The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/pentagon" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pentagon</a> is recommending U.S. soldiers struggling with soaring food prices apply for welfare, in a move that underscores both low military pay and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/economist-reveals-when-america-can-expect-one-whopper-of-a-recession/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">economic headwinds</a> facing the nation as a whole.
The recommendation came last month from Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston, and directs Army soldiers and their families to apply for food stamps through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program known by the acronym SNAP.
&#8220;With inflation affecting everything from gas prices to groceries to rent, some Soldiers and their families are finding it harder to get by on the budgets they&#8217;ve set and used before,&#8221; <a href="https://www.army.mil/article/258256">the written guidance from Grinston reads</a>. &#8220;SNAP is a U.S. government program that provides benefits to eligible low-income individuals and families via an electronic benefits transfer card that can be used like a debit card to purchase eligible food in authorized retail food stores. Service members and their families may be eligible.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
&quot;The guidance points soldiers to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and links them to the federal welfare program’s website.&quot; &#8211;Billions and billions for Biden&#39;s suicidal Green New Deal and Ukraine, no money fo feed our soldiers and families!<a href="https://t.co/nEX2AckBWY">https://t.co/nEX2AckBWY</a>
&mdash; Laughing Libertarian (@William16723077) <a href="https://twitter.com/William16723077/status/1568608357191192577?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 10, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The official guidance includes other lending and financial counseling programs available to soldiers and lists contact information to help them enroll in SNAP.
Although the Biden administration and much of the media insists the U.S. is not in a recession, the nation has experienced negative GDP growth in each of the last two quarters, meeting the traditional definition for a recession. In addition, inflation is running at nearly double-digit percentages and food prices in particular have risen at the fastest rate in decades.
Mackenzie Eaglen, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies defense budgets and military readiness, said nearly a quarter of enlisted men and women can’t afford to put food on the table.
“What they need is more money,” Eaglen wrote in a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/inflation-catches-the-pentagon-flat-footed-army-paychecks-food-stamps-defense-department-budget-ppi-troops-11662405897?mod=hp_opin_pos_6">Wall Street Journal column</a> this week. “The Defense Department’s flat-footed response to inflation will result in a real—and cumulative—pay cut for service members.”
Eaglen said the Pentagon received more federal funding from Congress than it had requested, but ignored inflation concerns and short-changed the men and women who serve.
Now, she wrote, “Congress will have to appropriate even more to save America’s troops from the Defense Department’s negligence. It’s the only way to get troops and their families the financial lifeline they need.”
Base pay for the lowest-ranking Army private is $21,999.60, according to <a href="https://www.goarmy.com/benefits/while-you-serve/money-pay.html">GoArmy.com</a>. Salaries for enlisted men and women the lower ranks rise gradually through promotions, but not always by years of service alone.

US-MILITARY-TRAINING

Pentagon Tells Struggling Army Soldiers, Families To Apply For Food Stamps

Pentagon Tells Struggling Army Soldiers, Families To Consider Food Stamps Amid Soaring Inflation

