Obama's "Hope-A-Dope" Nation

With two years left in his term, the errand boy sent by grocery clerks presides over a nation in deep and ever-growing trouble.

Through his propaganda of carefully crafted, semi-divine, yet vague and appealing buzzwords, Fearless Reader won the public's support. Now, his cult is crumbling.

Washington seeks to extend our dependence on government in perpetuity. A record forty-two million Americans are on food stamps. That's an 18% jump from 2009 and 1.4% from June 2010.

Political scientist William Voegeli's new book, "Never Enough: America's Limitless Welfare State" notes, "Liberals don't want the government to grow indefinitely. They just want it to be bigger than it is right now."

We are seeing, firsthand, that big government’s trillion-dollar stimulus programs don’t produce jobs.

The Democrats' stimulus includes "$145 billion in state and local aid to forestall austerity measures in the public sector," notes Manhattan Institute senior fellow E.J. McMahon. As private sector workers suffer layoffs, salary cuts and pay freezes, the stimulus gives raises to government employees—who increasingly dominate Big Labor, which returns the favor with cash for Democrats.

"I have no better friend in labor than AFSCME," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi once said of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the U.S.' largest political campaign donor, giving over $38 million since 1990, almost all to Democrats.

The gelding who occupies the Oval Office infused federal aid to states and localities pumping up the paychecks of heavily unionized public employees who already earn more, on average, than the people who pay their salaries.

Finally, lower cost was the campaign promise of ObamaCare, but as Medicare actuaries confirmed, it will increase healthcare costs. The president's government takeover has already begun to boost private health insurance premiums and all we’ve seen to date is the tip of the iceberg. Still more frightening—there are two more years left in this president-in-training’s term.

May God have mercy on this nation.

Originally posted at No Sheeples Here.

Food Stamps Anyone?

Posted by WMUR, Cross Posted at What Makes Us Right

As I struggled to determine what my first post would be as a participant in the Left Coast Resistance, I scoured the internet for just the right topic.  It took me a few days, but I think I found a topic that will enable me to stir things up a bit with my fellow bloggers and readers.  It is a topic that has been relatively kept under the radar for some time, even with all of the challenges of the Great Recession!  We have all heard about all of the issues facing the country with unemployment and under employment, and the costs surrounding stimulating job growth.  We have even heard that Obama was not going to extend the Bush tax credits, just when small businesses need it the most. What we have not heard much about was SNAP (formerly known as the Food Stamp Program).

The Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program or SNAP, was originally created as the Food Stamp Program back in 1939.  After a 20+ year hiatus, it was rejuvenated in the 60's and had roughly a half million people receiving benefits.  Since that time, the program has continued to grow by leaps an bounds, and has recently set a record for participants for the last 18 straight months.  According to a recent report at FoxNews, there were 40.8 million recipients in May alone.

What I think is more astonishing than the 40.8 million people is the fact that there was over $5.5 Billion in aid provided in beneficiary payments in May.  This was a 19% increase from the previous year!  Individual monthly benefits average around $134, which remained flat to previous years.  Projections by the USDA have enrollment in 2011 to reach 43.4 million, with no real slowdown in site.

To make this situation more interesting,  congress just voted to reduce funding to this program by $12 billion annually.  The money saved will be rerouted to save the jobs of teachers.  The logic is that we can educate our children to prevent future recipients of this program.

I just have a few questions.
~How long can someone stay on this, and what follow up is there to ensure no fraud?
~Are recipients required to look for additional sources of employment or income?
~Are we providing benefits to illegal aliens?

More info can be found here
Looks like a lot of opportunity for fraud!