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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Senate Retirement Means Michigan's Dominoes Are Starting to Fall

For a state that consistently votes for Democrats for president, Michigan has offered relatively little opportunity for advancement for the party’s congressional hopefuls. But that might change soon — starting this cycle.

“I think we’re in terrific position to take advantage of the demonstrated Democratic leanings of the Michigan voters,” Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Lon Johnson said. “We’ve got our act together.”

The Great Lakes State has a Democratic DNA but veered right in 2010. As a result, a GOP-controlled redraw of the congressional boundaries last cycle gave Republicans a 9-to-5 advantage over Democrats in the House delegation.

But Democratic Sen. Carl Levin’s retirement reverberated throughout his party’s ranks. Democratic Rep. Gary Peters easily cleared his party’s field to replace Levin in 2014, but the race cracked open the pipelines for statewide contenders in future cycles.

Specifically, state and national Democrats mentioned that University of Michigan trustee Mark Bernstein, Oakland County Clerk Lisa Brown, 5th District Rep. Dan Kildee and Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy could run statewide one day.

In the 2014 Senate race, the GOP’s most prominent contender is former Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land. Rep. Justin Amash of the 3rd District is the only other high-profile Republican who has yet to rule out a run. But Peters is favored to win over both of them.

Via: Roll Call

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Don’t Let Them Detroit Virginia

Fight for Tomorrow, a new national Super PAC based in Texas and developed by several conservatives in Virginia and in other states, is launching an advertising campaign as major effort in the Virginia Governor’s race.  Our first ad, “Don’t Let The Detroit Virginia,” is running on TV in Richmond and northern Virginia in the Washington, DC market and in the “A” section of today’s Washington Post.

Like-minded individuals can help us run this ad in Virginia.  While our focus is on this critical contest for the next two months, our interest is wider than simply one state.

A GOP 2014 “wave” in 2014 to ensure Republican control of the U.S. Senate and the Congress is there for the taking, but it won’t happen until the Democratic Party leadership and its allies are confronted over the one tactic they have been using to hold onto power, especially in the U.S. Senate.  Avoiding any “liberal” vs. “conservative” comparisons is paramount for Democrats and they have done this by making elections ugly mano a mano contests.  Their tactic: isolate the Republican with a furious barrage of attack ads sponsored by mega rich environmentalists, abortion extremists or smear groups funded by anti-American financier George Soros.

This is only the latest iteration of a tactic first recommended by Clinton-Obama hero, Saul Alinsky.  It has been most shrewdly employed in recent years by two principal Democratic players – New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who has raised much of the Wall Street and Hollywood money, and David Axelrod, who employs the Obama echo chamber by working the phones with the closet Obama partisans masquerading as news executives and editors in the elite media.

On display all year in Kentucky against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for speaking out against the administration’s attempts to silence dissent, the attacks are focused most recently on the GOP candidate in the Virginia governor’s race, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.   Coordinated by the national Democratic Party, the Obama White House, and the Clintons, as Clinton protégé and professional “Friend of Bill” Terry McAuliffe is Cuccinelli’s opponent.  Democrats believe turning Virginia from red to blue would be just the sort of demoralization needed to slow down a GOP “wave.”  They hunger for the headline “Conservative Disaster in Virginia.”

Va: Red State

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Waking a Sleeping Giant in Colorado

Democrats knew what they wanted in Colorado, but they overreached. 

Two weeks ago, the Washington Post declared the recall elections of two powerful state senators in Colorado a national “referendum on guns.” Indeed, the defeat of state-senate president John Morse and fellow state senator Angela Giron will cause some Democrats to rethink their push on gun control.

But of course, many Democrats have reacted by shrugging off the results. Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has dismissed the losses as the result of “voter suppression, pure and simple” (orchestrated by the National Rifle Association and the Koch brothers, of course). Mark Glaze, executive director of Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns, predicted that the victory by gun owners would be short-lived at best and that gun-control legislators would take comfort in knowing that his group “will have their back.”

In reality, it is hard not to appreciate what was accomplished. The difficulties facing the recall were overwhelming:

 Both state-senate districts were overwhelmingly Democratic. In 2012, President Obama carried Morse’s district by 21 percentage points and Giron’s by 19 points.

 These were the first recalls of legislators in Colorado history. Nationally, recalls of state legislators, particularly state legislative leaders, has been very difficult. Morse and Giron were only the 37th and 38th state legislators in U.S. history to face recall votes (before this vote, precisely half the efforts had succeeded). Prior to Morse, there had only been four recall elections against legislative leaders, and the legislative leader was retained in three of those four races. Giron was also a powerful senator, serving as vice chairman of the very important, especially for her rural district, Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Energy Committee.

Via: National Review Online

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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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