Food Stamps

Pentagon

U.S. Army

A homeless man named James recently broke down on camera how he spends his time in The Golden City while being broke. James, who claims he moved to San Francisco from Texas, told author Michael Shellenberger that he is homeless by choice and that it is &#8220;literally so f***ing easy&#8221; because of how the city government reacts to the homeless.
Shellenberger, author of a book titled &#8220;San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities,&#8221; asked James how he was able to obtain his funding. James explained, &#8220;F***ing phone call bro&#8230; $200 [in] food stamps and $620 cash a month. Forget about it. &#8230; This right now is literally by choice, literally by choice.&#8221;
&#8220;If we’re going to be realistic, they pay you to be homeless here,&#8221; James claimed.
Annually, the city spends $300 million in sheltering, feeding, and caring for the homeless. Last year, lawmakers expressed concerns over a portion of spending — $16.1 million — that <a href="https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/san-francisco-paying-16-1-million-for-homeless-tent-camps/2484769/#:~:text=San%20Francisco%20is%20paying%20%2416.1,with%20a%20swelling%20homeless%20population.&amp;text=Six%20tent%20sites%20dubbed%20%E2%80%9Csafe,otherwise%20sleep%20on%20the%20sidewalks.">provided camping tents and food</a> to some 300 people creating a pop-up homeless village replete with its own city-provided security as a COVID-19 mitigation measure.
&#8220;Why wouldn’t I do it? You know, it’s f***ing free money dude,&#8221; James explained. &#8220;Why would I want to pay rent? I’m not doing s***. I’ve got a f***ing cell phone that I have Amazon Prime and Netflix on.&#8221;
James indicates that he cleans and sells fentanyl vials and also provides Narcan tutorials in the event one of his clients takes too much of the drug and is on the verge of dying, as <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10498607/San-Francisco-homeless-man-says-gets-paid-620-month.html">explained</a> by The Daily Mail:
<blockquote>&#8220;These two kids came up and they’re like: &#8216;Hey do you guys know where to get any oxycontin?&#8217; James told Shellenberger. &#8220;And I’m like, &#8216;look dude, I’mma tell you right now, you’re not going to get oxycontin out here on the street.'&#8221;
James said the teens had $40 to spend on drugs, which he used to purchase fentanyl for them.
&#8220;I said: &#8216;Ok, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to take your money&#8217; and I went and I got them fentanyl,&#8221; he said.
I f*****g brought it back and I set it down in front of them and I said “This is a gram of fentanyl. It is enough to kill six people who have never used it.&#8221;&#8216;
James said he showed the teens how much fentanyl he takes to get high and then provided a Narcan tutorial, citing how he knew they were going to continue to use drugs regardless of whether or not he helped them get high.
&#8216;I was like “I’m keeping your money and now I’m going to teach you how to save each others’ lives because you’re not gonna f*****g stop. I can’t steer you away from doing it, but the best thing I can do for you now is give you real drugs and show you how to do it properly and show you how to save your friend’s life,&#8221;&#8216; he said.
&#8216;And I showed them how to pull up Narcan and how to inject each other with the Narcan needle in case they died.’
He added: ‘I needed the money. Let’s be honest.’</blockquote>
As for why drug use is so rampant, James blamed police officers who do not illegal immigrants bringing in the narcotics.
&#8220;I’ve talked to the cops here,&#8221; he told Shellenberger. &#8220;&#8216;I’m literally 10 feet away from the drug dealers talking to you guys, why don’t you go arrest them right now?&#8217; And they’re like, &#8216;Arrest them for what?&#8230; San Francisco is a sanctuary city. We arrest the Hondurans and we put them in jail, they’re out two days later.'&#8221;
Shellenberger&#8217;s interview can be seen here:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
People say lack of housing forces local residents into the streets, but James says he came from Texas to San Francisco for the drugs, the non-enforcement of anti-camping laws, and the $820/month in welfare &amp; food stamps. James says he sold fentanyl, 2 weeks ago, to a 15-year-old. <a href="https://t.co/5qMr6tmlWs">pic.twitter.com/5qMr6tmlWs</a>
&mdash; Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) <a href="https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1491418120086454278?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 9, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Homelessness in San Francisco

‘Why Wouldn’t I Do It?’: Homeless Man Breaks Down Why He Moved From Texas To San Francisco

