The modern welfare state lives by the same credo. About 17 million people received food stamps back in 2000. Some 30 million received them in 2008. Roughly 46 million people receive them today. From 1 in 50 Americans on food stamps at the program’s national inception in the 1970s, 1 in 7 Americans are on them now.
This gibes with the tripling of federal disability rolls I've talked about before. Are we starving more than we were 12 years ago? Are we more disabled? Or are we rapidly becoming a Spain-Italy-Greece nation of welfare benefit scam artists?
But here is the thing from the article that jumps out at me. Lowry notes sardonically that the Obama Administration has been running radio ads seeking to get more people on food stamps. That's bad enough. But the apparent rationale in the ad -- the sales pitch -- is that going on food stamps is a way to lose weight!
Now, maybe it's heartless, but in my view, if you're already fat, you (a) haven't required my assistance to buy food in the past; and (b) don't require it now.
But I couldn't really believe this, so I got on the Internet to see if I could find a tape of the actual broadcast. Here it is:
P.S. The federal food stamps program gives out an average of $133 per month -- $1600 a year -- to 46 million Americans. That's about $75 billion a year. And the people in the government's ad are giggling about how they're on food stamps! Like they know they're getting away with something.
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