One of the Reasons Republicans Hate Food Stamps? It Helps Democrats Win Elections

Food stamp spending has declined for the last two years, with 13.7% of the population currently using the program compared to a high of 14.9% in 2013, but that hasn’t stopped the GOP from looking to cut billions from the program. Many believe that the Democrats making a robust defense of food stamps would be politically unwise, but a new paper suggests this assumption might be incorrect.

No, food stamp fraud is not ‘at an all-time high’

On Tuesday, Fox News revisited its longstanding disgust for poor people with what appeared to be a simple question: “Food stamp fraud is at an all-time high. Is it time to end the program?” Their onscreen graphic cited “2016 USDA” as the source of this information. However, according to the Department of Agriculture website, the most recent data available is from 2015.

Kansas Governor Justifies Kicking 15,000 People Off Food Stamps

For over five years now, Kansas has served as an economic policy experiment for anti-tax, small-government conservatives. Their lab work is costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars, crippling public service budgets, and making life harder for low-income families without reducing the state’s poverty rate at all.

With his political star beginning to tarnish, Gov. Sam Brownback (R) came to Washington on Wednesday to discuss his poverty policies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. At one point, the embattled governor justified his policy of forcing people off of food stamps if they can’t find a job by likening low-income and jobless people to lazy college students.

Scott Walker Leads GOP Governors’ Calls For Congress To Allow Food Stamp Drug Tests

Scott Walker’s food stamp passion didn’t win him the GOP nomination, but the fire still burns.

WASHINGTON — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) and 10 other GOP governors trumpeted the benefits of drug testing food stamp recipients in a letter to Republicans on Capitol Hill this week.

Bill Clinton’s Welfare Reform Law Is Kicking Up To 1 Million People Off Food Stamps

As many as 1 million unemployed Americans are getting kicked off food stamps this year thanks to the welfare reform law Bill Clinton signed in 1996.

States are in the process of imposing a three-month time limit on benefits for working-age adults who don’t have children or jobs. Tens of thousands of Americans in nearly two dozen states reached the limit at the beginning of the month.

I get food stamps, and I’m not ashamed — I’m angry

My name is Christine, and I get food stamps. I've had to apply off and on over the past 16 years in order to make sure my family was fed. I don't feel the least bit ashamed of myself for this, but apparently some people think I should.

Some people think I, and people like me, am lazy. Or that we're taking advantage of other (smarter, harder-working) people. Those people seem to have an image in their heads of how someone who "deserves" assistance  behaves, and a very narrow idea of how we should feel about it.

In Six States, a Felony Drug Conviction Still Comes With a Lifetime Food-Stamp Ban

In early February, a council appointed by Georgia’s Republican Gov. Nathan Deal recommended the state lift its lifetime ban on food stamps for people with felony drug convictions. If a vote from Georgia’s General Assembly lifts the prohibition, the state would follow Alabama’s recent repeal and Texas’ modification of the ban, which is a waning holdover from President Bill Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform law that restricted benefits for drug felons but not for people with other felony convictions.

How A Government Shutdown Could Steal Food From The Poor

WASHINGTON -- Tens of millions of Americans could be left hanging at the grocery store if Congress can't reach a funding deal before the end of the month.

The Senate will vote on a funding bill Monday, but it's not clear what the House will do, since a faction of Republican members are so intent on shutting down a women's health services provider that they're also willing to shut down the government.

Scott Walker Calls Food Stamp Drug Testing 'A Progressive Thing'

MAQUOKETA, Iowa -- Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) wants to make food stamp recipients take drug tests so he can help them.

"For us, it's not a punitive thing, it's a progressive thing," Walker told The Huffington Post on Friday, following the first of several campaign stops in Iowa over the weekend.

"We're trying to help people who are in need of our assistance to get jobs," Walker said, "because the best thing we can do with them is to make sure they get the skills and education they need, and make sure they are drug free if they have an addiction, to get back in the workforce."

People on Food Stamps Make Healthier Grocery Decisions Than Most of Us

The Dollar General in Austin's gritty northeast—the neighborhood where I grew up—is a squat, warehouselike structure about twice the size of a suburban convenience store. Amid the dull flicker of fluorescent lights and the grinding hum of a compressor struggling to power a long freezer case, I'm in search of affordable and nutritious food with Melissa Helber, social-services outreach supervisor of a local food bank. The pickings are slim: We wander past two-liter jugs of Dr Pepper at the incredible price of four for $5; value-size boxes of Chocolate Lucky Charms cereal, $3.50; a wall of bagged candy, $1 each. Helber says the prices are why many of her clients shop here: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, is stingy (about $11 a day for a family of three around here), but it's relatively open on how recipients spend their benefits. It bans alcohol and "hot food"—say, a rotisserie chicken—but almost everything you could find in Dollar General's grocery section, from sodas to M&M's, is fair game.

Why Do Americans Feel Entitled to Tell Poor People What to Eat?

Last weekend, consumers all across America were buying their slice of the 2.2 billion pounds of chocolate that would be sold for Valentine’s Day. For those who make enough income to afford their basic necessities, that necessitates setting aside some of the money they would have normally spent on rent, clothes or regular groceries to buy candies. For the poor, that could mean using some of their meager food-stamp allocation to give a gift to their loved ones.