Homeless

San Francisco

The United States Department of Agriculture announced on Monday that it will be increasing benefits from its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program, otherwise known as food stamps. The move comes by way of funding from the American Rescue Plan, President Joe Biden&#8217;s COVID relief bill that was recently signed into law.
According to a <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2021/03/22/usda-increases-snap-benefits-100-household-funding-american-rescue">press release</a> by the USDA, the department plans to implement &#8220;a 15 percent increase in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits through September 2021, providing an estimated $3.5 billion to households experiencing food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic.&#8221; The expansion of 15% &#8220;will provide about $28 more per person, per month, or more than $100 more per month for a household of four, in additional SNAP benefits.&#8221;
“We cannot sit by and watch food insecurity grow in the United States,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “The American Rescue Plan brings help to those hurting the most due to the pandemic. It increases SNAP benefits so households can afford to put food on the table. It invests in working people and small towns and small businesses to get the economy back on track. And it makes the most meaningful investments in generations to reduce poverty.”
According to <a href="https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/resource-files/34SNAPmonthly-3a.pdf">data</a> provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, participation in the program increased from the fiscal year of 2019 to 2020 by over 4 million persons. From the fiscal year of 2020 to 2021, it increased by almost another 2 million persons. However, the fiscal year of 2018 shows similar numbers to 2020 and 2021 at 40.7 million people participating in the program. The 2020 and 2021 fiscal year participation numbers were around 39.8 million people and 41.7 million people, respectively.
The data also includes information about the costs of the benefits program. In 2018, the cost was over $60 billion, but during the fiscal year of 2019, the cost went down to $55 billion. In 2020, the cost increased to over $74 billion.
An <a href="https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/arp-national-factsheet.pdf">information sheet</a> on the nutrition program extension states that without the COVID relief bill, the expansion of the program in place would end in June. It states, &#8220;The extension will provide an estimated $3.5 billion in relief directly to over 41 million people living in struggling households. In addition to helping millions of families put food on the table, additional SNAP benefits are shown to have a powerful stimulative impact on the economy.&#8221; It also claims that more benefits provided through SNAP help to reduce child poverty by half, which it says is one of the American Rescue Plan&#8217;s &#8220;most powerful estimated impacts.&#8221;
The expansion will also assist states as they give out more benefits through SNAP by providing &#8220;an additional $1.135 billion in administrative resources for states over three years, without requiring states to match those funds.&#8221;
The government benefits <a href="https://www.benefits.gov/benefit/361">website</a> says that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is the largest of its kind. It allows low-income individuals and families to use an Electronic Benefits Transfer card in order to receive help in order to purchase food. The website explains, &#8220;This card can be used like a debit card to purchase eligible food in authorized retail food stores.&#8221;
People who wish to check if they are eligible for the program can visit the SNAP eligibility <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/recipient/eligibility">website</a>.

72690018-F58C-4E3A-B609-228DA3836CF6_1_201_a

USDA Increases Food Stamps Program With COVID Relief Bill Funding

American Rescue Plan

Tom Vilsack

Last Friday, Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKJb74hDrPg">joined</a> “Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler” on One America News Network to discuss far-left freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez&#8217;s (D-NY) (AOC) disingenuous reaction to the news that the Trump administration intends to tighten the rules pertaining to food stamp (SNAP) distribution for able-boded adults without dependents. As The Daily Wire&#8217;s Amanda Prestigiacomo <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/reporter-calls-out-aoc-for-glaring-falsehood-in-viral-food-stamps-tweet">reported</a> last Friday:
<blockquote>On Thursday, democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) claimed the Trump administration is on its way to cruelly starving children and single parents to death over welfare reform.
However, the claim, which of course went viral on Twitter, is not true. As highlighted by Daily Caller reporter Peter Hasson, the work-requirement reform only affects able-bodied folks from the ages of ages 18-49 who are childless.
“My family relied on food stamps (EBT) when my dad died at 48,” the congresswoman posted to Twitter on Thursday. “I was a student. If this happened then, we might’ve just starved.”</blockquote>
Hammer joined Wheeler&#8217;s program to dissect and break down the false and misleading premise of Ocasio-Cortez&#8217;s tweet. Wheeler began by reciting the Left&#8217;s fear-mongering claims that children will starve, but said that she does not see evidence that this is true. Hammer began his response by playing off Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro&#8217;s signature line that &#8220;facts don&#8217;t care about your feelings&#8221;:
<blockquote>Well that&#8217;s because there is no evidence. Liz, my boss likes to say that &#8220;facts don&#8217;t care about your feelings,&#8221; which is obviously correct. But what I have noticed over my years in this business already — at the tender age of thirty — is that facts have an inherently conservative bias.
Now you see, this is just a perfect example of the kind of outright lies, distortions, obfuscations, exaggerations, and just general [un]truths that the Left is routinely forced to resort to in order to present their narratives. As you quite factually and elegantly laid out, [AOC] was nineteen years old [at the time]. Her mother could have claimed her as a dependent, so under these new rules, her mother would have still had SNAP payments. &#8230;
What is the broader point, that&#8217;s something I want to talk about as well, is focusing on &#8230; about [how] this was a Clinton-era law, okay? This [welfare reform] is a landmark Clinton-era law. It was not a small-potato bill — it was one of the legislative landmarks in the entire Clinton presidency. And what&#8217;s happening here, and we see this over and over again, Defense of Marriage Act, Glass-Steagall [repeal] financial reform — the Left in the year 2019, and really over the past five years in general, is engaged in a systemic breakdown, an extirpation of the roots out of the Clinton agenda. They are trying to move so far to the left of what the party stood for literally only 20 years ago, and this is part and parcel part of that project, I believe.</blockquote>
Wheeler then clarified that the new Trump administration rules will hardly abolish the SNAP program in any way; by contrast, it merely amounts to prudent means-testing.
WATCH:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="AOC Lies about Food Stamps" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yKJb74hDrPg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Hammer OANN 12.06.19

