Obama 'Admin' Spends $3.6 Billion to Give $70 Billion in food stamp Benefits.

Obama 'Admin' Spends $3.6 Billion to Give $70 Billion in food stamp Benefits. HT :JudicialWatch.

Not only does the government spend a breathtaking $70 billion a year to give a record number of people food stamps, it wastes billions more to administer the bloated welfare program.

Some states spend a lot more than others to distribute the free food vouchers and the discrepancies are downright outrageous.

The government dedicates $3.6 billion annually just to administer food stamps (renamed Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—SNAP to eliminate stigma), according to a federal audit that includes mind-boggling figures.

For instance, California, the state with by far the largest food-stamp roll, spends a lot more than the national average to execute the federal nutrition program. Hmmm.....I wondered a long time what Canadian PM Trudeau meant with 'Growing the economy from the heart' ...i think i finally figured it out. Read the full story here.

"CHANGE" - Record 20% of Households on Food Stamps in 2013.

"CHANGE" - Record 20% of Households on Food Stamps in 2013.(CNSNews).

A record 20% of American households, one in five, were on food stamps in 2013, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The numbers also show there was a record number of individuals on food stamps in 2013 and that the cost of the program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), was at an all-time high.

The USDA says that there were 23,052,388 households on food stamps in the average month of fiscal 2013, an increase of 722,675 from fiscal year 2012, when there were 22,329,713 households on food stamps in the average month.Read the full story here.

Hunger 'games' set to worsen with homelessness on the rise across America, survey says.

Hunger 'games' set to worsen with homelessness on the rise across America, survey says.(RT).

Last year's national poverty rate of 15 percent hovered near the Great Recession’s staggering record of 15 percent, according to the Census Bureau. Although the US stock market has surpassed its pre-recession high, poor residents of some major American cities have not gained from the country's economic wins, the new report has shown. 

The number of people in the poverty trap went up from 46.2 million in 2011 to 46.5 million in 2012. These figures remained slightly changed from 2010 when the number of poor people reached the highest level in the more than half-century that poverty estimates have been published. The poverty rate in 2012 was 2.5 percentage points higher than that reported in 2007, the year before the economic recession.

Over 80 percent of US cities reported that requests for emergency food assistance had increased by an average of 7 percent over the past year. The rate of increase ranged from 15 percent in Salt Lake City, 12 percent in Washington DC, 11 percent in Dallas, and 10 percent in Charlotte and Trenton, to 5 percent in Cleveland and 4 percent in Louisville.


Unemployment tops the list of causes of hunger cited by the survey cities, followed by low wages, poverty, and high housing costs.

The latest study conducted by the US Conference of Mayors has shown that among those requesting emergency food assistance nearly 60 percent were people in families; 43 percent were employed, 21 percent were elderly, and 9 percent were homeless. Emergency shelters in 71 percent of the survey cities had to turn away homeless families with children because no beds were available, while in two-thirds of the cities shelters had to turn away single people.

Over 90 percent of the surveyed cities reported an increase in the number of people requesting food assistance for the first time. However, it turned out that more than 20 percent of the people desperately needing emergency food assistance did not receive it.

In all of the responding cities, emergency kitchens had to reduce the quantity of food poverty-stricken people could receive at each visit or the amount of food offered per meal. In 78 percent of these cities, officials also had to cut down the number of times a person or family could visit a food kitchen each month. In two-thirds of the cities, facilities had to send people away due to a lack of resources, according to the report.


Providing more jobs topped the city officials’ list of actions needed to reduce hunger, with 73 percent of the cities citing the measure as a key solution to the problem. Cited next on the list were increasing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits (by 59 percent of the cities), providing more affordable housing (by 55 percent), and providing more employment training programs (by 45 percent).

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has passed legislation that would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by at least $39 billion over ten years. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill would deny SNAP benefits to about 3.8 million low-income people in 2014, and to an average of nearly three million people each year over the coming decade.

When asked about the impact of the cuts in SNAP benefits currently being considered by Congress, the city officials warned that cuts would first and foremost reduce the availability of food to vulnerable people, including children and the elderly.
"In Massachusetts, 13 percent of our population relies on SNAP to have enough to eat and many supplement these benefits with food from the Greater Boston Food Bank and its member agencies. With cuts of $39 billion at the federal level, the 889,000 people who rely on hunger relief agencies will need even more support. This means the demand for nutritious food will increase. We will have to work harder to increase our food acquisition and distribution," the Boston survey contributors noted.

