(AL) Since 2001, one-third more get food stamps

MONTGOMERY - The number of Alabama families receiving food stamps has risen by one-third in five years, but state officials say that's not enough. Officials at the Alabama Department of Human Resources worry that too many people who could get help don't sign up.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated in 2003 that 56 percent of Alabamians who were eligible received food stamps. The national rate that year also was 56 percent. "Our goal is to get to 80 percent by 2010," DHR Commissioner Page Walley said. Walley believes the percentage is starting to rise, since total numbers are growing. But new estimates have not been formulated. And state officials say they can't fully explain the reasons for growth that has occurred despite a strong economy.

Joyce O'Neal, state director of the food stamps program for four years, said food stamp enrollment normally rises during economic slumps. But the current trend persists despite unemployment rates being at the lowest level in decades. O'Neal said she believes hurricanes Ivan and Katrina partly explain the most recent growth. DHR offered one-time food stamp enrollment to Ivan victims in 2004 and Katrina victims in 2005. More than 55,000 households signed up after each storm. O'Neal said some of those families realized they were eligible for long-term assistance and became part of the regular food stamp rolls.

So we don't have enough people applying for and receiving food stamps. Perhaps we have several times to many. Perhaps the readily available food stamps are the reason why the illegal immigrants find jobs in the U S so available and there for the taking. Perhaps if so much welfare wasn't available, there would be no "jobs that Americans don't want or won't do." When will those of us that work get a belly full of those that have learned that they don't have to work. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

Food stamps are one of the few forms of welfare that I wholly support, with the proviso that there has *got* to be a better way of doing this.

Free public school breakfasts and lunches are a start, but there almost has to be indoctrination, an insistence that kids eat healthy food until their bodies are trained to like healthy food. Essentially forcing children to eat, and grading them down if they fail to comply. (Granted if it is food they *can't* eat, from allergies or intolerance, then their parents can be notified early.)

There are far too many adults in the US who they and their families subsist on rice and beans, and not because they are economically destitute, but out of choice. Giving food stamps to such people is a waste--just give them the sacks of rice and beans, like they do in Mexico. The stuff is dirt cheap, and we have too much of it as is.

The total negative effects of Reagan giving away surplus government cheese was zero, except to the people who received it. It saved the government money for storage, it got rid of cheese that was just going to rot, and the price of retail cheese was unaffected. It was a great lesson in economics.

We have mountains of food that rot every year, so why not give it away, if it doesn't effect the regular retail price? It will save us all money.

The total negative effects of Reagan giving away surplus government cheese was zero

Put away your calculator for just a second and think twice about the road you have chosen. The negative effects of the policy you support are far greater than dollars and cents. The chief drawback of this wonderful "give away" you praise was to undermine the pride of poor people who had previously been able to boast that they "refused to accept charity" (which used to be a characteristic of the poor). Call me old-fashioned but I see no "net" benefit to becoming a society where everyone is on the public tit.

Put cheese in one hand and pride in the other, and see which one you can live on the longest. I'll be the first one to agree about other forms of welfare, but you really, truly must have food to survive *now*. You cannot work without food, you cannot go to school and learn on an empty stomach, and there is no reason why not.

We produce vast quantities of food. American agribusiness is astounding, and few people even realize how big it is. It is comparable to our military-industrial complex in scale. It is America's shining enterprise.

Certainly people will benefit who "shouldn't", but a heck of a lot of people will benefit who should.

If it was a money handout, or a medical entitlement, or an educational entitlement, you can honestly debate giving it away for free. Even rent can be seen as a luxury. But not food.

Again, warehousing all the food to keep it off the market costs the taxpayers lots of money, so denying people this food for "moral" reasons actually *costs* us all money.

And I cannot embrace a morality that ever suggests that people should be starved "for their own good." Luxuries, maybe. Even life-saving drugs, perhaps. But not food.

Are you really arguing that these folks would "starve" if they didn't have "free" cheese from Uncle Sam? C'mon. That kind of guilt tripping has no basis in fact.

Moreover, you're starting premise is flawed. You can indeed "eat" pride and more importantly build on it. This is the story of America. A hundred years ago, there were far more poor people than today but less than one percent received any government aid. The poor things didn't starve as a result. They were resourceful (they had to be!) and built a vast system of mutual aid. It is one of the great achievements in American history.

