countrymen? What terrible thing have they done to you that you would sentence them to a slow death, how inhumane to approve of the suffering. It must be lonely in that ivory tower.
Nick, maybe we should subsidize name-brand clothing for all the unemployed in America so that they don't have to feel ashamed of being poor. Why don't you guilt trip the "rich people" (er.. I mean working middle class) into paying for it. Or, if we all want to be "equal" and "fair" let's all move to North Korea.
Hee hee, jerry, why don't you tell Ron Wyden that the NSA scandals are a "goofball talking point." I'm sure he'd appreciate your brilliant analysis.
jerry, your entire statement reeks of irreality. I don't know if you are aware of this, but I am not Marie Antoinette. She died in 1793. It happens to be 2013 in the United States of America - in case you were wondering.
Let them drink Coca-cola. Oh wait - they can do that with SNAP.
" I think the most likely translation for "you" when Jesus said "you" is "you." "
Bree, you're forgetting that in Jesus' time the very idea of a government like ours, that enables us to work together for the general welfare, was still very far into the future. Socialized health care and retirement (ie Medicare and Social Security, for example) makes our Nation a far more just place, with less suffering and fear -- which opens the door to more service and generosity. Yes, a more liberal place. In a good way.
You want live in the past where fiefdom was the rule of the day Bree. Agreed that Marie died in 1793 by the hand of the folks she oppressed. Maybe that would be the solution to the attitude of the powers that be with the same overbearing view of them as you have. How much can the poor and oppressed take before the same thing happens? Try to show some compassion. Go to your church and pray like hell that some severe accident or sickness does not visit you to cause you or perhaps, a child, that causes you to loose all that you have. At that point, you will understand how much $35 bucks can mean to you.
Let's stop at the word fiefdom, jerry. Just your use of that word to describe my call for smaller government and individual responsibility demonstrates your lack of understanding of how socialist-based economic planning creates an authoritarian government. Read the Road to Serfdom by Friedrich von Hayek.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Serfdom
Your mockery of the destruction of civil liberties by the NSA as some kind of joke shows why modern liberals shouldn't even be allowed to call themselves "liberal" because they are in reality totalitarian statists. In their denial of classical liberalism and naive espousal of insane economic theory they have become everything a liberal is not. I am in actuality more liberal than the liberals - and that demonstrates the sad state of today's Democratic Party.
Your pathetic attempt to color me as uncaring of the poor because I don't want to give my freedom and everything I own to an authoritarian state is hypocritical and morally disgusting - not to mention psychotically illogical. My efforts to care for the poor are a personal responsibility and not the business of the government or a matter for you to concern yourself with - just as my personal phone calls and internet habits are also not the appropriate realm of the government.