Officials in Charlotte, the largest city in the state of North Carolina, have also concluded that a greater number of people will be "forced to get by on less food", adding that food costs are up from 8 to 15 percent over the same time last year. "Already, 40 percent of the families in our area must choose between paying rent or buying food. Every cut in benefits pushes people in need closer to the brink of poverty. Not having access to enough nutritious food creates a tragic legacy for children."
Cleveland officials also fear their food banks and programs would be "severely strained", and more people would go hungry simply because there is no way for the charitable food system to make up for such large-scale cuts. "Feeding America calculates that these cuts would be comparable to the entire network of more than 200 food banks across the country – and the thousands of pantries and programs to which they supply food – shutting down completely for a year."
Meanwhile, the surveyed cities are under no illusion that requests for emergency food assistance will keep growing, with 55 percent expecting the increase to be substantial, and 41 percent expecting it to be moderate.
The impact of proposed cuts in SNAP benefits and the inability of food assistance programs to meet the increased demand that would result from cuts was pointed out as the biggest challenge in addressing hunger in the coming year by most cities.

It has been noted that homelessness goes hand in hand with hunger, with the total number of homeless individuals increasing to over 50 percent over the past year, according to the survey. There's been a 40 percent increase in Los Angeles and a 24 percent increase in Dallas, just to name a few.
The survey cities reported that on average 30 percent of homeless adults were severely mentally ill, while 17 percent were physically disabled, 16 percent were victims of domestic violence, and 3 percent were HIV Positive. Nineteen percent of homeless adults were employed and 13 percent were veterans. While San Francisco says there has been a 30 percent reduction of homeless veterans from 2011 to 2013, officials in Nashville reported that their most-needed resource continues to be "adequate, safe, clean, affordable housing units for homeless veterans", as well as meaningful employment with a living wage, plus "more mental health resources, including non-VA clinicians who can diagnose PTSD [Posttraumatic stress disorder]."
Meanwhile, the number of families experiencing homelessness has also increased across the survey cities by an average of 4 percent, with 64 percent of the cities reporting an increase and two cities saying the number stayed the same.
Asked to identify the three major causes of homelessness among families with children, 68 percent of the cities cited poverty, 60 percent blamed lack of affordable housing, and 56 percent referred to unemployment.
During the past year, 35 percent of the survey cities introduced policies aimed at preventing homelessness among households that have lost, or may lose, their homes to foreclosure.

However, officials in 62 percent of the cities expect resources to provide emergency shelter to decrease over the next year, with 14 percent expecting that decrease to be substantial and 48 percent expecting it to be moderate.
While 46 percent of the survey cities expect the number of homeless individuals to increase over the next year, providing more mainstream assisted housing is at the top of the officials’ list of actions needed.

The Facts about Food Stamps Everyone Should Hear: "Since Obama became President the Cost Doubled."

The Facts about Food Stamps Everyone Should Hear: "Since Obama became President the Cost Doubled."HT: Heritage.

What are the so-called “facts”?

For one, the article claims that the food stamps program is not “bloated,” but rather, the surge in participation and spending is a result of the program “doing what it’s supposed to do.”
But what is it “supposed to do”?
Food stamps (or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as it is now called) were designed to ensure that Americans without the ability to provide for themselves are able to receive basic nutrition. However, application loopholes and policy changes over the past decade or so have allowed recipients to bypass income and asset tests, meaning many people are receiving food stamps who would not have been eligible under the program’s original purposes.
One of the changes in eligibility requirements is “broad-based categorical eligibility.” This type of eligibility means that an individual who receives any service under another welfare program, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)—even something as small as a TANF brochure—can be deemed eligible for food stamps. A full 50 percent of all food stamp recipients now enroll in the program through this broad-based categorical eligibility procedure. As Heritage welfare experts Robert Rector and Kiki Bradley write:

In states using this loophole, a middle-class family with one earner who becomes unemployed for one or two months can receive $668 per month in food stamps even if the family has $20,000 in cash sitting in the bank. Because of this, food stamps has been transformed from a program for the truly needy to a routine bonus payment stacked on top of conventional unemployment benefits.

