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Mail
Magazine 24
Food
stamp advocates misconstrue program
by Jim DeMint
Newark
Mayor Corey Booker’s self-imposed
challenge to subsist solely on foods purchased on a food stamp budget
might be
interesting if it were intellectually honest.
Booker’s
sacrifice is supposed to demonstrate
how hard it is to rely solely on food stamps for adequate nutrition and
why the
government should increase those benefits. That suggests food stamps
are
supposed to pay for complete meal replacements. Not so.
Food
stamps are funded through the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program. Emphasis on “supplemental.” Originally
created to
distribute surplus food as determined by the United States Agricultural
Department and prevent malnourishment during the Great Depression, food
stamps
were never intended to be a person’s only source of food. This plain
fact
hasn’t stopped Booker, and countless other politicians, from
perpetuating the
idea.
Many
news organizations are all too happy to
let the mistake slide. Look
at
Politico’s article today that offers a “food stamp menu” for the mayor
with a
variety of meal option that could be purchased with food stamps. CNN “shopped” for DC
Delegate Eleanor Holmes
Norton when she participated in a similar food stamp challenge last
year as
part of a campaign organized by a group lobbying for increased
government
benefits.
Keep
in mind, the food stamp program is only
one of many food assistance programs that are available. There is also
the
School Lunch program, the Women, Infant and Children Food Program,
School
Breakfast, the Child Care Food Program, the Nutrition Program for the
Elderly,
the Summer Food Service Program, the Commodity Supplemental Food
Program, the
Temporary Emergency Food Program, Needy Families, and the Farmer’s
Market
Nutrition Program.
People
who want more funding for food stamps
also seemingly ignore the explosion in food stamps usage and spending
that has
already taken place since President Obama took office.
Obama’s
2009 stimulus bill substantially
increased benefits and, at the same time, many states loosened
eligibility
requirements for the program. And, the poor economy has left millions
of
Americans without jobs and seeking government assistance. As a result
of these
factors 1 in 7 Americans used food stamps last year—driving costs up
significantly. Spending on food stamps has increased by 400 percent
since 2000.
The number of people using the program nearly doubled from 2008 to 2010
alone.
Food
stamp spending the single-biggest
cost-driver of farm bill legislation, that funds agricultural
operations, and
still, liberal advocates of the program want more.
The
key component of getting more funds is
misleading the public into believing the program should be paying for
more than
it ever was constructed to fund.
Shame
on reporters covering the various food
stamp challenges for making it so easy for them to do so.
The
country is more than $16 trillion in debt
and on the verge of a fiscal crisis. Government programs should be
targeted to
help those most in need. Politicians
who
seek to expand those programs beyond what we can afford and refuse to
conduct
oversight put that critical assistance in jeopardy. They cannot be
protectors
of the very system they are actively working to break.
Source:
Pickpocket (demint.senate.gov)
Mail Magazine
24
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