There’s no denying that Barack Obama was the “food stamps president” because the numbers prove it. In 2009, 33,490,000 people received food stamp benefits, but by October 2016, 44,219,123 people received the same assistance, an increase of about 10,729,000. That’s an increase far out of proportion from what we’d normally expect with natural population increase, and it’s a problem that persisted, even as the economy recovered from the financial crisis of 2008. Thanks to a loosening on restrictions for the program, the cost of food stamps for taxpayers rose from $50.3 billion to $66.6 billion.
During President Donald Trump’s first year of office, a fifth of that increase has already been erased. According to Fox News, “data released by the Department of Agriculture show that the number of participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps, dropped to 42,182,443 for fiscal 2017 – a decline of 2,036,920 from the fiscal 2016 total of 44,219,363.”
Of course, as is the case with every government program ever, the long-term trajectory of costs has gone in one direction: up.
The program has gone from costing taxpayers about $250 million for about 2.8 million recipients in 1969 under President Richard Nixon, to a peak of costing nearly $80 billion for nearly 48 million recipients in 2013 under President Barack Obama. In other words, that’s a 31,900% increase in costs over that time period – far out of proportion with population growth as a whole.
More from the Fox report:
The 2017 figure of 42.1 million people assisted is the lowest figure since 2010, when the program assisted 40.3 million people at a cost to taxpayers of $68.2 billion.
President Trump has signaled that he wants to tighten eligibility rules for SNAP and have states contribute matching funds for the program – as ways of continuing to reduce the number of recipients, Governing.com reported.
The federal government is also reviewing some rules being considered on the state level for possible inclusion in federal policy, the website reported.
As previously mentioned, a good deal of the blame for the explosion in usage under Obama can be attributed to lax requirements for usage. Clinton-era welfare reform was effectively repealed by Barack Obama’s Agriculture Department, which removed the work requirement for food stamps during the financial crisis. It was a move that made perfect sense at that particular time (after all, what jobs were there to look for anyway?), but it wasn’t supposed to be a permanent one.
Since then, it’s been up to the states to re-implement their “workfare” requirements, and states that have quickly saw financial benefits to both their taxpayers and the now-former recipients themselves. The cuts in the number of able-bodied adults in food stamps have been drastic: -85% in Alabama, -58% in Georgia, -75% in Maine, among others.
Reducing numbers like that nationally couldn’t be simpler: simply re-institute the same federal work requirement to receive food stamps that was in place less than a decade ago.
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Anything he does to piss off liberals is a good thing.
The best way to reduce food stamp eligibility is to increase economic opportunity. The reason demand goes down is because real economic growth is going up.
Just a 5 to 10% cut in food stamp eligibility in good ole’ JERRY BROWN’s Welfare State would help the state fund MUD-SLIDE/FIRE Disaster Relief. Course He’d spend it to help immigrants pay lawyers to get legalized! Not much difference, huh?
Welfare, food stamps and Medicaid must require a work requirement and drug testing before any benefits are paid out.
Everything President Trump promised to do he has done!! And all of it has worked!! We don’t get you can keep your dr, (wrong), you can keep your plan,(wrong), I’ll save you 2500.00 in medical, (wrong), we didn’t give those weapons to those murderers, (wrong), we didn’t target conservative organizations, (wrong), and the best of all, a video caused the massacre, (wrong), and etc!!
NOT MAKE AMERICA a SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-IT HOLE…….
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN !!!!!!!!!
My personal feeling is we shouldn’t be paying healthy women to stay home and raise kids. My mother had to support the two of us from the time I was seven. She worked six days a week at a department store to put a roof over our heads and food in the fridge. I imagine we had a lot less then than most of the people on welfare have today. We lived in an older home that we had to maintain. We ate every scrap of food she bought. Christmas meant a new pair of home made pajamas and very little else. We didn’t have a car or cell phones and rarely could afford to even go to the doctor. And yet I grew up with a work ethic and raised a family all on what I could earn. Now my sons work hard for their families. Giving welfare means raising kids who don’t feel they should have to work for things. I can remember hearing one young black girl telling another that she needed to get pregnant so she could draw welfare and not have to work. I see nothing wrong with supporting those who are totally unable to work but for single women who continue to have kids I believe at the very least they should have their benefits reduced for each child they have. It would go a long way toward discouraging women from having lots of kids by different fathers who don’t feel any need to support their children.
See it all around me where I live, people perfectly healthy getting food stamps, Florida put a stop to it by demanding that those of a certain age come in to have their cases reviewed. Then if able to work they would have to work 20 hours a day for several days out of each week, earning their food stamps and the jobs would be allotted by the facility.
In the first place, the “Clinton- Era Welfare Reform” had very little to do with President Clinton. It was forced on him by Newt Gingrich and a Republican congress, the first in forty years. Clinton said at the signing,”I’m gonna sign it now, but I’m gonna fix it next year”. Guess what. NOTHING needed fixing.Now Clinton is heralded as the great welfare fixer. Just another liberal democrat balking at signing anything that would not buy votes among Minorities. Unfortunately, eight years later, a Communist president bought all the votes he could at taxpayer expense. In true Alinsky mode. Alinsky said that the one true way to start a race revolution is to bankrupt the welfare system. Almost worked.
Babies and seniors, and the obviously disabled should be the only recipients. The rest need to get off their lazy asses and feed themselves… Those who work and those who can work; eat.
Subsidized bread for the masses had a hand in bringing down the Roman Empire, and is giving continuing grief to Egypt. Its lingering effects may still be playing out in Mexico’s revolutionary cry for “pan y techo”. We still have a long way to go in taming the failing policies of entitlements adopted in good faith, but debilitating to workers earning a living.
What??? “Liberals will HATE him for this!” WHAT???? Ummmm, liberals already hate Trump. They hate themselves as well. Sick, demented, emotionally and mentally disturbed liberals have completely lost it. This is such old news that those of us on the right don’t even pay attention to the left’s ranting anymore. <>
So true William!
Thank you President Trump..I agree with Clyde.. They should go through much scrutiny for welfare and food stamps. Obama handed it out like candy..
Thats the only way he could get voters, that or free phones. #NoMoreGoathumper
I’ve been hoping that instead of drug-testing welfare applicants, we could just subject them to the same level of scrutiny that carry permit people go through.
Have to show up in person, with approved ID and proof of citizenship and residency. Then be fingerprinted and photographed, then have a wants & warrants check plus FBI background check run. Since it’s for welfare benefits, we can waive the normal not-insignificant fees associated with getting a carry permit.
Once they pass, they can get their welfare and as an additional benefit, the ID they get issued would be suitable for voting purposes! So no excuses for low-income folks to not have proper ID for voting anymore.
What obozo legacy? All he did was attempt to destroy American. Thank you President Trump for MAGA.
I think they mean the “imaginary legacy” that the liberal media made up. But it’s true, the more Trump does to curb these costs and the more people he’s helped put back to work has just infuriated the left because it has exposed the lies they tell and disrupted their agenda of socialistic government control.
Thank you President Trump for all the great things you’ve have already accomplished for our country in the last year!
Great comments and truth from you and all the others! All my family and friends and previous co-workers have worked all our lives, never gotten freebies and paid more than our fair share and Obozo just kept giving it away, of course it wasn’t his money and he hates America! Well, we’re Republicans, voted for Trump and Thank God he’s MAGA!!! We got your back Sir!!!