In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has operated substantial outreach programs to pull more people onto the food stamp rolls. Some states have gone so far as to hire food stamp recruiters, tasked with filling a monthly quota of new food stamp enrollees.

Another “fact,” according to the author, is that much of the growth in food stamp costs is due to the recession and is temporary.


That’s partially true. Food stamp spending has roughly doubled in the past four years, and part of this is clearly due to the recession. However, food stamp spending has been on an upward climb since the program began back in the 1960s. In the decade prior to the recession, total government food stamp spending nearly doubled, from $19.8 billion in 2000 to $37.9 trillion in 2007.
Moreover, according to Obama’s budget plans, food stamp spending will not return to pre-recession levels when the economy improves.
“For most of the next decade, food stamp spending, adjusted for inflation and population growth, would remain at nearly twice the levels seen during the non-recessionary periods under President Bill Clinton,” note Rector and Bradley.
What’s more, food stamps are just one of roughly 80 federally funded means-tested welfare programs. The total cost of government welfare spending has been on a nearly continual climb over the past five decades and has increased 16-fold, to nearly $1 trillion annually, since the 1960s. Welfare is the fastest growing part of government spending, and under Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget, total welfare spending will permanently increase from 4.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 6 percent of GDP.

US News & World Report also suggests as a “fact” that most food stamp recipients work.

However, a significant portion of able-bodied recipients of food stamps perform little to no work. Of the roughly 10.5 million households receiving food stamps containing an able-bodied, non-elderly adult (there are approximately 20 million households receiving food stamps total), more than half—5.5 million—performed no work during a given month in 2010. Another 1.5 million to 2 million performed fewer than 30 hours of work per week. This isn’t unique to the recession, but is typical even during good economic times.

The food stamp program is just one of dozens that comprise the complex system of federal means-tested welfare programs. Instead of continuing to pour more dollars into these programs, which have failed to promote self-sufficiency, policymakers should roll back aggregate spending on means-tested welfare to pre-recession levels when employment recovers. Likewise, programs like food stamps should be reformed to promote self-reliance through work, empowering individuals and families to become free from government dependence.

Why Are George Soros and John Paulson Buying Up So Much Gold?

Why Are George Soros and John Paulson Buying Up So Much Gold?(TEC).By Michael Snyder.If you want to figure out what is going to happen next in the financial markets, carefully watch what the insiders are doing. Those that are “connected” have access to far better sources of information than the rest of us have, and if they hear that something big is coming up they will often make very significant moves with their money in anticipation of what is about to happen. Right now, Wall Street insiders and central banks all around the globe are making some very unusual moves. In fact, they appear to be rapidly preparing for something really big. So exactly what are they up to? In a previous article entitled “Are The Government And The Big Banks Quietly Preparing For An Imminent Financial Collapse?“, I speculated that they may be preparing for a financial meltdown of some sort. As I noted in that article, more than 600 banking executives have resigned from their positions over the past 12 months, and I have been personally told that a substantial number of Wall Street bankers have been shopping for “prepper properties” this summer. But now even more evidence has emerged that quiet preparations are being made for an imminent financial collapse. That doesn’t guarantee that something will happen or won’t happen. Like any good detective, we are gathering clues and trying to figure out what the evidence is telling us.
Why Is George Soros Selling So Much Stock And Buying So Much Gold?
I am certainly not a fan of George Soros. He has funneled millions upon millions of dollars into organizations that are trying to take America in the exact wrong direction.
However, I do recognize that he is extremely well connected in the financial world. Soros is almost always ahead of the curve on financial matters, and if something big is going to go down George Soros is probably going to know about it ahead of time.
That is why it is very alarming that he has dumped all of his banking stocks and that he is massively hoarding gold. The following is from shtfplan.com….

In a harbinger of what may be coming our way in the Fall of 2012, billionaire financier George Soros has sold all of his equity positions in major financial stocks according to a 13-F report filedwith the SEC for the quarter ending June 30, 2012.
Soros, who manages funds through various accounts in the US and the Cayman Islands, has reportedly unloaded over one million shares of stock in financial companies and banks that include Citigroup (420,000 shares), JP Morgan (701,400 shares) and Goldman Sachs (120,000 shares). The total value of the stock sales amounts to nearly $50 million.
What’s equally as interesting as his sale of major financials is where Soros has shifted his money. At the same time he was selling bank stocks, he was acquiring some 884,000 shares (approx. $130 million) of Gold via the SPDR Gold Trust.

