Tag Archives: food stamps

Disincentives Cut Food Stamp Use

Tuesday, 25 July 2017 05:44

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, July 24, 2017:

The latest report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) over SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) reveals a sharp drop in participation in the program, touching lows not seen since before 2010. In 2016, 44 million Americans and immigrants (legal and illegal) took advantage of taxpayers’ largess, costing $71 billion. In 2010, there were 47 million receiving SNAP benefits, costing taxpayers closer to $80 billion.

The program, which began in 1969, has virtually exploded, from just two million that year (costing taxpayers a paltry $250 million) to a peak of 47.6 million in 2013, which cost taxpayers $79.9 billion.

Part of the decline is fueled by illegal immigrants fearing deportation if

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Food Stamp Dependency Dropping

Tuesday, 25 July 2017 05:23

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, July 24, 2017:

In its report released last week the USDA reported that SNAP – the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the old food stamp program – is shrinking, a little. In 2016, 44 million Americans and immigrants (legal and illegal) took advantage of taxpayers’ largess, costing them $71 billion. In 2010, there were 47 million receiving SNAP benefits costing taxpayers closer to $80 billion.

The program, which began in 1969, has virtually exploded, from just 2.9 million beneficiaries that year (costing taxpayers a paltry $250 million) to a peak of 47.6 million in 2013, which cost taxpayers $79.9 billion.

Part of the shrinkage is due to

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Maine’s Cut in Its Welfare Rolls a Model for Trump

Wednesday, 31 May 2017 20:38

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, May 31, 2017:

Embed from Getty Images

As predictable as the sunrise, the Obama administration was outraged over Maine’s SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) reform instituted in late 2014, and even threatened to cut off some federal funding if it went ahead with it. To his credit Governor Paul LePage signed the bill anyway.

What happened next is historic.

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Trump’s Plan to Revise SNAP Draws Howls of Protests From Liberals

Wednesday, 31 May 2017 05:25

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, May 30, 2017:

Modest revisions to the federal government’s present SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) proposed by Trump’s budget released last week have drawn howls of protests from predictable places. The New York Times and ThinkProgress are calling the cuts “full of horror,” “backbreaking,” and sufficient to “destroy the food stamp program.”

What’s proposed is a cut of less than $20 billion a year to a program that currently costs taxpayers more than $70 billion annually. It also would involve a modest shift of financial responsibility back to the states where it properly belongs.

The cuts are predicated on the impact the imposition of “work rules” would have

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Is Obama Worst U.S. President?

Friday, 20 January 2017 08:49

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, January 20, 2017:

English: President Barack Obama's signature on...

President Barack Obama’s signature on the health insurance reform bill at the White House, March 23, 2010.

If one asks Joe Hoft, a corporate executive with a Fortune 300 company based in Hong Kong about President Obama’s economic policies during his eight years as president, he will note that Obama “currently ranks as the fourth worst president on record in GDP growth.” At just 1.45 percent average annual GDP growth over those eight years, only Herbert Hoover (minus 5.65 percent), Andrew Johnson (minus .7 percent) and Theodore Roosevelt (1.4 percent) have worse records. However, “Barack Obama will be the only U.S. president in history who did not deliver a single year of 3.0 or better percent growth.”

Hoft will remind us that

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Tax Foundation Rates Tax Plans of Trump and Clinton: Trump’s Plan Wins

Friday, 21 October 2016 05:39

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, October 20, 2016:

Tax Foundation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Analysis by the Tax Foundation of all that is currently known about the tax plans proposed by presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton concludes that, if enacted, Clinton’s plan would expand government at the expense of a shrinking economy. On the other hand, Trump’s plan would grow the economy, shrink government’s revenues, raise wages, and expand employment.

But it’s not tax “reform,” claims the study’s author, Kyle Pomerleau,

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Markit Ltd. Says U.S. Economy Is Faltering

Wednesday, 23 March 2016 04:02

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, March 22, 2016:

Embed from Getty Images

Markit Ltd., the London-based global financial information behemoth, issued an early warning about signs of the coming recession in late February when it published its services purchasing managers’ index. It went negative for the first time in more than two years. At the time, Chris Williamson, Markit’s chief economist, said:

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Want a Raise? Work for the Government

Saturday, 10 October 2015 04:41

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, October 9, 2015:

View image | gettyimages.com

It used to be that the way to get ahead was to work harder, work smarter, find your passion (à la Tony Robbins), marry the boss’s daughter, or be the boss’s daughter (or son). But, according to the latest study from the Cato Institute, the best way is to “sell your soul to the company store” (apologies, Johnny Cash): Work for the government. Preferably, the federal government.

