EBT America

Walmart’s food-stamp shoppers and Washington’s big spenders have so much in common.

“Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher,” Justice Louis Brandeis famously pointed out in his Olmstead dissent. “For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.”

When the government acts like a banana republic, the people will behave as though they live in one. Juxtaposing the chaotic footage of EBT cardholders conducting a legal looting at a Louisiana Walmart this past weekend with the constant cable-news loop of lawmakers conducting a legal looting of future generations affirms this. Both demonstrate the perils of letting one set of people spend another set of people’s money. 

“I saw people drag out eight to ten grocery carts,” Springhill police chief Will Lynd told ABC News. “It was definitely worse than Black Friday. It was worse than anything we had ever seen in this town.” The catalyst for the food riot was an EBT computer shutdown in 17 states. Rather than shut off EBT purchases, the Walmart allowed EBT purchases without reference to account limits. The store, rather than the government or the EBT cardholders, will now make up the difference between the amounts on the cards and the amounts at the cash register.

The police chief observed one customer leave with $700 in groceries and most others simply abandon overflowing carts once informed that the government’s computer system had come back online. The devastation left in the food frenzy’s wake evoked the visual of Mad Max set in a Stop & Shop. “There was no food left on any of the shelves, and no more meat,” Chief Lynd explained. “The grocery part of Walmart was totally decimated.”

Study: Food Stamps Most Rapidly Growing Welfare Program

Food stamps are the most inefficient, vastly expanding social welfare program in the country, according to a new study.

Forty-seven million people participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, and costs have increased over 358 percent since 2000.

The increase in recent years cannot be attributed to the economic recession, according to Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, but lax eligibility requirements and an aggressive campaign by governments to boost their rolls.

“This program has expanded rapidly over the last decade in a way that is not justified by the recession that we went through,” Tanner said.

“There’s very little bang for all this increased buck.”

Tanner’s report, “SNAP Failure: The Food Stamp Program Needs Reform,” finds that in 2000 the cost of the food stamp program was just $17 billion. It has risen in cost to $78 billion today.

Spending on advertising and outreach for food stamps by federal and state governments has also increased, now amounting to $41.3 million a year.

States like Florida have hired “food stamp recruiters,” who have a quota of signing up 150 new recipients each month. Rhode Island hosts “SNAP-themed bingo games,” and the USDA tells its field offices to throw parties to get more people on their rolls.

Despite the additional spending, the USDA claims 18 million Americans are still “food insecure.”

Tanner notes the program is more successful in breeding dependence on government, which was apparent last weekend when the EBT system shutdown in several states, resulting in chaos.

Via: WFB

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Computer Upgrade Blamed For Nationwide EBT System Shutdown On Saturday

BOSTON (CBS) – A possible glitch in a computer system upgrade was causing major problems nationwide with the Electronic Benefits Transfer System on Saturday, as a countless number of shoppers found themselves stranded at the register.

Reports from around the country began pouring in around 9 a.m. on Saturday that customers’ EBT cards were not working in stores.

The glitch, however, did not appear to be part of the government shutdown. At 2 p.m., an EBT customer service representative told CBS Boston that the system was currently down for a computer system upgrade.

The representative said the glitch is affecting people nationwide. She could not say when officials expected the system to be restored.

Via: CBS Boston

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House passes bill cutting $40 billion from food stamp program

WASHINGTON — The House voted to cut nearly $40 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, over a period 10 years on Thursday.

House Republican’s Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act of 2013 passed largely along party lines on a vote of 217 to 210.

The billion dollar cuts to the program — which has ballooned in participation and doubled in cost since 2008 to nearly $80 billion annually — are achieved through reforms such as reducing waivers for work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents, tightening eligibility requirements like categorical eligibility (a policy allowing states to determine SNAP eligibility through participation in other welfare programs) and closing loopholes.

The nutrition title represents the second portion of the farm bill, which was split into two separate bills when a comprehensive farm bill failed to pass the House over the summer (in large part due to disputed over the cuts to the program). The cuts to SNAP this time, however, were twice as aggressive.

