We apparently have yet another record-high number of US residents getting food stamps – somewhere around 47 million.
Remember – free groceries are a SNAP. For more and more people every day, it looks like.
And it also looks like it’s worth close to $80 billion a year for the foreseeable future, too. That’s what it’s gonna cost the US taxpayer.
Thank goodness Candy Crowley isn’t on foodstamps. Can you imagine what her feed bill is daily? And this too much: She says she’s a vegetarian. I mean, what’s up with that? A fat vegetarian?
Candy eats vegetarians…
Awesome!
Since people on food stamps is a sign of a good economy, just like high gas prices, happy days are here again!
Oh, you just had to bring up that number 47 again, didn’t you?
@4
Yeah, something about the # 47…
Mitt repeatedly highlighted 47 million on food stamps
Barry hammered Mitt for his 47 percent remark
Mitt born in 1947
BO mentioned AK-47 during 2nd debate
AC–compared to some of the EBT crowd I’ve seen, Candy Crowley looks like Karen Carpenter.
@ Sparky: How many of ’em had a wad of cash in their pocket for the things their “EBT” doesn’t cover? lol!
Conveniently obtained by working “under the table” no doubt.
And before someone of the “swoop and poop” crowd comes in here to try and tell me it doesn’t happen much, even Los Angeles County (no small area, that) did a study a few years back and found out that nearly 30 percent of workers were paid in such a fashion, which partly explains the outrageous taxes, workman’s comp rates, etc.
Twitchy is reporting multiple tweets threatening to assassinate Romney because “He gonna stop food stamps”. I’m stocking up on ammo.
http://twitchy.com/2012/10/17/post-presidential-debate-obama-supporters-renew-vows-to-murder-mitt-romney/
Does anyone see the irony of someone worried about losing their food stamps being able to “tweet” on their Obamaphone?
I probably mentioned it before, but a friend of mine worked at a gas station for a few months inbetween jobs, and people regularly tried to cop liquor, ciggs, and completely irrelevant items through the use of their food stamps. Of course my friend refused, because he is a honest, hard working dude, but the convenience store right around the corner would gladly run the game for these people (They just write-up the charge for an equivalently priced food item, and that’s how they get around the law). What a total waste of tax-payer money. Hell, I even know a chick and her husband who collect and live off of disability on the government dime, but they appeared on the TV show “Biggest Loser” while doing so! People keep talking about cutting Military funding, but what about the funding we pour down the drain for able-bodied lazy bums who scam the system!? We can afford to fully and better fund the former if we cut the sinking ship-that is the latter-loose.
SNAP = Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
The idea behind it is that poor people eat junk food because fresh fruits and vegetables are expensive, hence the concentration of obese people at the lower end of the economic scale. Does anyone think this is working? I shop at a grocery store that does most of its business with welfare recipients. Sometimes I think I’m the only one paying with my own money. Even when the taxpayer is footing the bill, they aren’t buying fresh fruits and vegetables. They’re buying junk in larger quantities. They buy items that require minimal preparation and are high in fat and sugar: soda, chips, meat, wonder bread, mayonnaise, Little Debbies, sugary drink mixes, sliced cheese singles, and frozen pizza.
And by the way, fresh fruits and vegetables really aren’t that expensive. They’re cheaper than meat, for example.
There are lower enlisted folks with families on food stamps. Try living in high cost areas on the pay. We had a troop who was living in his car until we found out about it. Thank God we had a real CO who ensured we found him quarters in the area. Our local support base was 100 miles away, so no local GI housing.
Billerica Massachusetts is raffling off an iPad to get more students signed up for school lunch.
http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/19605998/2012/09/21/children-enrolling-in-free-lunch-program-could-win-ipad
It’s almost like they WANT more people on the dole.
And as far as that 47% not paying taxes, that includes being in a combat zone and those who are 100% disabled. Find a Romney with a DD-214. You can’t.
Commenting from about 25 mi SE of Chicago, ex AF? Figures.