Since the 1990s, federal government employees have enjoyed greater increases in salary growth than those in the private sector, with federal workers in 2014 earning 78 percent more, according to the latest report from Cato, entitled “Downsizing the Federal Government.”

In 2014, based on numbers provided by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), the average federal worker in 2014 made

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CBO’s Funny Math

Thursday, 23 October 2014 04:14

This article first appeared at The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, October 22, 2014:

National debt clock

National debt clock

The Congressional Budget Office’s August update to the federal budget and outlook for the next 10 years released last week was so filled with questionable assumptions as to make their conclusions completely unrealistic. As expected, the mainstream media focused only on the parts of the report that fed and supported their worldview. For instance, the CBO said that revenues were expected to increase by about 8% over last year to a world record $3 trillion, thanks to increases in individual income taxes, payroll taxes, and corporate income taxes.

This was understood by the White House and establishment economists to

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National Debt to be $27 Trillion in 10 Years, Says the CBO

Friday, 17 October 2014 05:51

This article was first published at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, October 16, 2014:

There was something for everyone in the release last week by the Congressional Budget Office of its August update and outlook. The federal government’s revenues are expected to top $3 trillion this year for the first time in history, thanks to individual income taxes rising by six percent, payroll taxes by eight percent, and corporate income taxes by 15 percent. Those infatuated with big government are celebrating the event as a reflection of an improving economy resuscitated by government spending and stimulus programs. Small government advocates, on the other hand,

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America’s Welfare State is Thriving

Wednesday, 30 April 2014 09:43

Margaret Thatcher

Cover of Margaret Thatcher

This article first appeared at The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, April 30, 2014:

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s famous dictum, “The only trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money” isn’t factually correct, nor is it complete. Lazy thinkers assume from this that eventually the welfare state will just fade away like a bad cold or a nightmare, and that everything will be okay in the morning.

Here is what Thatcher actually said during an interview in 1976:

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Census Bureau Reports 62 Million more Takers than Payers

Thursday, 17 April 2014 08:49

Attack of the Giant Leeches

Attack of the Giant Leeches (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The latest Current Population Survey, a joint venture between the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau , showed 148 million “benefit takers” compared to the benefit providers – workers in the private sector – who number less than 90 million. According to Terence Jeffrey, the senior editor at CNSNews, that’s a ratio of 3:2 and it’s only going to get worse: “As more Baby Boomers retire and as ObamaCare comes fully online … the number of takers will inevitably expand. Eventually there will be too few carrying too many, and America will

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White House Thanksgiving Day reminder: Let’s all be like Lucy

Monday, 02 December 2013 13:01

Last Tuesday the White House issued a Thanksgiving Day reminder: “The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps millions of Americans put food on the table.” Then began a litany of statistics and charts along with explanations of how wonderful SNAP is, even getting in a dig at those selfish “House Republicans [who] would cause nearly 4 million Americans to lose access to SNAP next year.”

Harold Maass, writing at the liberal TheWeek.com blog, explained all the reasons why conservatives hate food stamps:

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Consumer Confidence Not Matched by Reality

Tuesday, 25 June 2013 11:25

The consumer confidence numbers announced on Tuesday by The Conference Board surprised even the economists who had expected a decline rather than the nearly 10-point increase that the board reported. The index came in at 81.4 compared to economists’ expectations of

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CBO Cost Estimates on Senate Immigration Bill Celebrated, Challenged

Friday, 21 June 2013 13:43

When the Congressional Budget Office’s cost estimate of S. 744 – the Gang of Eight’s controversial immigration bill – was published on Tuesday, there was celebrating on both sides of the issue. Said Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), one of that gang and the original sponsor of the bill:

Simply put, this report is a huge

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The Real Cost of Amnesty

Tuesday, 07 May 2013 15:00

Despite disclaimers by the authors of the Heritage Foundation’s latest report on the cost of amnesty to U.S. taxpayers that their estimates are probably too low, they fail altogether to mention the continuing loss of

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Joint Bills Introduced to Cut SNAP

Monday, 29 April 2013 12:52

During his introduction of a bill to save $30 billion from the old food stamp program – now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – Senator John Thune (R-S.D.) said that

Since President Obama assumed office, participation in SNAP, which was formerly referred to as food stamps, has increased from 32 million to

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