The latter method, however, riled up some local news stations. “SNAP accepted for Valentine’s Day candy raises questions,” blared a headline for one station in Tennessee. Reporter Felicia Bolton asked two shoppers what they thought about EBT cards being used to buy candy. They didn’t approve: “If it’s supposed to be nutritional, candy’s not really nutritional,” said one. Curt Autry, at the Richmond, Virginia, NBC affiliate, conducted his own investigation into just how much candy comes in baskets that the poor can buy with food stamps.

Republicans Eye Changes to Food-Stamp Program

House Republicans are laying the groundwork for a revision of the food-stamps program after its sharp expansion during the recession.

The effort kicks off Feb. 25 when the House Agriculture Committee holds the first of several hearings scheduled this year on food stamps, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Committee Chairman Mike Conaway (R., Texas), who is leading the charge, said he wants to stay away from the type of party politics that can doom reforms before they are proposed. But as the son of a roughneck on oil rigs, he said he favors the kind of hard work that “built America,” suggesting any changes will lead to a smaller program and fewer recipients.

Congress Cut $8.7 Billion in Food Stamps in Same Year We’ll Spend $22 Billion to Fight Islamic State

It was all the way back in February, so the memory of this headline has faded:

” Congress passes $8.7 billion food stamp cut

By Ned Resnikoff

It’s official: 850,000 households across the country are set to lose an average of $90 per month in food stamp benefits.

The Senate on Tuesday voted 68-32 to send the 2014 Farm Bill – which includes an $8.7 billion cut to food stamps – to President Obama’s desk. Nine Democrats opposed the bill, and 46 members of the Democratic caucus voted for it, joining 22 Republicans.”

GOP Senate Candidate Likens Food Stamp Recipients To Wild Animals

A Republican Senate candidate equated food stamp recipients to wild animals in aFacebook post Monday.

The candidate, Dr. Annette Bosworth, is running in the Republican primary to succeed Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), who is retiring. Bosworth shared a viral imageon her personal Facebook page criticizing the food stamp program for inviting dependency.

Food Stamp Cuts So Devastating Even Walmart Is Too Expensive

Walmart struggled at the end of last year. But according to the retailer's new estimations, it wasn’t because people didn’t want to buy. It was because they couldn’t.

The retail giant warned Friday that the effect of last year's national food stamp cuts on its bottom line will likely be deeper than the company previously estimated. As a result its comparable same-store sales -- a retail metric that measures how stores are doing year over year -- will likely be slightly down for the fourth quarter.

Republicans Just Won the Food Stamp War

On Wednesday morning, Republicans won a years-long battle over whether to slash or spare food stamps when the House passed the farm bill, a $500 billion piece of legislation that funds nutrition and agriculture programs for the next five years.

The farm bill has been delayed for more than two years because of a fight over cuts to the food stamp program, which is called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Last June, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) forced a vote on a bill that would have cut $20 billion from SNAP. But conservatives said the cuts were not deep enough, Democrats said they were far too deep, and the bill failed, 234-195. That September, House Republicans drafted new legislation slashing $40 billion from the food stamp program. That bill passed the House with Republican votes only. After months of negotiations with the Democrat-controlled Senate, which wanted much lower cuts of around $4 billion, the House finally passed a farm bill 251-166 Wednesday that contains a "compromise" $9 billion in reductions to the food stamp program.

Why Is a Senate Democrat Agreeing to Another $8 Billion in Food Stamp Cuts?

On the same day that President Obama eloquently described his vision of an economy defined by economic mobility and opportunity for all, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow was busy cutting a deal with House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas to slice another $8 to $9 billion from food stamps (SNAP), according to a source close to the negotiations.

“One study shows that more than half of Americans will experience poverty at some point during their adult lives,” said President Obama. “Think about that. This is not an isolated situation.… That’s why we have nutrition assistance or the program known as SNAP, because it makes a difference for a mother who’s working, but is just having a hard time putting food on the table for her kids.”

Tough Thanksgiving for Food Stamp Families

Forget conservative fantasies of food stamp beneficiaries living high on the public dole and feasting on king crab legs—life on food stamps is anything but luxurious.

The average daily food stamp benefit is $4.44, which as you might imagine is almost unworkable. It’s very difficult for beneficiaries not to go over that amount each day, and data collected by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that 90 percent of benefits are redeemed by the twenty-first day of each month. So the last week of the month is particularly rough for people who rely on food stamps:

House Dems Can Block GOP Food Stamp Cuts—by Killing the Farm Bill

The food stamps program—which helps feed 1 in 7 Americans—is in peril. Republicans in the House have proposed a farm bill—the five-year bill that funds agriculture and nutrition programs—that would slash food stamps by $40 billion. But by taking advantage of House Republicans' desire to cut food stamps as much as possible, Democrats might be able to prevent cuts from happening at all.

To pull it off, Democrats would have to derail the farm bill entirely, which would maintain food stamp funding at current levels. Here's how it would work, according to House Democrats who've considered the idea.

GOP Food Stamp Cuts Would Kick 170,000 Vets Out of the Program

Republicans will salute America's veterans Monday, while simultaneously trying to deny them benefits. In addition to reducing housing aid, and denying health care to vets, the GOP is also trying to remove thousands of vets from the food stamp program, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

At least 900,000 veterans rely on SNAP. The House Republican version of the farm bill, the five-year piece of legislation that funds nutrition and agriculture provisions, would slash funding for the food stamps program by nearly $40 billion and boot 2.8 million people off the program next year. That includes 170,000 veterans, who would be removed through a provision in the bill that would eliminate food stamps eligibility for non-elderly jobless adults who can't find work or an opening in a job training program.