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GOP Staffer Claims to Live on Food Stamps Without Problems, Suggests Cutting More

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

With dozens of Democratic lawmakers struggling to live on a food stamp budget to protest GOP cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a Republican staffer says he is living on a SNAP budget without problems.

Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman’s communications director and agriculture policy advisor, Donny Ferguson, says he has been able to eat well on $27.58 for a week, less than the $31.50 House Democrats have limited themselves to for their “SNAP Challenge.”

“I wanted to personally experience the effects of the proposed cuts to food stamps. I didn’t plan ahead or buy strategically, I just saw the publicity stunt and made a snap decision to drive down the street and try it myself. I put my money where my mouth is, and the proposed food stamp cuts are still quite filling,” Ferguson said of the challenge.

Stockman’s office noted that Ferguson did not use coupons, discount programs, or a shopping list, and he shopped at locations accessible via public transportation.

“Not only did I buy a week’s worth of food on what Democrats claim is too little, I have money left over. Based on my personal experience with SNAP benefit limits we have room to cut about 12 percent more,” Ferguson said.

Read more from this story HERE.

USDA/Mexico Spanish-Language Flyer: Get Kids on Food Stamps Without Showing Documents

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller By Caroline May. The Department of Agriculture, via the Mexican government, assures potentially ineligible immigrants that they can still apply for food stamps on behalf of their eligible children without giving information about their immigration status, according to documents released Thursday by Judicial Watch.

A USDA Spanish language flyer provided to the Mexican Embassy, according to Judicial Watch, reads that if potentially ineligible immigrants want to obtain benefits for their children they “need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.”

The Daily Caller has reported extensively about the USDA/Mexico partnership that seeks to promote taxpayer-funded nutrition assistance among eligible Mexican Americans, Mexican nationals and migrant communities in America.

“USDA and the government of Mexico have entered into a partnership to help educate eligible Mexican nationals living in the United States about available nutrition assistance,” the USDA explains in a brief paragraph on its “Reaching Low-Income Hispanics With Nutrition Assistance” web page. “Mexico will help disseminate this information through its embassy and network of approximately 50 consular offices.”

The documents Judicial Watch released Thursday shed additional light on the partnership, initiated in 2004 under the Bush administration, which Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions called a “very disturbing policy” last summer. Session has attempted to end the program. Read more from this story HERE.

USDA to Mexico: Illegal immigrants can have food stamps

By Joel Gehrke. With food stamp spending in the United States skyrocketing since the beginning of the recession, the Department of Agriculture is paying to promote food stamp usage to illegal immigrants for the sake of their American children, according to documents obtained by a government watchdog.

“The promotion of the food stamp program, now known as “SNAP” (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), includes a Spanish-language flyer provided to the Mexican Embassy by the USDA with a statement advising Mexicans in the U.S. that they do not need to declare their immigration status in order to receive financial assistance,” Judicial Watch announced today. “Emphasized in bold and underlined, the statement reads, ‘You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.’”

The USDA said the program is designed to help American children. “[The USDA Food and Nutrition Service] understands that mixed status households may be particularly vulnerable,” FNS’ Yibo Wood wrote to Mexican embassy officials in a January 2012 email. “Many of these households contain a non-citizen parent and a citizen child.” Read more from this story HERE.

News Watchdogs Slam ‘Secretive’ Food Stamp Program

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Photo Credit: Getty

Seven journalist and government watchdog organizations have called on the Agriculture Department to release information on how much money retailers that accept food stamps make from the program and what products food stamp dollars are purchasing.

In a letter [pdf] to Agriculture Sec. Tom Vilsack the organizations — which have a combined membership of more than 16,000, many of them journalists who cover health care, nutrition and the federal government — requested the USDA make public records pertaining to the use of SNAP dollars.