WATCH: Hammer On ‘Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler’: AOC Lied About Food Stamps

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Trump Administration

Welfare

Under former president Barack Obama, enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the food-stamp program known as SNAP, hit all-time highs.
In 2013, more than 48 million Americans were enrolled in the program. When Obama took office in 2009, there were 33 million using food stamps. That&#8217;s an increase of more than 48%.
But all that has changed under President Trump. Enrollment in the program has dropped by 3,899,257, according to the latest data released by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The data covers up until November 2018.
That means SNAP enrollment is the lowest its been in a decade &#8212; since November 2009. SNAP costs U.S. taxpayers more than $5 billion a month, a whopping $60 billion a year.
Of course, no one should go hungry in America. But while the Democrats believe that handouts are the answer, Trump&#8217;s pursuing a whole &#8216;nother avenue to a solution: Jobs. Republicans (rightly) think that Americans would rather work for a living than get a free handout, and under Trump, the U.S. economy is providing millions of new jobs.
SNAP enrollment had begun falling in 2013, but not because Obama had done anything, experts say. When the numbers hit record highs, many state legislatures passed new laws that required food stamp recipients to make an effort &#8212; either to find a job, or to attend school or enroll in a job-training program.
But Trump has also added a new wrinkle to reducing the number of people on SNAP: His administration has proposed tightening eligibility requirements for legal immigrants and children of illegal aliens.
&#8220;A central theme of the Trump administration has been to expand prosperity for all Americans, which includes helping people lift themselves out of pervasive poverty,&#8221; Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in November, when new rules were proposed. Noting that the rules would save $15 billion over 10 years, Perdue said the changes would restore &#8220;the dignity of work to a sizable segment of our population, while it&#8217;s also respectful of the taxpayers who fund the program.&#8221;
A recent study showed that food stamp usage among people who recently immigrated to the United States in the past five years has dropped by 10%, even though the rules have not yet been passed.
&#8220;A new survey from the nonpartisan policy group Children&#8217;s HealthWatch found that &#8230; SNAP enrollment among immigrant families in the U.S. less than five years is down about 10 percent,&#8221; <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/food-banks-impact-trumps-immigration-policies/story?id=59292130">ABC News</a> reported in November.
Some 9 million people who are legal immigrants &#8212; or who are children born in the U.S. to people who entered illegally &#8212; are in the SNAP program.
And in his 2018 proposed budget, Trump offered a novel idea: Instead of giving needy people stamps they can redeem for food, why not just give them actual food?
The program would be called &#8220;America&#8217;s Harvest Box.&#8221; Perdue called it &#8220;a bold, innovative approach to providing nutritious food to people who need assistance feeding themselves and their families &#8212; and all of it is home-grown by American farmers and producers.&#8221;
&#8220;The USDA believes that state governments will be able to deliver this food at much less cost than SNAP recipients currently pay for food at retail stores &#8212; thus reducing the overall cost of the SNAP program by $129 billion over the next 10 years,&#8221; <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/02/12/585130274/trump-administration-wants-to-decide-what-food-snap-recipients-will-get">NPR reported</a>. &#8220;This and other changes in the SNAP program, according to the Trump administration, will reduce the SNAP budget by $213 billion over those years &#8212; cutting the program by almost 30 percent.&#8221;

