food stamps

On December 4, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) made a long-overdue and much-needed rule change to the nation’s beleaguered SNAP, commonly known as “food stamps.”

In three short years, the Trump administration has cut taxes and regulations. Therefore, people have more money to spend, and businesses (finally) have incentive to create lots of good-paying jobs.

Every five years Republicans and Democrats somehow reach across-the-aisle — however farfetched this may seem — to reauthorize the gargantuan “farm bill.”

Warning: Congress is preparing to pass a new farm bill.

Why have prices fallen so low? Because government subsidies created a glut – and the market is flooded. This government money warps and distorts the marketplace – as otherwise productively-directed time and effort is instead spent chasing the government coin. Producers produce not what the marketplace needs – but for what the government pays.

There have been numerous stories, rumors, and outright falsehoods reported in the media and by detractors regarding state Sen. Arthur Orr’s (R-Decatur) recently proposed welfare reform bill.

Actress Gwyneth Paltrow, one of Hollywood’s more prominent lifestyle gurus, made headlines last week for taking celebrity chef Mario Batali’s “Food Stamp Challenge” (and failing) sponsored by the Food Bank for New York…

On the morning of April 9, celebrity Gwyneth Paltrow sent out a tweet that has people up in arms (again). The same woman who gave fame to the term “conscious uncoupling,” is now speaking out about the SNAP program.

Welfare policies intended to get people back on their feet are actually keeping them on the dole by reducing economic incentives to seek better-paying jobs or work more hours. Instead of the tired policy of being “generous” with other people’s money, pro-growth policies are the key to getting people back to work.

“Government is the great fiction through which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else,” wrote the celebrated French legislator, economist, and political theorist Frederic Bastiat 165 years ago. With recent reports out of the Census Bureau indicating nearly half of all Americans are receiving some form of direct government subsidy – Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment benefits, housing assistance, veterans’ benefits, etc. – can there be any doubt he was right?

A recent article by Paul Rosenberg in Salon contends that Paul Ryan, the Republican congressman from Wisconsin and erstwhile running mate of Mitt Romney, exhibits many of the hallmarks of a psychopath. Rosenberg claims that Ryan is “arrogant, manipulative, deceitful, and remorseless.” Whether Ryan is guilty of any or all of these sins or not, they seem to fit the bill of another prominent figure in Washington, DC: Barack Obama. Is the president a psychopath?

The ‘War on Povety” has been an unmitigated disaster. We never learn, no matter how bad the outcome. We simply double down and believe more welfare will be better.

According to The Heritage Foundation, substantive reform will only occur if the agriculture policy and food stamps are separated into different bills now and in the future, so each bill can be addressed independently.