“The USDA has refused to reveal how much money individual retailers make from SNAP, arguing in FOIA denials and subsequent court documents that the law governing the program prohibits it. But we (and others) see nothing in the law barring such disclosures,” the letter reads. “And we believe this information is essential to an informed discussion of the Farm Bill reauthorization and the future of the SNAP program.”

“As the number of Americans receiving SNAP continues to increase, along with the federal taxpayer support of it, a greater level of transparency is more essential than ever,” it continued.

The organization heads who signed the letter were from the National Freedom of Information Coalition, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Association of Health Care Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Association of Food Journalists, the National Association of Science Writers, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sen. Sessions Presses USDA For More Info On Mexican Food Stamp Use, Participation Rates

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

After an effort to defund the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food stamp outreach partnership with the Mexican government went down in committee Thursday, Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions continued to press the agency for more information about non-citizen participation in the food stamp program.

In a Friday letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack obtained by The Daily Caller, Sessions — who has been exchanging letters with Vilsack about USDA’s partnership with Mexico since last summer — requested additional information about the people the USDA has been enrolling in nutrition assistance programs and the agency’s program goals.

Last month, in a letter recently obtained by TheDC, Vilsack revealed that the share of overall Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamp, benefits going to legal non-citizens has accounted for between 3.5–4.0 percent of the total caseload since 2004.

The agriculture secretary further addressed the fact that those non-citizens who enroll in SNAP are not considered to be government-reliant under the current policies governing immigrant inadmissibility under the public charge statue. He additionally noted that the agency has provided guidance to this effect — pointing to a February 2010 letter from USDA Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon to all state commissioners.

Read more from this story HERE.

Record-Breaking Numbers Continue: 47,791,996 on Food Stamps in December

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Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

On Friday, the United States Department of Agriculture quietly released new statistics related to the food stamps program, officially known as SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). The numbers reveal, in 2012, the food stamps program was the biggest it’s ever been, with an average of 46,609,072 people on the program every month of last year. 47,791,996 people were on the program in the month of December 2012.

The federal government also says that in a given month in 2012, the number of households on food stamps was 22,329,713.

The state with the highest average number of participants per month in 2012 was Texas, with an astonishing 4,038,440 folks drawing from the program. The second highest is California, with 3,964,221, and then Florida, at 3,353,064.

Washington, D.C., with an estimated population of 617,996, had an average of 141,147 participants. Meaning, roughly 23 percent of folks living in D.C. are on food stamps, according to the numbers provided by the federal government. The participation rate in Texas, which has an estimated population of 26,059,203, 15.5 percent.

The state with the lowest number of participants in the program was Wyoming, with 34,347 out an estimated population of 576,412.

Read more from this story HERE.

USDA/Mexican Consulates To Immigrants: Don’t Worry, Food Stamps Won’t Affect Citizenship Chances

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller The United States Department of Agriculture has been working to dispel immigrants’ concerns that getting on Food Stamps will harm their chances of becoming U.S. citizens.

The USDA addresses those fears in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamp, brochures it distributes to Mexican consulates as part of its “partnership” with the Mexican government “to help educate eligible Mexican nationals living in the United States about available nutrition assistance.”

In one portion of the brochure, USDA’s text asks, “If I get on SNAP benefits, will I be a “public charge?’” The brochure then answers: “No. You and your family can apply for and receive SNAP benefits without hurting your chance of becoming U.S. citizens.”

The brochure further advises immigrants that members of their family could qualify for food stamps, even if they don’t.

Read more from this story HERE.

Food Stamp Rolls In America Now Surpass The Population of Spain

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Photo Credit: APSince taking office in 2009, food stamp rolls under President Barack Obama have risen to more than 47 million people in America, exceeding the population of Spain.

“Now is the time to act boldly and wisely – to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity,” said Obama during his first joint session address to Congress on Feb. 24, 2009.

Since then, the number of participants enrolled in food stamps, known as the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP), has risen substantially.

When Obama entered office in January 2009 there were 31,939,110 Americans receiving food stamps. As of November 2012—the most recent data available—there were 47,692,896 Americans enrolled, an increase of 49.3 percent.

