Posted on 03/20/2013 7:00:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
The food stamp program seems to be a breeding ground of waste, fraud, and abuse. Some of the horror stories I’ve shared include:
With stories like this, I’m surprised my head didn’t explode during this debate I did on Larry Kudlow’s show.
So exactly how bad is the food stamp program?
One way of measuring the cost of the program, both to taxpayers and to the people who get trapped in dependency, is to see what share of a state’s population is utilizing the program.
I just did a “Mirror, Mirror” post on states with the most education bureaucrats compared to teachers and got a lot of good feedback, so let’s do the same thing for food stamps.
Here’s a rather disturbing map from the Washington Post.
A couple of things stand out. I can understand Mississippi, Louisiana, and New Mexico being among the worst states because they have relatively low average incomes. And that’s sort of an excuse for Tennessee, though it’s worth noting that economically and demographically similar states such as Georgia and Alabama don’t fall into the same dependency trap.
Why such a significant handout culture?
But the state that stands out is Oregon. Based on the state’s income, there’s no reason for more than 20 percent of resident’s to be on the dole. The state does get a “high” ranking on the Moocher Index, so there’s some evidence of an entitlement mentality. And welfare handouts also are above average in the Beaver State as well.
It’s also disappointing to see that food stamp dependency has doubled since 2008 in Florida, Rhode Island, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho. Though it’s a credit to the people of Utah that they’re still in the least-dependent category. But the trend obviously is very bad.
And it’s also depressing to look at the bar chart on the right and see that spending on the program has tripled in the past 10 years. Heck, food stamps were about 70 percent of the cost of a recent Senate “farm bill.”
P.S. A local state legislator asked an official in Richmond why Virginia got such a bad score in the ranking of teachers compared to education bureaucrats. The good news, so to speak, is that Virginia is not as bad as suggested by the official numbers. According to the response sent to this lawmaker, “VDOE has determined that the data it reported on school division personnel and assignments to NCES for 2005-2006 through 2009-2010 through the US Department of Education’s EdFacts Portal were inaccurate.”
The bad news, as you can see from this table, is that there are still more edu-crats than teachers, but the ratio apparently isn’t as bad with this updated data.
As a Virginia taxpayer, I suppose I should be happy. But it’s hard to get overly excited when other states are taking positive steps to bring choice and competition to education, and the best thing I can say about the Old Dominion is that we’re not quite as infested with bureaucrats as we originally thought.
P.P.S. I guess I should give the left-wing Washington Post some credit for sharing the map on food stamp dependency. And, to be fair, the paper did reprint this remarkable chart showing how bad Obama’s record is on jobs compared to Reagan and Clinton. And the paper also printed this chart showing how the economy’s performance is way below average under Obama.
“Great post. As a CA Freeper, am I reading this correctly? Texas has a higher SNAP than California?”
Yeah, I noticed that too! And “Oregonians” are always making snide comments about California’s welfare! I guess they need to look in the mirror! Ditto for Texas!
“like Commierado. front range (plus aspen and vail) libtard cities and the rest real colorado.”
Actually it’s more like the big cities vs. the country folks! The only states that have, (thus far more or less) “avoided these issues don’t really have any ( or at least very many) big cities. Take Utah. Twenty-seven of the 28 county sheriffs support the 2A, but the @$$hole in Salt Lake County is the lone holdout. Salt Lake City is really the only big city in the state. Here in CA with 58 counties, we already have something on the order of 20 plus sheriff’s doing the same thing. Maybe the Freepers from Texas can tell us what the breakdown is there. That would be an interesting number.
“...best thing I can say about the Old Dominion is that we’re not quite as infested with bureaucrats as we originally thought.”
We are certainly on our way though. It’s taken me months to recover my equanimity after November’s horror.
I can see our wonderful state becoming the next infestation of “progressives” hell-bent on destroying it.
Fewer ‘takers’ in CA than in Texas? Hmm.
I see that UTAH’s usage has doubled since 2008.
Eastern WA, too. Except where libs have moved in from the western sides or California these areas are still conservative.
Looks beautiful.
Sad that the lefties have taken over control.
Are Dallas and San Antonio sanctuary cities? I know Houston is.
“...a mass die off for those that couldn’t become productive citizens.”
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I fear we have millions of young people in this country who will never be able to even support themselves, let alone support a family, even if they decided to try.
The young adapt as history shows. That is about the only silver lining that history is showing us right now.
Sad that the lefties have taken over control.
Lot selected the well-watered plains...
Genesis 13:10
It mattereth not; as we have plenty of space for them: left behind by those who were CHOICED to death - 55,000,000 and counting.
More than 3K a DAY, every day.
Over a million a year...
Space for them is not the main problem, they have no life skills, they don’t have a clue how to make their own way.
Then we should emBRace Darwinism fully; and improve the genus.
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