By the way: per the VA, there are about 331k vets who are 100% disabled. And there are only around 100,000 folks in uniform deployed to the CZTE areas these days – and maybe fewer, now that Afghanistan is back down around 70k.
Exclude those, and the total of other Americans filing but not paying taxes would still be very close to 47% – somewhere around 46.5%. As I recall, there were somewhere around 150M individual tax returns filed last year.
You might want to start doing your homework before commenting here.
Just got back from seeing Atlas Shrugged Part II. Things are getting worse, government is taking over everything, and there are food lines and protests. The Fair Share Law has the government dictating how much product companies can sell to whom, and has companies hand over their intellectual property to the government in the form of “gift certificates”. Of course the brain drain continues as more people go Galt.
One of the signs said something about the 99.98%, LOL!
Joking aside, it’s really scary how something written in 1957 is beginning to come true today. Nostradamus has nothing on Ayn Rand.
The movie is pretty good, special effects are cheesy due to the low budget. The new James Taggart is way more obnoxious, the others are more rough around the edges, not so pretty so more realistic.
Being here in Colorado, my big complaint is the unrealistic terrain for Colorado (in the first movie too). They show a train on the Colorado Plains that is in the foothills from where Dagny gets to the Leadville Airstrip in about 30 minutes and the area looks like it’s around Central City, not Leadville. A few details that would have taken 30 seconds to research online.
Again with Romney not having served, AF? And again I say, so what? I notice you don’t seem too upset over Obama’s lack of service.
Ben: fruits and veggies aren’t particularly expensive compared to junk food, either. The argument that fruits and veggies are “too expensive” and people will eat junk instead therefore is based on an invalid assumption.
People generally eat junk food because it tastes good vice for economic reasons.
@13 and 15. Keep knocking, ex-AF. Better still, come on out in the open air and explain why obama deserves our votes. The clock is ticking on this election.
Hey, ExAf- Bill Clinton burned his draft card and fled the country to avoid service. He was pardoned by Carter. He beat a WW2 naval aviator in his first presidential election, and beat a man in his second who had taken 8mm machinegun fire to the whole side of his body and laid in a ditch somewhere in the alps for 8 hours afterwards before being found. One of his arms is permanently paralyzed from it.
Obama, having never served himself, beat a naval aviator who was shot down and held as a POW for six years to become president. No one gives a fuck about your fake-ass talking point, because it does not matter. Military service is not a requirement to be president of the US.
@21, but Obama’s grandfather served in WWII. That was all the justification you needed to vote for Hope & Change. Somehow that gives him more street cred than McCain, who, as you observed, was a POW in Vietnam, and who’s father had been serving since WWII. My father served in WWII, my grandfather served in WWI. How many votes will that get me. Does anyone happen to know which side his paternal grandfather was pulling for in WWII? I am sure that there were at least a few Africans that got into the mix.
ex AF always pisses and moans that Romney doesn’t have a DD 214, yet never mentions the fact that neither Obama nor Biden have one. Most of us here would call that hypocrisy, but that seems to be par for course with the die hard Libs.
exAF proves that once again it’s easy to forgive your side for the lack of credentials, lack of truth, whatever to keep your side in power. It is a much more prominent system of favoritism for liberals than conservatives from what I see, after all any time a Democrat says they are taking responsibility for something they never lose their job if a Dem is in the white house….I wish my job would be so forgiving, must be nice to make a mistake big enough to get some people killed (Janet Reno 80, Hillary Clinton only 4) and never actually have to lose your job over your admitted incompetence….
Where’s my whistle?
@Devtun, since 47 keeps cropping up here and there, it might be worth by a lottery ticket with that number. I never do, but I might change my mind.
But no one has asked the question about electoral votes: what if neither of them gets the 270 EVs required to get the win? (Chairs tipping over as everyone runs for the bookshelves.)
ex-AF, no one is voting based on military service. The last time that happened, Dwight D. Eisenhower ran for and held two terms in office. If people voted based on military service, Bob Dole would have been president at least once.
