Receiving Food Stamps - Forever - *Should* Be a Stigma

How can people not know that the food stamp program exists? So those who don't apply for it either think they make too much money to qualify (and apparently if you make $40,000 a year and have a kid you qualify for food stamps! $40,000 a year!) so the government is trying to remove that stigma of shame - which only the once self-sufficient felt.

$75K Grants to Recruit Food Stamp Recipients
RUSH: This is from Big Government, Andrew Breitbart's series of websites, headline: "Obama Administration Offers $75,000 Grants to Sign Up More Food Stamp Recipients -- Over the last three years, the number of Americans on food stamps has skyrocketed by two-thirds and stands at a record-high 46 million citizens, or one out of every seven people in the United States. Despite the historic rise in food stamp use, however, the Obama Administration believes not enough people are receiving food stamps who should be and is offering $75,000 grants to groups who devise 'effective strategies' to 'increase program participation' among those who have yet to sign up.

"The US Department of Agriculture’s website singles out Hispanics and elderly Americans as groups who often fail to enroll in the food stamp program (officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) and says that one of the contributing factors that must be overcome to get more people to sign up for SNAP benefits is individual 'pride.'" Must find a way past the stigma. So with debt piling up, with the financial collapse of the United States clearly visible on the road ahead, massive deficit spending, no end in sight to it, a couple of days after submitting a campaign document called a budget, we now learn -- the USDA, look, they're not hiding this once again. This is right there at the USDA website. They're offering people like you $75,000 if you can give them a good idea on how to recruit even more people to the food stamp program.

Now, how many of you believe that in years past the objective of a responsible government would be to eliminate as many people as possible, to get 'em off the program because that would mean an improvement in their lives? Now we have an administration, and this is not new, by the way, the food stamp program always tries to recruit more members to make sure its budget doesn't get cut, but now what is new, here we have the regime openly paying money to average citizens to come up with strategies, effective strategies that will increase the number of people. And one of the biggest obstacles is the stigma. We must find a way to get people to not feel guilty about taking these benefits. If you can come up with that they'll give you $75,000. We've gone from welfare queens to food stamp dudes. I mean this is outrageous. We've got Barack Obama in office just over three years, his budgets are fiscal disasters year after year after year, you doubt that it's on purpose? Seventy-five thousand dollar grants to sign up more food stamp recipients?

Not that people who need food stamps should be ashamed of it. I'm not saying that. Welfare is supposed to be a safety net. You lose your job, you get food stamps to tide you over until you get another job. You need help - the government is there to give it to you. No one should have a problem with that. But the thing is...once people go on food stamps...too many of them never have any intention of getting off.

I remember many years ago I once worked as a receptionist at a health club. One of the patrons was a woman who had apparently hurt her back at work and had apparently been put on workmsn's comp for 6 months. So she didn't have to go to work, because she was getting paid to sit at home.

But she was a weight lifter, and she was lifting weights on a regular basis because her back was all better. But she was getting 6 months of free money and she had no intention of losing out on that money, even though she was perfectly healthy.