Read more from this story HERE.

Surprise: Government Report Concludes Food Stamp Program Isn’t Spending Enough

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photo credit: usdagov

(Reuters) – A report by a panel of experts released on Thursday questioned whether the federal government’s food stamp program adequately provides for healthy diets for the more than 47 million low-income people who rely on the benefit.

The report by the National Academy of Sciences found that the aid for families to pay for groceries, officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, does not account for many barriers to finding affordable, nutritious food by inner-city shoppers.

Panelists for the academy, an independent group of scientists who advise the federal government, also said benefits lag behind the increasing cost of food and the program penalizes beneficiaries with jobs.

The U.S. Agriculture Department, which administers the aid program, sought the report to help it determine the best way to assess whether food stamps benefits are adequate for recipients to have access to a healthy diet.

“We will thoroughly review the analysis and recommendations contained in this report and use them to help set our agenda for future program research,” USDA said in a statement.

Read more from this story HERE.

Customer Complains that She Can’t Use Her Food Stamps on Amazon.com

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Fox News announced this morning that Bill O’Reilly is going to expose how food stamps are being misused for wild parties and other improper purchases. Later today, as we were visiting Amazon’s website, we noticed a customer had posted a question regarding why she couldn’t use her food stamps on Amazon.com.

She states that, “I don’t understand this. I get food stamps as do tens of other millions of people in the USA. Why I can’t I use them on Amazon? I would like to use them on grocery items. It would be easier and less embarrassing for me than going into the local stores where people know me. Does anyone else have this problem or concern?”

An Amazon user reacts with amazement: “Incredible! You voted for Obama so you would get food stamps. You should have voted for Romney so you could have a job.”

Another customer asks, “Are you kidding?” She then suggests that increased government spending has forced businesses like Amazon to raise prices and burdened our children with debt: “Do you have any idea why Amazon has raised their prices so high and so fast this new year compared to other years? Let me clue you in food stamp user. You are already draining this economy and have spiraled out of control the deficit for future generations.”

She then asks,

Have you thought about looking to your friends and your family for support instead of the government? Have you thought about looking into faith-based or other charities helping you out instead of the taxpayers?

How much have you contributed to the country to warrant all of us supporting you more with increased taxes?

Why are you on food stamps to begin with?

I am so sick and tired of this….

Almost as an afterthought, the critical Amazon customer then says, “However, my aplogies if you have a legitimate reason…”

The food stamp user then explains that she has fallen on hard times, that as a legal immigrant, she had “made mistakes” and was suffering from a “bad marriage”:

I am so sorry to offend. Was not my intention, yes? My reasons for being on food stamps is because of a bad marriage. It was my fault and I take responsibility. I am a legal immigrant, but have made mistakes in this country. It has affected my children as a result. I need those food stamps. But they prevent me at the same time from getting respect and a job in the town I live in. You would call it a catch-22, yes?

I try hard for explaining in English. Please do not shun me. I am a good person. I just want to know why Amazon does not accept the food stamps?

As we have reported previously in past postings, Obama’s federal food stamp program is completely out-of-control. The conversation above, whether a serious exchange or not, is symptomatic of the growing misuse and abuse of a constitutionally questionable problem administered by a bankrupt federal government. Welfare programs such as these should be returned to the states’ jurisdiction and administered as their citizens decide.

Food Stamp Recipients Outnumber Populations of 24 States Combined

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An analysis by Breitbart News has found that the number of individuals on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of 24 states and the District of Columbia.

In November, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that a record 47,102,780 individuals receive food stamps.

According to US. Census Bureau data, that figure exceeds the combined populations of: Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Since January 2009, the number of individuals on food stamps has skyrocketed from 31.9 million to the current record high 47.1 million. By comparison, in 1969 just 2.8 million Americans received food stamps.

Read more from this story HERE.