Obama Administration Offers $75,000 Grants to Sign Up More Food Stamp Recipients
by Wynton HallOver the last three years, the number of Americans on food stamps has skyrocketed by two-thirds and stands at a record-high 46 million citizens, or one out of every seven people in the United States. Despite the historic rise in food stamp use, however, the Obama Administration believes not enough people are receiving food stamps who should be and is offering $75,000 grants to groups who devise “effective strategies” to “increase program participation” among those who have yet to sign up.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website singles out Hispanics and elderly Americans as groups who often fail to enroll in the food stamp program (officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) and says that one of the contributing factors that must be overcome to get more people to sign up for SNAP benefits is individual “pride”:
There are many reasons why eligible people, including seniors and Hispanics, do not participate in the SNAP. These include unawareness of eligibility, confusion about program rules and requirements, a complex application process, and a lack of transportation and pride.
To reduce these “barriers” to food stamp enrollment, the Department of Agriculture offers non-profit groups the chance to receive $75,000 grants for projects designed to boost food stamp participation among those who are eligible but have yet to sign up. The Department of Agriculture believes that the SNAP program is “severely underutilized” and says that 33 percent more Americans who are eligible to receive food stamps have yet to apply, thus the need to offer federal grants to sign more citizens up.
President Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has also argued that food stamps are an effective form of economic stimulus that puts “people to work” because each time food stamps are used at a grocery store “someone’s got to stock it, shelve it, package it, process it, ship it–all of those are jobs.”
And indeed, the SNAP Outreach Grant program likewise repeats the claim:
Communities benefit from the economic impact of food stamp redemption in local stores. Every dollar of new food stamp benefits generates a total of $1.84 in community spending.
Critics, however, find that line of logic unconvincing and say that is like arguing that car theft provides “economic stimulus” because it generates work for window repair shops, car radio stores, and police officers.
The Department of Agriculture’s website lists the 2001 through 2009 SNAP Outreach Grant recipients but offers no data for 2010 or 2011. Of the years listed, the highest recorded total grant allocation occurred in 2002 when $5,046,915 in grants were allocated.
Given the historic rise in the number of Americans now receiving food stamps over the last three years, one might assume that a program to enroll more citizens in the SNAP program is no longer needed. However, according to page 27 of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2010-2015 Strategic Plan, the Obama Administration lists as one of its goals increasing SNAP participation by 2015 to a target 75 percent of all eligible Americans from the 2007 baseline of 65.8 percent. The strategic plan says it will accomplish the Administration’s goal through “aggressive and creative outreach, customer service improvements, earned media activities, demonstration projects, and research and analysis to identify reasons for and potential solutions to participation gaps.”
Republicans, however, contend that taxpayer spending on the food stamp program has doubled under President Barack Obama and will reach $89 billion in 2012. Furthermore, they believe the program now suffers from serious fraud, abuse, and a lack of proper oversight.
On January 9th, the Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) sent a letter to Secretary Tom Vilsack requesting a full report on the Agriculture Department’s oversight efforts. And last year, the Wall Street Journal declared that under President Obama a “food stamp crime wave” was rampant in America.
Still, thus far, the Obama Administration has decided to continue offering cash grants through the SNAP Outreach Grant program and plans to pursue its stated strategic plan of increasing food stamp enrollment through 2015.
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77 Comments
Do we need ANY MORE proof that Obama is the Food Stamp President? He's pretty much buying that title with our tax money!
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The Salvation Army already does that job for free. They help people sign up for pubic support services. Some politician's kid must need a job
YesSirEEE BoB… I can see the "pride" all over the faces of those nice rotund folks in front of me checking out at WM, the ones with the grocery carts full of lobster, shrimp and sweets, …decadence galore! I know they are so proud they are able to cheat this crippled system of ours…
If perchance we still do have some folks with too much pride to accept charity, we MUST have them psychologically evaluated… ASAP. There must be something askew in their psyche…
WHAT A (expletive deleted) COUNTRY!!!
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Treason:
(trē'zən) pronunciation
n.
1. Violation of allegiance toward one's country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one's country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies.
2. A betrayal of trust or confidence.
And Boehner is silent…
Sooooo…what the Zero administration is saying is that, rather than 46 million foodstamp recipients, there should be 62 million.
But he's not the Foodstamp President, oh no.
This is just disgraceful…..
Sounds like a job for ACORN!!,,,,for Food Stamp Program that way,,,,,,everyone ACORN gets paid to enroll in the SNAP they also enroll on the democrat election roles,,,,,,,,once you give up your PRIDE you have nothing left to give and you become just one more brick for the producers of the country to carry.