In July, the House passed the first portion of the traditional farm bill, a stripped down bill dealing just with farm programs.

“In the real world, we measure success by results,” Indiana Republican Rep. Marlin Stutzman said on the House floor arguing in favor of the bill. “It’s time for Washington to measure success by how many families are lifted out of poverty and helped back on their feet, not by how much Washington bureaucrats spend year after year.”

Democrats argued that House Republicans are trying to take food out of needy American’s mouth, with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi calling the bill “dangerous” and Maryland Democratic Rep. Donna Edwards calling it “mean” on the floor.

“This bill goes against decades of bipartisan support for fighting hunger and would be disastrous for millions of Americans,” Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro said in a statement before the vote, calling the cuts “immoral.”

Via: Daily Caller

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Harry Reid Loves Grocery Shopping

Sen. Harry Reid (D., Nevada) used part of his time on the floor Thursday to tell the world he loves to go grocery shopping. It’s such a diversion, he said, to “buy the things.”

REID: Now, Mr. President, one of my favorite things I really like to do in Nevada, and here in Washington, is go grocery shopping. It’s such a diversion for me. I love going grocery shopping to look around, buy the things. Landra and I are without our children and our grandchildren. We live alone, but we still buy food, and I enjoy that so very, very much.

Reid’s remarks were in the context of defending the U.S. government’s food stamps program.

Via: WFB

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How to Reform Food Stamps

For decades, farm bills have combined agriculture policy with the food stamps program. These farm bills would have been better deemed “food stamp bills,” as food stamps account for about 80 percent of farm bill costs.

In July, the House passed an agriculture-only farm bill. By separating agriculture programs from food stamps, the House took a good first step, but it missed the point of separation by passing the bill without any real reforms. The House is expected to take up a food stamps bill in the near future. There are several crucial reforms that should be put into place.

Ripe for Reform

The food stamps program is one of the largest and fastest growing of the federal government’s roughly 80 means-tested welfare programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care, and social services to lower-income Americans. Spending on food stamps has increased substantially over the past several years, doubling from $20 billion to $40 billion between fiscal years (FY) 2000 and 2007 and then doubling again to roughly $80 billion by FY 2012.[1] Moreover, food stamps is just one program of a nearly $1 trillion government welfare system.

The increase in food stamp spending over the past five years is certainly partially due to the recession and the subsequent increase in food stamp enrollment. However, program growth is also due to policy changes made over the past decade that have eased eligibility requirements. States have also been employing aggressive outreach tactics to bring more individuals onto the rolls.

Food stamps has remained largely unreformed since the 1970s and is in dire need to be brought into the modern world. Policymakers should take the opportunity now to reform food stamps. Congress should:

Via: Heritage Foundation

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GOP bill blocks food stamp users from buying junk food

Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) on Tuesday proposed legislation that would require people using federal food stamps to buy only healthy food.

The Healthy Food Choices Act, H.R. 3073, reflects a long-standing criticism that the government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) allows people to buy billions of dollars worth of junk food. 

A 2012 study found that food stamps enable about $2 billion worth of junk food purchases each year, and that more than half of all SNAP benefits are used to buy sugary drinks.

Efforts to curb these purchases have been opposed by anti-hunger groups. But Roe said some states are already exploring ways to curb junk food purchases through the SNAP program, and argued that the federal government needs to take steps as well.

"Already, states like Wisconsin and South Carolina have shown interest in improving the healthfulness of choices in their SNAP programs," he said. "By giving SNAP recipients more nutritious choices, we can take a meaningful step towards ending hunger in America."

Under Roe's bill, food purchased under SNAP would have to meet the same guidelines that food purchased under the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program already have to meet. The WIC guidelines are strict, and are made up of several different standards for products like breakfast cereal, milk, vegetables, peanut butter and other foods.

Breakfast cereal, for example, must contain certain levels of iron, cannot contain more than 21.2 grams of sugar per 100 grams of cereal, and must have whole grain as a primary ingredient in order to be bought under the WIC program.

Via; The Hill

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