Today is the long awaited day by some on social media ready to loot stores to make their demands perfectly clear: Fund our EBT debit card or else! The feds spend $8.3 billion a month to feed our nation’s residents. There’s no doubt those threatening crime are low level proficient in reading or math void of any understanding of history, politics, or economics.
Deficit and continued federal spending are at a crisis level jeopardizing national security: a national debt of $38 trillion and growing. How often do you hear this reminder from the media?
What protestors understand is the sociology of chaos from Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” to the Cloward-Piven strategy developed in 1966 to utilize militant anti-poverty groups to facilitate a political crisis by overloading the newly created welfare system to redistribute income via the federal government.
Before 1964, “SNAP To It” meant do what’s required to survive, to provide for self and family. Back then there weren’t federal taxpayer-provided nutrition or other programs. Rather family, churches, neighbors and friends took care of those in need. With implementation of Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society,” America changed on multiple fronts from dramatically increasing immigration to federally provided food, beginning in 1965 with a pilot project for 100,000 people out of a population of 194.7 Americans.
Of course, no one wants anyone, anywhere to go hungry, especially our military, frail elders, disabled, and children. Americans are compassionate and generous, in fact, too generous as evidenced by every family owing $300,000 to eliminate our national debt.
Game Over, or Time Out
Today, 42 million people are theoretically dependent on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Taxpayer-funded food has become a partisan political entitlement bargaining subject along with migrant rights, health care insurance, and housing. Nothing is right, nothing affordable; most every topic arguably alienating.
On average, 12.4% of the US population are now SNAP beneficiaries fed by the government. They’re owners of a federally funded debit card for their perusal. Federal food spending has gone from $68 billion in 2010 to $113 billion in 2023, about a 46.8% increase. In addition, local Food Banks serve clients. In Santa Barbara, “We distribute food to one in three county residents, over 1.2 million pounds of food yearly,” says the Director. CA has allocated an additional $80 million to Food Banks to cover food demands this coming week. States have contingency plans.
We cringe when we hear that some fraudulently sell or trade their EBT funds for other wants, from cell phone bills to car payments or to pay for Door Dash deliveries or gorgeous nails. Gaming the system elevates one’s status. There’s no way to report fraud; we’ve been intimidated into silence. Fear motivates the decisions of many.
Make note that the percent of fraud or errors varies state to state, from a high in Alaska at 24.66% and CA at 10.98% to a low of 3.28% in South Dakota because things are about to change under Congress’s Big Beautiful Bill. Soon, there will be a performance-based benefit matching tied to each state’s error rate above 9.9% which requires those states to pay a 15% share beginning in FY2028 (October 2027). Error rates could add $2.7 billion annually to a state like CA’s SNAP/CalFresh implementation costs. In 2024, CA’s annual administrative costs are around $75 per case or about $450 million for delivering; 18% of the national $2.5 billion cost to administer, with the federal government now paying half.
That soon will end when states are required to pay more.
Welfare Gone Wrong
How did we allow the intended Hand Up to become an expected Hand Out in the land of abundant opportunity with 7 million job openings, plus a demand for an unlimited supply of unlawful migrants to fill those jobs “no American will take?” We must each look in the mirror before asking tough questions, because 21%, one in five, Americans receive at least one form of government aid, and these numbers are growing. Another 15% are on the government payroll; locally at compensation levels that far exceed the private sector and cannot be sustained. Go to TransparentCalifornia.com and read all about it.
Does Food Insecurity Really Exist?
Sure it does. Why does it exist? Affordability is a major stressor and challenge that politicians have failed for too many decades to address beyond creating more and more entitlements that create dependency. The result is a segment of Americans who have no integrity or commitment to civic duty to be fully responsible adults for self and family to live within their means. Image is everything. Influencers make millions.
Some ask: “Well, how many Americans die from starvation?” Arguing that if only 50 died from starvation in 1965, and 100 by most recent count – a stable percentage of the population – then food insecurity only contributes to illness or crime?
What are the reasons for such high demand for SNAP?
Have we created an illusion of food insecurity that actually benefits corporate profits or political goals? Some companies like Walmart forecast significant revenue losses if SNAP is not immediately funded.
Is the real goal of “progressive socialism” an eventual system of total government control under the guise of ending poverty? Is Universal Basic Income the answer? Are we destroying ourselves from within? Scholars have addressed how welfare went wrong by efforts to save Americans from life problems. Should meeting citizen food needs be funded and administered at the local level to provide assessment, accountability, and guidance to vocational training programs and jobs?
Sociology 101
My takeaway was my teacher warning her students, “You will live to see the day of chaos whereby there’ll be no wall high enough, no gate strong enough, and there will be no police to protect you. Police will be ordered to stand down or, due to rioting, will return to protect their own families. It’s up to you to do your part as citizens to stay informed, participate, and work to sustain the great American experiment of freedom and self-determination. The unintended consequences of social engineering could be our country’s demise.
I wonder: Is today that day?
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Thank you, Denice, excellent. In addition to food, we're also paying for increased medical problems in that population caused by the food we allow them to buy. When I was at San Marcos High School I took Home Ec, despite my counselor telling me I was too smart for that class. It was actually the most educational class about America I took. Our problem with food welfare is immense. The progressives took away the heritage and traditions of nutritious home cooking, no matter how poor a family was, and replaced it with addictive toxic processed food. Bobby, we need MAHA on this!
This article says what needs to be said. There are people who truly need help; but the bar has been set so low that our drive and ambition have been deflated. And today, a politician campaigns on increasing benefits. A politician cannot be elected on a platform of reducing benefits, encouraging self-sufficiency, or personal responsibility. Berney