Buying votes, pure and simple.
Like finding people for food stamps is tough.
I grow less and less hopeful every passing day that this nation will avoid another civil war.
I especially appreciate them talking on their govt. paid cell phones too.
DO FOOD STAMPS CREATE JOBS?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAh5uwTT-Kg&fe...
Obama is not the king of food stamps. He said so while sitting on his food stamp throne while waving his food stamp scepter.
my lordy tea you got it right! (oregon teas comment slightly above mine)
"the Obama Administration believes not enough people are receiving food stamps who should be……"
primarily among the illegal immigrant community.
In the sick mind of the statist, 62 million food stamp receipents equals 62 million locked in dimocrat voters…
Power is everything…The hard pressed taxpayer be damned…
Weeeee…rushing towards oblivion at light speed. Why screw around, I believe everyone should be given a million dollars yearly, then we’d all be millionaires. Just think ,champagne and caviar for all, no one will have to work, vacation year round, now that’s utopia.
Ever encounter the enterprising 99%'ers standing outside the supermarket offering to sell you their foodstamps at "half price"?
I don't know about anyone else, but it affirms for me that the entrepreneurial spirit still lives in this great country!
And Pride?
It sure ain't shame I see on the faces of these budding Donald Trumps!
purchasing votes, one food stamp at a time!
"cell phones"??? Are you kidding SK (by the way, nice to see ya here)? The ones I see have the huge Apple i phones, or the fancy Samsung galaxy model. No mere cheap $#!t for these peeps… Since they're not really paying for their food with their money, they don't even bother watching the register operator, they scroll through their messages and calls the entire time, with the checker having to interrupt them from perusing, in order to get them to sign for their purchases. So as to avoid the rage, I've taken to going shopping very early in the day, before they are out and about. They usually begin stumbling in, sporting their "bedhead" wearing their sweats around 10 A. I try to be out before 9.
The Federal Government already has a word for what Obama is doing…. it's called BRIBERY under US Federal Law.
Obama can also be charged under the RICO Statute. Hell, every Obama Supporter can be charged under the RICO Statute. I sure hope the Government kept good records on just who gave Money to Obama, all those people will need to be locked up.
Cable TV gets me riled up. The Government wants the couch potatoes to be entertained too! Just wait until they find out Britain's are paying for vacations abroad as a basic human right as well.
If the Republicans cannot stop this travesty outright, then they need to pass legislation requiring MANDATORY weekly drug testing for the recipients and their dependents.
This herd is too big, it will be culled one way or the other. War, govt stupidity induced famine or massive migration… The "producers" of this nation will not continue to allow that 47% number of the "entitled class" to grow to overtake us.
Fat , well entertained folks rarely plan or participate in revolution… do they?;-D
Wonder what USDA could be thinking?
On a side note, I heard just this morning that Vilsak at USDA is going to up the ante (settlements) for women, Hispanics and blah, blah, blah, who can "prove" they were discriminated against by the agency from $50 K to $250 K. Ain't that just too damn special???
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That would sure turn drug testing into the growth industry of the century.
You forgot to add sanitation workers to take care of all that obama that will be flushed down the moohamhead after eating all that food.
It is like increasing magazine subscriptions except it's a voter list.
punishable by hanging for civilians and a firing squad for the military.
If it happens there will be regional 'uprisings'. The Feds (however they are comprised) will control urban areas albeit there will be anarchy in the street. Not a safe place to live. Rural, more isolated areas will be harder to control.
Soon there will be a litmus test to receive food stamps. What is the stamp on your voter registration card?
Food Stamps.
The proverbial and biblical Manna from Heaven……..
Wow!, I could use $75K where do I apply for a grant!
You racist! LOL!
………and as long as food keeps falling from the sky, THEY will never learn how to feed themselves.
This sounds like "Pigford 2" the next step in "fairness" and equality. Wasn't Vilsak involved in that scandal too?
And the Mormons have a very sophisticated program for feeding the poor.
It started back in the FDR days and continues to this day.
From Isaiah 58 we learn to fast and donate money to feed the poor. And we work together to produce the food, preserve it and distribute it.
The assistance is temporary, basic and monitored by someone who knows the family and their needs.
It's a beautiful thing really, quite different from the government dole.
Didn't he accuse Bush of being the Food Stamp President? This along with circumventing the Juducial Branch…Why is there no outrage?
Come on folks, you're all missing the root reason for this Obamanation.
ACORN. Come back in 6 months and I bet dollars to donuts that ACORN receives the lions share of this money.
The bare naked gal of this guy goes beyond the pale.
I'm glad I'm old and ready to die. At least I can thank Obama for one thing, death is better than his world now.