More Than 3.8 Million People Drop Off Food Stamps Under President Trump

Barack Obama

Donald Trump

The Trump administration announced on Thursday that it would move to make sure able-bodied Americans work to receive food stamp benefits, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said could save billions of dollars in taxpayer money each year.
The Agriculture Department unveiled expanded work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP. A move to expand such requirements was included in a $400 billion farm bill recently passed by Congress, but was stripped out at the last minute.
According to the proposed rule, those who are able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) would need to work at least 20 hours per week up to age 59 in order to receive government assistance.
&#8220;Under current SNAP requirements, ABAWDs must work or participate in an employment program for at least 20 hours a week to continue to receive benefits for more than three months over a 36-month period,&#8221; the USDA said. &#8220;States may request to waive the time limit in areas with an unemployment rate above 10 percent or where there are &#8216;not sufficient jobs,&#8217; which current regulations primarily define as an unemployment rate 20 percent above the national average.
&#8220;With today&#8217;s strong economy, that could include areas with unemployment rates of under 5 percent &#8211; a rate normally considered to be full employment. In 2016 there were 3.8 million individual ABAWDs on the SNAP rolls, with 2.8 million (or almost 74 percent) of them not working,&#8221; the USDA said.
&#8220;Long-term reliance on government assistance has never been part of the American dream,&#8221; said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. &#8220;As we make benefits available to those who truly need them, we must also encourage participants to take proactive steps toward self-sufficiency. Moving people to work is common-sense policy, particularly at a time when the unemployment rate is at a generational low.&#8221;
Some 40 million Americans who qualify &#8212; about 12% of the total U.S. population &#8212; receive assistance from SNAP. The Trump administration said Wednesday that enacting the proposed rule would save U.S. taxpayers $15 billion over the next decade, the Associated Press reported.
The Agriculture Department said the proposed rule &#8220;is meant to restore the system to what it was meant to be: assistance through difficult times, not lifelong dependency. Over time, without any changes in the underlying welfare reform legislation of 1996, that ideal has been watered down by out-of-control administrative flexibility in SNAP.&#8221;
&#8220;Americans are generous people who believe it is their responsibility to help their fellow citizens when they encounter a difficult stretch,&#8221; Perdue said. &#8220;That is the commitment behind SNAP. But like other federal welfare programs, it was never intended to be a way of life.&#8221;
&#8220;A central theme of the Trump administration has been to expand prosperity for all Americans, which includes helping people lift themselves out of pervasive poverty,&#8221; he said, adding that the proposed rule &#8220;restores the dignity of work to a sizable segment of our population, while it&#8217;s also respectful of the taxpayers who fund the program.&#8221;
Perdue said of the 2.8 ABAWD&#8217;s receiving food stamps but not working, &#8220;This is unacceptable to most Americans and belies common sense, particularly when employment opportunities are plentiful as they currently are. The nation&#8217;s economy is booming and unemployment is at lowest &#8230; since 1969.&#8221;

NO FREE RIDE: Trump Administration Plans To Make More People Work For Food Stamps

Electronic music artist Moby is under fire from fellow leftists after suggesting that poor people who use food stamps should be barred from buying food that isn&#8217;t &#8220;healthy,&#8221; and that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or, SNAP) should limit users to purchasing &#8220;cheap, healthy foods like beans, vegetables, fruit, and whole grains.&#8221;
&#8220;Right now, a congressional arm-wrestling match is pitting those who want to preserve funding for SNAP against those who want to gut it,&#8221; Moby wrote in a column for The Wall Street Journal.
&#8220;As I can attest from my childhood experience, SNAP really does help feed poor people, and no one wants to return to the days when America turned a blind eye to hunger,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;But it also puts a lot of unhealthful food on America&#8217;s plate. Its costs are huge, as are the added costs of treating diabetes, hypertension and other illnesses that poor eating habits cause.&#8221;
SNAP is meant to be a healthy food program, supplementary to state-based welfare programs. SNAP recipients can only use the funds to purchase fresh meat and produce as a condition of receiving an extended food benefit from the federal government, but many people still use it to purchase calorie-heavily foods like potatoes.
But what a poor person should eat should be up to the individual using the food stamps. Just because someone is poor doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean they can&#8217;t make their own decisions, or that they are somehow less capable of feeding their family than a musician who peaked sometime in the early 2000s.
And the internet, of course, reminded Moby that he may not, in fact, know what&#8217;s best for poor people because he happens to vote Democrat and cash million dollar checks.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
moby: we are all made of stars
also moby: life should be more difficult for poor people <a href="https://t.co/uxA6JXOCOm">https://t.co/uxA6JXOCOm</a>
&#8212; jon hendren (@fart) <a href="https://twitter.com/fart/status/983740656609734656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2018</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
dear moby 
this is a bad and classist opinion 
other people&#8217;s bodies are none of yr business 
-jss <a href="https://t.co/bMpuF9xVpc">https://t.co/bMpuF9xVpc</a>
&#8212; jes skolnik / texas calboy (@modernistwitch) <a href="https://twitter.com/modernistwitch/status/983737996582236161?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2018</a></blockquote>
Some even got very personal.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
didn&#8217;t realize food stamps could be used to buy Moby albums <a href="https://t.co/o4ziTE1Tds">pic.twitter.com/o4ziTE1Tds</a>
&#8212; Kevin Nguyen (@knguyen) <a href="https://twitter.com/knguyen/status/983762805093552129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2018</a></blockquote>
In fairness to the poor people, Moby did once try to pass a measure in Los Angeles that would have required shelter animals to be fed vegan diets. So at least the poor people still get meat.
Congress is considering an extension for the SNAP program. Although the program has been the subject of much deliberation, it has never not been renewed.

