Senator Demands End to Food-Stamp Madness

The government’s food stamp program has gotten so out of control under President Obama that a United States senator is demanding an end to the madness, especially the administration’s aggressive promotion campaigns to recruit even more recipients.

A record number of people—46 million and growing—already get food stamps from the U.S. government and many don’t qualify for the welfare benefit. Earlier this year a federal audit revealed that many who don’t qualify receive them under a special “broad-based” eligibility program that disregards income and asset requirements.

As a result American taxpayers are getting stuck with a multi-million-dollar tab to feed hundreds of thousands who can well afford to feed themselves. How did this happen? The Obama Administration has promoted food stamps like there’s no tomorrow, asserting that it’s the government’s duty to eradicate “food insecure households.”

In the last few years the administration has spent millions of dollars on ad campaigns to recruit more food-stamp recipients, even doling out hefty cash rewards to local governments that sign up the most people. One state even bragged about a $5 million performance bonus it got from the feds for its “swift processing of applications.”

Finally, a U. S. senator who sits on the Senate Budget Committee is demanding that the administration stop promoting food stamps as if the program isn’t already bloated. In a letter to the agency that distributes the benefit, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions questions the agency’s partnership with Mexican consulates to encourage foreign nationals, migrant workers and non-citizen immigrants to apply for food stamps and other USDA administered welfare benefits.

The letter, addressed to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, mentions examples of the agency’s recruitment efforts and asks for the elimination of all materials training and recruitment efforts relating to the program. It defies rational thinking, Senator Sessions writes, for the U.S. to partner with foreign governments to place more foreigners on American welfare when the country is suffering through a $16 trillion debt crisis.