More importantly, this pride gave them the motivation to move up the ladder and ensure that their children also progressed. If you destroy that pride by "encoraging" folks to suck the public tit (even in a small way), you will do far more farm than any benefit provided. You're point about ending waste is also beside the point. The best solution to that problem is to end farm subsidies. Such a reform would do far more to help the poor (via lower prices on food) than you're policy of chipping away yet more at their pride and resoucefulness.

But the current trend persists despite unemployment rates being at the lowest level in decades.

As of July 2006, the unemployment rate for Alabama was 3.6%. I am amazed at the number of help wanted signs posted at business entrances around town. Anyone who wants to work, can. However, it's pretty tough to compete (as an employer) with the income one can receive from Food Stamps, Aid for Dependent Children, Welfare, and Section 8 Housing. All totaled, I suspect it approaches double the minimum wage.

There is a myth that people in the US are economically homogenous. Even looking at those that receive food stamps as a few groups, rather than a single generic group, you start to see the problems inherent in "cutting them off for their own good".

1) First and (hopefully) one only timers. There are people who are in need for just a few months. Truly "between jobs", they will be buying their own food in short order. However, a problem arises for many if they get laid off a *second* time, as many States prohibit getting food stamps "twice". These are often young couples with children just starting out.

2) Disabled and/or undergoing medical care. This is a real dilemma for a family with a single breadwinner. Often middle class, injury or illness can impact for months or years. How do you feed your family if you can't work? They may also be facing many future years incomes to pay off enormous medical bills.

3) Too old. With his double-digit inflation Jimmy Carter impoverished hundreds of thousands of people who thought they were on track to have a nest-egg for their retirement. There are only so many "greeters" jobs to be had at Wal-Mart. Add to them those who have lost (had stolen) their retirement through corporate mismanagement, those hit with catastrophic illness, and the huge number who had been wage employees, now trying to live on only a Social Security check. Many regularly choose between food and medicine.

4) Regional downturn. When several major employers fire tens of thousands of employees at once, it can have a domino effect in an area, which means a large percentage of people will have to relocate for employment. Many who stay and many who go will be reduced to working minimum-wage jobs that barely pay their rent. They are SOL until the regional economy improves. Perhaps a year or two. These can be well paid blue or white collar people.

5) Military junior enlisted personnel families. Though wartime bonuses have improved this considerably, many military personnel have long been food stamp receipients, easily qualifying as "below poverty level."

6) Longtime unemployed. Uneducated. Unhireable. Too dumb, unmotivated, felony criminal record, drug & alcohol addiction. Basically rock bottom, and they aren't climbing out. Yes, while the others might be sympathetic, these aren't. But they are part of the group.

Given your examples it is a wonder that Americans (who were in all these categories one hundred years ago) didn't "starve" without Uncle Sam to "help them."

You can't just throw up the worst imaginable hypothetical hard-luck examples (a typical method used by those who built our highly destructive welfare state). You need to do better than that. Since you are advocating that the federal government seize money from taxpayers to provide these benefits (nothing is "free"), the burden is on you to show that your hypotheticals bear any relation to reality. In other words, you need to show that these hard-luck cases are typical of those who obtain this aid. You can't just assume that this is the case. You are also making the common mistake of welfarists (again without evidence) of simply assuming that these folks are helpless to fill these needs through mutual aid, private aid, etc.

Finally, I recommend again that you study American history before the rise of the welfare state which shows that the poor are not quite as "helpless" and clueless as you make them out to be. They can do perfectly well, that is assuming that some bureucrat isn't constantly pressuring and guilt tripping them to throw aside their "outmoded" pride in being self-reliant, pro-active, resourceful, and independent.

Actually, the food in the case of government surplus has already been paid for, and possibly more than once. Agricultural price supports include government guarantees to farmers and farm corporations that the government will buy any surplus food produced above quota.

So when Reagan gave away that cheese, it saved the taxpayers millions of dollars in the cost of refrigerated storage. And yet, the price of retail cheese didn't go down, so it didn't hurt the cheese producers.

The only thing we could have done is what we usually do: throw it out when it rots.

Agribusiness and government food subsidies and programs are several college majors, because of all their linkages. But the bottom line is a very human one: do you give food to people, knowing that many of them don't deserve it, though some do; or do you throw it out because if you feed them you will somehow "corrupt" them?

The latter choice just cannot be justified. It is Swiftian, but without the humor. That is, "The Irish keep making so many babies, and yet they starve. They should eat their babies, and solve two problems at once."

And yes, in "the good old days", during the first part of the great depression, people *did* starve to death. And even then, some people objected to feeding them.

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