Backlash Hits Moby After He Suggests Barring Poor People From Buying Junk Food

White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney deserves enormous credit for doing something that has long been needed. He wants to reform the food stamp program in America. The program has waste, fraud, and abuse issues. It is not terribly efficient. There are people in the program who do not necessarily need to be there. So hats off to Mick Mulvaney for undertaking the thankless job of reform.
The problem is not that Mulvaney undertook reform, but what the proposed White House solution to the food stamp program is. They want to send food stamp recipients boxes of food each month. Mulvaney describes it as a &#8220;Blue Apron&#8221; style program.
For those unfamiliar with Blue Apron and its competitors like Hello Fresh (disclosure: I am a Blue Apron customer and love it), they are programs where a company sends you food each week with recipes. As an example, I recently received a box containing a recipe for soy-glazed chicken. The box contained all the ingredients necessary to make the meal as well as a very nice recipe card with step-by-step directions.
Each week, prior to the food shipment, I can go online, select the recipes I want for the week, and end the week with a box containing enough for two different meals to feed four people. The programs work around food allergies, variable meal sizes for large or small families, as well as the number of meals one might want each week. I do two meals a week for a family of four.
This is the program the White House suggests will save the government money. The savings will, in part, come from buying food in bulk that the government will then package and ship. That last part is where it all begins to fall apart.
I have a hard time believing former Congressman Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) would ever support the program being proposed by himself now in the role as White House Budget Director. In fact, when Mulvaney was in Congress, his Republican colleagues were criticizing the Obama White House for altering the school lunch program. It is really hard to believe that people who want to privatize the post office are suddenly fans of the government boxing up and shipping food to people. Why not outsource it to the private sector and let existing companies bid?
Lest we forget, the federal government ran headlong into a disaster setting up the Obamacare website that crashed repeatedly and had to be reworked. How, other than a website, would they let the poor set up their schedules, preferences, allergies, etc? And who would be responsible for managing those preferences? What liability would the federal government have when the family with peanut allergies reacts because of cross contamination?
Beyond those issues, if Republicans do this they are setting themselves up for future attacks should the federal government ever shut down. An army of reporters will jump at the chance to cover poor people who have not received their boxes of food due to a shutdown. The Republicans will be accused of literally starving people.
The whole idea also sounds ripe for abuse. The program would only use American goods and produce. Which farms would be selected to provide the produce? Which vendors would be allowed into the program? How long before a future administration decided a cereal manufacturer had not made enough campaign contributions and so would be excluded? This system would be asking for fraud, mismanagement, and abuse in a way sending money to an EBT card does not. It introduces a greater human element susceptible to coercion and corruption.
A boxed food program sounds more command and control Soviet than it does American. One need only a little imagination to see how a future administration would determine Americans need more Brussels sprouts, so that goes in the box. &#8220;Eat it or starve,&#8221; the commissar would bark.
There is an alternative. The government could do what it does now. It puts money on EBT cards for the poor who then get to engage in the very American concept of choosing their own food. Further restrict locations for EBT usage and root out waste, fraud, and abuse.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2018 CREATORS.COM