Allen West Tells Obama, Reid, Pelosi 'Get the Hell Out of the USA'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8YDnd1Yoyk&fe...
Our newest entitlement group: college students .I Got Food Stamps and So Can You!
http://thecollegeconservative.com/2012/01/16/i-go...
We can only hope that the Republican establishment uses this for an ad in the next few months to counter his lies…that 'he' is NOT the food stamp king…when we know he is!
DEMOCRATZI ‘LOONS’ ATTEMPTING TO ALTER CITIZENSHIP OF THE PRESIDENT?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3aCfR8rmrw
STATES PRESSING THE BIRTH ISSUE FOR 2012 AND BEYOND; GOD BLESS THEM!
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pag...
IS SHERIFF ARPAIO (AZ) FINALLY GETTING TO THE TRUTH…
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pag...
Yes, Obama, squeeze out all that Pride. Nudge, squeeze, push.
The ole "Cloward and Piven" strategy – overwhelm the system.
And heaven forbid that Americans have PRIDE such that they don't want a gov't handout. Nope, we have to "re-educate" them.
They think "We live like this…Can't everybody live like this?"
Civil War, Revolutionary War or collapse or some combo of the 3.
I'm feeling the same way. The GOP doesn't seem to really care (the candidates sure don't). And we know what the Dems are all about.
We're screwed. All we can do is hunker down and be prepared.
We rural folk can be "controlled", with shortages of electricity and/or fuel, as well as a few other basic necessities. My 3 K gal of diesel storage would eventually run dry, if not my 3 K gal of propane. Without one or the other I can't pump water from almost 400 feet below the surface to raise my own food, unless I am willing to spend a small fortune to get my old windmill up and functioning again. Depending on mother nature to irrigate my garden is not an option, since my annual rainfall is less than 20 inches. Marauding gangs of thieves are already stealing us blind, stripping quarter mile runs of copper wire off our irrigation systems regularly. Do you ever read Victor Davis Hanson's stuff? Sorry, I don't have the link handy, but he wrote a piece within the last month about what is already happening in the rural counties of CA..
Any half-prosperous rural county is now under siege by the thugs from nearby urban areas. We can't stand guard 24 – 7, so we have no choice but to absorb the losses as gracefully as possible. Every man of working age, that I see accompanying his wife shopping during normal "working hours" is a suspect IMO. I'm not such a hayseed that I don't understand there is such a thing as "shift-work", but I can look at their hands and tell if they're workers, or not. Too many are not. They are only breeding machines.
The civil war may already be underway, in the form of burglary, home invasion et.c. I can't tell you how many shoot-outs I hear of in Texas, between home invaders, or burglars and homeowners. A guy on a local radio program (prattontexas.com) makes light of it daily in his "Anti-Wimp Update", where he cheers some Tx homeowner who has shot and killed, or mortally wounded one of these usurpers. He even promotes a gun range, where his listeners can "go to practice on making a clean kill" so as to avoid the added expense of trail and incarceration of the perpetrator. He is hilarious, but we native Txnz are a cold hearted bunch…
Depends if you are a civilian or a guerrilla combatant. In Texas for instance, I could see check points along Interstate and U.S. Highways but I can't see sufficient manpower to control every rural road. The resistance at first would be communications between people who can get travel semi legally yet avoiding checkpoints. It would be much easier to shutoff metro areas.
Once upon a time we were taught about the Roman policy of "Bread and Circuses", and its contribution to Roman decline. I guess, if its still taught, the students thought process have been so compromised by the Marxist world-view that they have been programed with, they can't relate it with what is going on today.
Is there any degree of obesity that would make one ineligible for food stamps? What percentage of stamp recipients are obese? What percentage of obese receive food stamps? If a bartender is liable for continuing to serve drinks to one already besotted, shouldn't the government be concerned about its facilitating obesity? Or is that effort most effectual by making those of normal weight pay the extra taxes on sodas?
The Food Stamp Administration. People are choosing to give up their pride in exchange for a handout. They'd be better off with their pride.
What really ticks me off is standing in line behind a woman wearing $2000 in gold jewlery and then paying for the groceries with my tax dollars supplemented food stamps.
This used to happen when I was working and didn't own any gold because I couldn't afford it. I never asked for and never received handous, but had to pay for these freeloaders.
When I was receiving food stamps I spent them on mac and cheese and tomato soup in bulk.
I suppose it is true that the guilty do plead the fifth……
That link posted in the article "$75,000 grant" takes you to a SNAP page that states hispanics made up 1 in 7 people in 2004. That's 14%, which doesn't jive with the 2010 census. I wonder if they are including the illegal tresspassers of hispanic origin.