Why would you dump over a million shares of stock in major banks and purchase more than 100 million dollars worth of gold?
Well, it would make perfect sense if you believed that a collapse of the financial system was about to happen.
Earlier this year, George Soros told the following to Newsweek….

“I am not here to cheer you up. The situation is about as serious and difficult as I’ve experienced in my career,” Soros tells Newsweek. “We are facing an extremely difficult time, comparable in many ways to the 1930s, the Great Depression. We are facing now a general retrenchment in the developed world, which threatens to put us in a decade of more stagnation, or worse. The best-case scenario is a deflationary environment. The worst-case scenario is a collapse of the financial system.”

It looks like he is putting his money where his mouth is.
Perhaps even more disturbing is what he believes is coming after the financial collapse….

As anger rises, riots on the streets of American cities are inevitable. “Yes, yes, yes,” he says, almost gleefully. The response to the unrest could be more damaging than the violence itself. “It will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States.”

That doesn’t sound good.
George Soros has told us what he believes is going to happen, and now he is making moves with his money that indicate that he is convinced that it is actually about to start happening.
But he is not the only one that has been busy accumulating gold.
Billionaire John Paulson (the one that made 20 billion dollars on the subprime mortgage meltdown) has been buying gold like crazy and his company now “has 44 percent of its $24 billion fund exposed to bullion.”
So why are Soros and Paulson buying up so much gold?

Central Banks Are Also Hoarding Gold
According to the World Gold Council, the amount of gold bought by the central banks of the world absolutely soared during the second quarter of 2012. The 157.5 metric tons of gold bought by the central banks of the world last quarter was an increase of 62.9 percent from the first quarter of 2012 and a 137.9 percent increase from the second quarter of 2011.
Prior to 2009, the central banks of the world had been net sellers of gold for about two decades. But now that has totally changed, and last quarter central banks stocked up on gold in quantities that we have not seen before….

At 157.5 metric tons, gold buying among central banks came in at its highest quarterly level since the sector became a net buyer of the precious metal in the second quarter of 2009, data in the organization’s quarterly Gold Demand Trends report show.

So why have the central banks of the world become such gold bugs?
Is there something they aren’t telling us?Hmmmm................."CHAINS that you can believe in are coming to a neighborhood near you".Read the full story here.

$465 the 'fee' for Legal Status Under Pres Obama’s 'Dream Act'.

$465 the 'fee' for Legal Status Under Pres Obama’s 'Dream Act'.(ABC).The Obama administration will formally begin granting some young undocumented immigrants legal status and work permits later this month under a controversial new policy first announced by President Obama in June. The Department of Homeland Security today announced details of the application and approval process for the DREAM Act-like program, outlining specific eligibility requirements and a $465 fee. It will begin Aug. 15. Illegal immigrants younger than 30 who came to the United States before age 16, have lived here for at least five years continuously, attend or have graduated from high school or college, and have no criminal convictions are eligible to submit requests for so-called deferred action (legalese for an official exemption from deportation).
The administration said documentation provided by each applicant will be reviewed individually on a case-by-case basis at one of four service centers run by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. It’s unclear how long each review will take, but some immigrants are expected to receive temporary legal status before Election Day. While the “dreamers” will not obtain a path to citizenship or the right to vote, Obama’s policy shift – circumventing Congress with executive action – has been widely seen as a politically motivated nod to Hispanics who have long sought the change. Obama’s Republican critics today sharply assailed the new policy as unconstitutional and out of touch with the jobs crisis U.S. citizens face.“Today’s deferred action guidance is another example of how the president’s policies put the interests of illegal immigrants ahead of the interests of U.S. citizens and legal immigrants,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith said. “On the same day the unemployment rate rose to 8.3 percent, the Obama administration announced a requirement for illegal immigrants to apply to be able to work in the U.S.,” the GOP congressman from Texas said. “The administration’s guidelines don’t just encourage illegal immigrants to work in the U.S., they actually require them to apply to do so.”Hmmmm......If he really wanted to destroy the US economy would he do anything different?The nimber of Foodstamp recipients will rise even more.Read the full story here.