ERICKSON: A Dumb Idea

Federal Government

Former president Barack Obama has been busy since leaving office trying to secure his legacy.
But here&#8217;s one big way Americans will always remember the 44th president: People forced to live on food stamp soared 32% under his watch. In 2009, when he took office, there were 33.5 million people on food stamp benefits; in October 2016, just a few months before he left office, that number had skyrocketed to 44.2 million &#8212; a jump of 10.7 million people.
The cost of the program to taxpayers rose from $50.3 billion to $66.6 billion &#8212; all while Obama&#8217;s administration pushed the idea that the economy was booming (it wasn&#8217;t). As the unemployment rate dropped (mainly due to Obama officials reducing the number of people considered in the &#8220;work force&#8221;), millions were forced onto food stamps.
But that &#8220;hope and change&#8221; has been replaced by four simple words: &#8220;Make America Great Again.&#8221;
New statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show nearly1.5 million Americans have gotten off the food stamp rolls since President Trump took office in January 2017. That&#8217;s a 3.5% drop in less than a year.
They&#8217;ve been streaming off the rolls every month.
<ul>
<li>January to February &#8211; 408,956</li>
<li>February to March &#8211; 95,152</li>
<li>March to April &#8211; 521,295</li>
<li>April to May- 176,527</li>
<li>May to June &#8211; 178,648</li>
<li>June to July &#8211; 236,417</li>
</ul>
See the full <a href="https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/pd/34SNAPmonthly.pdf">stats here</a>.

GREAT AGAIN: 1.5 Million Fewer Americans on Food Stamps Under Trump

New statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) indicate that the use of food stamps has declined every month under the Trump administration.
The number of people using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) dropped to 41,310,785 in June 2017, which is more than 2,000,000 fewer participants than in June 2016 and the lowest participation rate since 2010, when it was 40,302,000.
Since President Trump&#8217;s inauguration in January, the number of SNAP participants has dropped steadily every month, the largest drops from January to February (408,956) and March to April (521,295). Here are the numbers for January to June (the most recent available data):
<ul>
<li>Jan 2017 &#8211; 42,691,363</li>
<li>Feb 2017 &#8211; 42,282,407</li>
<li>March 2017 &#8211; 42,187,255</li>
<li>April 2017 &#8211; 41,665,960</li>
<li>May 2017 &#8211; 41,489,433</li>
<li>June 2017 &#8211; 41,310,785</li>
</ul>
This trend is not expected to slow down anytime soon; the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/recurringdata/51312-2017-01-snap.pdf">projects</a> a steady 1-2% decline in participation per year for at least the next ten years. The CBO estimates that by 2027, the number of SNAP participants will be around 32.5 million people.
A variety of factors are contributing to the sharp decline in participation, including states like <a href="http://www.myajc.com/news/breaking-news/thousands-dropped-from-food-stamps-due-work-requirements/nAcoTvoPq4LBO0u42Z8CTP/">Georgia</a> and <a href="http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/06/13_alabama_counties_had_85_per.html">Alabama</a> that have instituted work requirements for welfare recipients. Other states are currently working on more strict requirements for participation in the program.
President Trump has also proposed <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/23/trumps-budget-takes-aim-at-snap-crop-insurance-238724">cuts to SNAP</a> in the 2018 budget proposal, a move the White House says is about boosting the economy rather than pulling the rug out from underneath people.