Get enough Americans on the government dole and then we will find out if we have become a bunch of pathetic sheep or if we still have the American Spirit of our forefathers….."The best of times, the worst of times"…….
Reducing pride is now a government policy. Leave it to the commies to recognize what that struggling under their boot is.
I forget where I read it (maybe here?) but a few weeks ago there was a piece written by a college student in Maine who was paying her tuition working at a supermarket as a cashier. One of her regulars had a foodstamp ID card indicating he'd been a recipient since 1982.
Another guy regularly bought 100 packs of hot dogs — for his hot dog stand.
I honestly don't know how people like these can look a working person in the face.
I don't know where being compassionate ends and blatantly buying votes begins :\
WHEN YOU FEED STRAY MUTTS,THEY WILL FOLLOW YOU ANYWHERE ! thats why we have 99 weeks of paid obama vacation, to avoid haveing the stress of takeing a job to soon,maybe close to the end they will get off their asses and actually look for a job??,but then again they may get another 99 week extension,worth the gamble??
Thats why its laughable when they say he has a billion dollars for his campaign fund….hes had Trillions over the last couple of years! Just sickening!
Yeah, that's something we got way too much of in America, pride. What the freak is wrong with these people??
And Vilsak obviously subscribes to the "Broken Window" theory of economics. Just like the rest of this clueless bunch!
Screw stocking shelves! Let's get this economy really moving! Let's start firebombing businesses and public buildings!
The firemen have work, the clean up people have work, the construction trades have work! Hell, if someone gets hurt, the medical services people have work!
Why haven't we thought of this before??!!
At the risk of sounding repetitive, what the freak is wrong with these people?
The more people they get on the books, the more information they have on more people…they want to know everything about everybody in your household. When you sign up for Food stamps you have to give LOTS of personal information on everyone in your household related or not…that is why obby and the feds want to get people on foodstamps…its the easiest way of getting information on people by their own free will.
"There are many reasons why eligible people, including seniors and Hispanics, do not participate in the SNAP. These include unawareness of eligibility, confusion about program rules and requirements, a complex application process, and a lack of transportation and pride."
Nice job, government. If you read that last sentence exactly as written, it's saying a reason eligible people might not sign up for the program is a LACK of pride.
I think what he is buying is votes.
That's 62 million votes!!!!
I'd be willing to bet that these groups (like ACORN) are also registering people to vote! Just saying!
Food stamps are being handed out like candy in IL. The food stamp army manages ot have a huge number of people who own, I pads and the latest phones, Lincoln Navigators, Cadillac Escalades, Lexus Suvs and lots of new cars and are dressed to the 9's. On multiple times I overheard conversations where it was said "you just have to know HOW to LIE. Kids in h/school who get free lunches that are dressed to 9's, use $50 bills, haqve i-pads, gold everywhere and drive new cars. I see it all the time.
So let me get this straight – the Obama administration is taking tax dollars and giving them away to organizations that are going to encourage even more "poor" people to take even more tax dollars away from taxpayers?
But don't you dare call Obama the "Food Stamp President"…..
Thomas Jefferson would be so proud to see his likeness on a five dollar food stamp.
I too remember reading that, but also forgot where. Wished I'da saved it, I know people who would like to read it.
Signin up new voters
Today…America…today…is a landmark day in my book because a 'real' conservative woman…Michele Malkin…has come out bravely and endorsed the only 'real' conservative in this race…and MY candidate…Rick Santorum!
GOD BLESS YOU MICHELE FOR STANDING WITH YOUR CONVICTIONS AND VOTING FOR A MAN THAT IS 'NOT' WASHINGTON ESTABLISHMENT AND/OR IN BED WITH THE NWO TYPES AND THEIR MONEY!
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2012/01/30....
in olden days free booze was given out to get votes,today its banned,instead obama give food stamps for votes,free booze would keep the worthless leeches away from voteing for obama,cant have that??
The really scary thing is that they don't even use "stamps" anymore. That would be too "obvious and cruel to the user". They are given debit cards that look like our credit/debit cards.
What really drives me nuts, is being in line with these people at the grocery store. Their carts are full of junk!!!! They never even touch a dollar bill.
They should not give food stamps but rather, canned meat, powderd eggs. bricks of cheeze ect…..
This is so sad – my school district has gone from 17% in 2007 receiving Free/Reduced meals to 37% (to date) receiving Free/Reduced meals. The administration has made the application very easy to do and not much, if any accountability.
This is all to get more people giving praises to him for taking care of them and thus getting their vote. I wish the media would report the truth about what is going on.
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