Conservatives Need to Reevaluate Thinking about Food Stamp Participation

Conservatives tend to think that the food stamp program is a wasteful government welfare program given to lazy and deliberately nonproductive people. But I think that mindset needs to be modified.

Currently, 47,637,407 people in America are receiving government aid in the form of food stamps. Participation in the food stamp program increased by 955,574 from July 2012 to July 2013, but over the past year, participation has remained fairly stable—monthly numbers of participants has vibrated up and down slightly. About one in seven people in the U.S. receive food stamps. The receipt of food stamps has gradually increased since its low point of 16.9 million in the year 2000 http://frac.org/reports-and-resources/snapfood-stamp-monthly-participation-data/. Admittedly, this high usage of food stamps among our people is alarming; but it must be pointed out that the number of unemployed and underemployed in our society is about the same number as the number of people on food stamps, i.e., one person in seven. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) Clearly, food stamps seem to be going to those among us who really cannot afford to buy adequate food for their families.

Forty-seven percent of food stamp recipients are children, and 26% are adults living with those children. Income for the typical family with children on food stamps stands at 57% of the poverty line—about $10,875 for a 3-person family. Ninety-one percent of food stamp dollars goes to families living below the poverty line.

The reason for the increase in food stamp distribution is that our population has a lot more poor people now. Five years ago, 11.3% of the population was living below the poverty line; now 15% live at that low-income level. According to the Census Bureau, there are 2.9 million more poor individuals today than in 2009. The number of households with income below $25,000 has increased by 3 million since 2009.

One legitimate case conservatives have for their complaint about food stamps is that the number of able-bodied adults without dependents receiving benefits under the food-stamp program has risen to nearly 5.5 million from under 2 million since 2008. Since 2008, work requirements for these individuals have been relaxed. The federal government should reconsider the waivers of current requirements it has extended to many concerning the criteria for receiving food stamps.   

The observed increase in yearly participation numbers demonstrates that food stamps continue to be an important nutritional safety net for people all over the country, especially as unemployment and underemployment rates remain high. The disagreement between liberals and conservatives seems to be about the extent of our collective obligation to the least fortunate Americans and what is the best way to answer their needs.

Although I am an advocate for helping people out of a difficult situation, I do think that the food stamp program has reached an excessive state of liberal distribution. I believe that the free access to food stamps is now contributing to prolonged unemployment. This free government support in food stamps and prolonged payment of unemployment benefits is causing welfare dependency, which eats away at the heart of American bread winners.

It is my recommendation that the food stamp distribution program should be modified. I believe that we all should write our Congressmen and Senators to encourage them to increase the work requirements for those recipients who are able-bodied and without children. Some end to free distribution of food stamps must happen, or else our people will continue to increase in their government/welfare dependency.

(Much of this blog post was redacted from the Wall Street Journal of 11/6/13, page A13.)

Speak Softly and Carry a Small Stick

Today, we are seeing the preeminent power of the United States deteriorate and disappear in wide swaths of the world. We are observing President Obama walk away and shrink from responsibility for effective foreign relations in Eastern Europe, Egypt, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Russia, and Iran. Now, he is refusing to take a public stand in favor of the European Union supporters in Ukraine. He is taking this weak-kneed stand by effectively dismantling our military establishment, as documented by John Lehman in the Wall Street Journal editorial, More Bureaucrats, Fewer Jets and Ships of 12/10/13. During the Reagan years, our navy had 600 ships afloat—today, there are 280. The Air Force has fewer than half the number of fighters and bombers it had 30 years ago. Air Force fighter planes today are, on average, 28 years old. Instead of the 20-division army supported by the United States during President Reagan’s administration, we have only 10 now.

Our President thinks he can control worldwide terrorism and naked aggression against our Middle Eastern allies with diplomacy. He is ignoring the classic aphorism that diplomatic power is the shadow cast by military power.

President Reagan’s legacy for the time he was in office included his facing down the Soviet Union and breaking apart the Berlin wall. He demonstrated that a race for military power need not result in a destructive use of that power. The Soviets backed down because they feared the obvious catastrophe that would consume them if they tried to challenge the United States. Thus, diplomacy backed by the Big Stick mentioned first by President Theodore Roosevelt, was the driving power in saving the world from a conflagration of violence and disorder perpetrated by a rogue nation bent on conquest.

When Jimmy Carter was President, he watched and tried diplomacy to get Libya to quit bombing passenger planes over the Mediterranean. He got no place with that policy. Soon, Ronald Reagan succeeded him in office. One of the first things that Reagan did was to send fighter/bombers over Libya and drop a bomb on a munitions plant in Libya. The trouble with hijacked planes over the Mediterranean quit immediately. Diplomacy without military back-up is a waste of time.

The world has seen timidity like that of President Obama demonstrated before. Prior to World War II, the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, tried to placate and appease the Nazi’s at Munich in 1938. The result was disaster, as Germany marched directly into Czechoslovakia and Poland and subsequently attacked the low countries, Russia, France, and Great Britain, herself. Appeasement does not work with tyrants.

Clement Atlee succeeded Winston Churchill as Britain’s Prime Minister in July 1945 and proceeded to dismantle the strategic and imperial inheritance of world power ceded to him by his successor. Under Atlee’s guidance, the British Empire divested itself of its hegemony over its colonies in India, Burma, and Ceylon; and he reduced the British presence in Egypt, Iran, Turkey Greece, and Southeast Asia. British bases in the Mediterranean and the East Indies were considered obsolete; and they were decommissioned. Atlee’s legacy was a weakened British presence in the world. Britain has never regained her former influence and power in the world.

President Obama seems extremely interested in leaving a good and lasting legacy to America when he is out of power. His legacy seems to be a markedly weakened United States abroad (and a confused health care system at home).