Well-intentioned? Perhaps. Costly? Absolutely.
Last year, the federal government spent $74.6 billion on food stamp benefits, or as the Wall Street Journal story points out, roughly equivalent to the combined budgets of the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the Department of the Interior. Expenditures have grown from $30.4 billion in 2007.
In Wisconsin, participation in FoodShare, the Badger State’s food stamp program, has risen sharply in recent years, although it was down slightly in January, the most recent month of data available.
More than $102.67 million in food assistance benefits was paid out to 854,692 recipients of the program in January, according to the state Department of Health Services.
Today, thanks in large part to the encouragement of the Obama administration, 43 states and U.S. territories have eased food stamp eligibility requirements.
“We believe that increasing the number of states that implement (eased) eligibility will benefit families hurt by the economic crisis, promote savings among low income households, and simplify state policies,” Jessica Shahin, a top USDA official, wrote to other federal program overseers in 2009, according to the Wall Street Journal. “Please encourage your States to adopt (the looser rules) to improve SNAP operations in your States.”
It’s that level of encouragement that speaks to Obama’s unfailing faith in the role of government in the lives of people.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, as Wisconsin Reporter reported last month, is pitching outreach grants of up to $75,000 to attract more eligible SNAP recipients to the food stamp program. The purpose, USDA says, is to “implement and learn more about effective strategies to inform and educate potentially eligible low income people, who are not currently participating in … (SNAP), about the nutrition benefits of the program, eligibility rules, and how to apply.”
“… SNAP is severely underutilized,” according to the USDA news release. “Nationwide, 33 percent of people who are eligible for the SNAP do not participate.”
USDA even touts the economic benefits of food stamps, estimating that every $5 in new SNAP benefits generates a total of $9.20 in community spending.
“SNAP brings Federal dollars into communities in the form of benefits which are redeemed by SNAP participants at local stores. These benefits ripple throughout the economies of the community, State, and Nation,” the agency said in a statement.
What USDA doesn’t note is the economic ripple effect of food stamps is seeded by taxpayer money.
If President Obama was looking to grow an economy, his garden bed is federally subsidized programs like SNAP.
And the fruit if his labors — his legacy — will be the growth of big government.
By M.D. Kittle
“This article first appeared on Franklin Center. Reproduced with permission”
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