Ben, people buy junk food because they’re addicted to fats, sugar and salt, and junk food is loaded with all of those things. All they care about is the convenience and the taste, and the fact that chips and fries are in a container and they don’t have to wash and peel and prepare them. When was the last time you actually peeled an orange? Bananas ripen almost too quickly – short shelf life. Chips come in a bag that can be closed and clipped shut and have a longer shelf life. Fudge brownies taste better than oatmeal, but oatmeal costs a lot less. This is twaddle.
Ex-PH2, I peeled the orange that my wife put in my lunch for me yesterday.
And since we’re doing the ‘for what it’s worth’, I went digging around to find out why the cost of gas at the pump is so high, and had one of those enlightening moments.
According to Energy Almanac — use this link here: http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/
The 2012 cost of gasoline per gallon is four to five times its cost in 2001 based on several things, mostly production and oil costs.
In 2001, the cost of crude oil per gallon was $.32 to $.64 per gallon. (55 gallons in a barrel)
The cost to refine it to gas was $.31 to $.76 per gallon.
The price at the pump varied from $1.10 to $1.95, and did not incude an underground storage tank tax.
The same costs in 2012, up to 10/8/12 (latest report) were:
crude per gallon: $2.36 to $3.03
refinery costs per gallon: $.19 to $1.22 (10/8)
Price at the pump varies, depending on your area, but it’s gone from a low of $3.29 to a high of over $4.00, and has dropped back recently from $3.959 last Friday, to $3.499 last night. The taxes paid by the station owners include everything from land use tax to underground tank storage tax.
You can blame this directly on contract speculators at the MERC and NYMEX and whatever the equivalent is in la-la-land on the left coast. I’m just dropping this in here to point out that commodities like oil and grain are not regulated by the government, no matter what people think…just in case this argument starts up as it inevitably will.
Even eggs can become a commodity; during the Little Ice Age in Europe, an egg was worth its weight in gold.
We’re in for some very strange things ahead of us. This election is going to be marked by fraud, vote manipulation, conspiracy theories, and the very real possibility of war in the Middle East. Should I send TAH those screen shots I have of helicopter gunships and helo troop carriers parked in neat little rows at three different airbases in the Isfahan region of Iran?
Yes, but Twist, your wife put it in your lunch for you. If she hadn’t done that, then what?
Then I would be forced to pack my own lunch. In all seriousness I would still pack oranges, apples, bananas, or whatever strikes my fancy at that time. I used to eat junk food, but high blood pressure runs in my family so I drastically changed my diet. So now I eat healthy. I love fresh fruits and vegetables. I eat a salad with dinner with no fatty salad dressing. I do allow myself one “cheat” meal once a week though.
As far as SNAP goes, I think that they should be allowed generic brands. No soda, chips, candy bars, etc.
Twist, you do know I was yanking you?
Weekly unemployment report:
Unemployment claims rose again:
New claims: 388,000 up 46,000 (10/13)
Continuing: 3.252mm (10/6) v. 3.281mm (9/29)
CNBC has an online video this morning with a discussion about the mysterious and sudden drop in new claims last week. Among other things, Steve Liesman, who is a pit bull about getting data, couldn’t get anyone to return his phone calls at BLS, and there is a “report” by BLS that one state apparently did not report its new claims on time, which (sarcasm here) would account for that famous sudden and mysterious drop in new claims just ahead of a major political debate.
OK. Whatever.
The “one state didn’t report in time” may not be BS, Ex-PH2. Apparently CA has a long and pretty bad record regarding reporting their UC claim numbers to BLS in a timely manner. And with a population approaching 38M, CA’s big enough to skew the national stats.
Yeah, not reporting the 8th largest economy in the world would definitely scew the numbers.
Are you guys tracking on the Tweeted assanination threats against Romeny? Apprarently a large number of Food Stamp recipients are threatening to kill GOV Romeny if he is elected.
One such citizen Tweeted, “yo mofo, if romknee gets elekid, eyes prette much go no greens fo food, he’s gots to go dog.”
USSS is very busy today and will be through the coming weeks and months as many of these knuckleheads are apparently still Tweeting way their most dark desires.