Food Stamp Usage Has Fallen Every Month Under Trump

Economy

This weekend, NPR <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/house/335580-gop-rep-avoids-saying-whether-every-american-is-entitled-to-eat">interviewed</a> Rep. Adrian Smith (R-NE) and asked him a gotcha question: &#8220;is every American entitled to eat?&#8221; The segment was about cutting food stamps, and NPR&#8217;s agenda was clear: show that Republicans don&#8217;t care if Americans starve, which is why they want to cut food stamps. Smith answered, &#8220;Well, they &#8211; nutrition, obviously, we know is very important. And I would hope that we can look to&#8230;It is essential. It is essential.&#8221;
This was not enough for the media, who declared Smith a dunderhead: after all, doesn&#8217;t everybody have the right to food?
Imagine a land where there was a right to food, housing, and healthcare. Imagine that such rights were enshrined in the Constitution of that land. That would mean that everyone in that land could live free without the burden of worry over such basic resources, right?
Wrong.
The South African Constitution guarantees a &#8220;right&#8221; to all of these commodities. In fact, the Constitution even creates a legal duty for the government to help secure such commodities. Yet there are <a href="https://www.sahrc.org.za/home/21/files/brochure_A3_English.pdf">some 11 million &#8220;food insecure&#8221; people</a> in the country, including 1.5 million children with <a href="http://www.health24.com/Diet-and-nutrition/Food-security/The-fight-for-the-right-for-food-20150316">chronic malnutrition</a> and growth stunting. Life expectancy in South Africa is 57 years. There are currently 12 million people in the country <a href="http://pep.org.za/2016/06/02/addressing-the-chronic-housing-shortage-in-south-africa/">without adequate housing</a>. The population of South Africa is approximately 55 million.
Declaring a commodity a right, it is obvious, does not make that commodity materialize &#8211; and certainly doesn&#8217;t make it materialize in the most efficient fashion. Markets make commodities materialize in the most efficient fashion. In the United States, <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/12568/sanders-says-something-insanely-insulting-about-ben-shapiro">nine out of ten Americans</a> live above the global poverty standard; 96 percent of poor parents say their children were never hungry in the past year, according to scholars at the Heritage Foundation, and a &#8220;poor child is more likely to have cable TV, a computer, a wide-screen plasma TV, an Xbox, or a TiVo in the home than to be hungry.&#8221; Even the Department of Agriculture, the government agency responsible for administration of food stamps &#8211; upon which approximately 15 percent of Americans rely &#8211; admit that well under 6 percent of American households have to worry about <a href="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765572050/A-food-stamp-paradox-Starving-isnt-the-issue-2-its-access-to-nutritious-foods.html">decreased calorie consumption</a>. Want to know what fills the gap for Americans? Feeding America, a private charity that receives $900 million per year in food donations, the vast bulk from private companies. In fact, there&#8217;s a strong link between food stamps and obesity.
So, is America worse off than South Africa despite our Constitution not mandating food as a right? Of course not. We&#8217;re significantly better off, because it turns out that using government to confiscate wealth from the very people who produce cheaper and more plentiful products ends up exacerbating scarcity. Declaring things &#8220;rights&#8221; feels good, but when those &#8220;rights&#8221; come with forced redistributionism, the things become less available.
So no, you don&#8217;t have a &#8220;right&#8221; from the government to food. You have the freedom from government to live a country where food is available in plenty, and where your fellow Americans help pick you up when you are down.

Media Rip Republican Who Won’t Say Every American Is ‘Entitled To Eat.’ But He’s Not Wrong. Here’s Why.

According to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/16/immigrants-are-now-canceling-their-food-stamps-for-fear-that-trump-will-deport-them/?utm_term=.54057aae5070&amp;wpisrc=nl_evening&amp;wpmm=1">The Washington Post</a>, a number of illegal immigrant families are pulling their children out of the SNAP program because they feel that enrolling in the program would expose their identities as illegal immigrants, leading to deportation.
Caitlin Dewey, writing for the Post, interviewed Luisa Fortin, a SNAP outreach coordinator in Georgia, who fretted, “I get calls from concerned parents all the time: ‘should I take my kids out of the program?’ They’re risking hunger out of fear … and my heart just breaks for them.”
But as Jazz Shaw writes at <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2017/03/17/oh-no-illegal-immigrants-are-cancelling-snap-benefits-to-avoid-deportation/">Hot Air</a>, there are some problems with Fortin’s perceptions: First, it is against the law for illegal immigrants to collect SNAP benefits. He points out that even if it is the children ostensibly receiving the SNAP benefits, the whole family shares them. Second, Fortin also references families of legal immigrants including green card holders as part of her lament, which makes no sense because they are legally entitled to SNAP benefits and thus have no reason to fear immigration authorities.
Shaw writes, “These people are either getting some terribly bad information from government officials and outreach coordinators like Fortin or there is more to the story which we are not being told. If the desire to “escape scrutiny” stems from the fact that there are others in the household of, shall we say, more dubious legal status, then things begin to make a bit more sense.”
Dewey writes in the Post, “At food banks from Tucson to Baltimore, SNAP enrollment staff who work with immigrants have reported both a new reluctance to sign up for benefits and a paranoid interest in canceling them. Hunger Free America, a national anti-hunger nonprofit, has seen a marked uptick in the number of calls it receives from its partners, asking how to advise newly nervous clients … The Maryland Food Bank has seen its Spanish-language SNAP applications fall from 20 a month to zero.”
Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Dewey, “I don’t think it’s proper to increase the burden on U.S. taxpayers for people whose only claim to them is that they broke our law. These children receive a large amount of benefits because their parents came here illegally.”

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