Well, and I found an interesting article on the growth of freelancing in several/many areas as a means of creating job skills and bringing in some cash.
Link here: http://bottomline.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/18/14342520-freelancer-growth-giving-rise-to-slasher-careers?lite
And since I worked as a freelancer in graphic arts, I can verify that if you are diligent about promoting yourself, and do a good job, you can do very well at freelancing and make a lot of good contacts for networking. I never had any trouble finding work as a freelancer.
@Hondo, they didn’t mention which state didn’t report, so I’ll take your word for it. I’m stll mystified by the timing, however. It just makes the plot look thicker. 🙂
Ex-PH2: BLS didn’t mention the state, but I’ve seen other articles indicating that only CA would be big enough to have that kind of effect on national statistics from under-reporting or late reporting. If I recall correctly, the other article also said that the BLS had had many troubles in the past with CA reporting their stats late.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/secret-service-aware-threats-against-romney_654788.html
I heard about the death threats on twitter. Hopefully between bing drinking and visiting houses of ill repute the Secret Service will be knocking on some doors.
Ah! Threats! Collusion! Intimidation! The suspense is killing me.
Will the Black Panthers show up at my polling place? Wait! Aren’t they my age? I thought Bobby Seals was dead or something.
Maybe if politicians didn’t exist, we could go back to our normal lives.
Thank you, MCPO.
The New Black Panthers are so radical that even the old Black Panthers won’t associate with them.
Fox news top story right now: “Federal and state ‘welfare’ spending tops $1 trillion — a nearly 30 percent increase since the start of the Obama administration.”
Naw, obama and company never wanted to increase dependency on governments. The plan was never to squeeze the states in order to force more folks to look to the federal gov’t for help. Nope. No way.
My GF’s 14 year old daughter is showing interest in politics and economics and such. She and I have had serious, though not in-depth conversations about those topics over the last couple of years. Apparently, she’s been having those kinds of conversations at school. I try to present a balanced perspective on the beliefs of both sides.
She told me last night she was talking to a friend of hers at school who wants Obama to win because..her parents are on food stamps. She then told me that she didn’t think it was smart to vote for someone just because you want “free stuff”.
41. “I try to present a balanced perspective on the beliefs of both sides.” I’m guessing that means you give her the Communist Manifesto and the US Constitution.
There’s somethin’ happenin’ here
What it is, is pretty clear
Those lazy turds won’t work anywhere
Tellin’ me, free food is quite fair….
Apologies as appropriate….
VOV: try this one – no alterations needed:
“Tax the rich
Feed the poor
‘Til there are no
Rich no more
Or as Rush put it:
There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas
The trouble with the maples
(And they’re quite convinced they’re right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light
But the oaks can’t help their feelings
If they like the way they’re made
And they wonder why the maples
Can’t be happy in their shade
There is trouble in the forest
And the creatures all have fled
As the maples scream ‘Oppression!’
And the oaks just shake their heads
So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
‘The oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light’
Now there’s no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe and saw
Hondo, Nik,
Nice….
VOV, were you planning to put that to Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth”?
Yeah, multiple sources are iw reporting that CA was the absent state, and now that they have reported most of thiere late data, the humbers are up to where they were projected to be. Perhaps even a bit higher.
The one thing that is most likely to honk me off is the paid advertising that goes on for all manner of programs. My default reaction is, “If you must advertkse to get people to use the program, then we need to cut the program. Not having enough clients is an admission that the bureaucrats have outlived their usefulness, isn’t it?”
We’re not talking about PSA’s here which actually do pass along information that the public needs. No, these are idiots trying to find more idiots simply to justify their own existence and waste more money.
“iw??” dunno, maybe it’s the phase of the moon???
It happens too often to me to be moon phases. For me it’s usually just plain error, high-speed typing (must be 5 to 10 words per minute!) and no proofreading. However, in your case, OWB, it’s probably the moon.
It’s because it’s Hallowe’en, and there will be a full moon on October 31.
I’m going for Snickers before the zombies get all of them.