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All In 04/25/14
Food stamps for cows
Chris Hayes looks at federal subsidies for ranchers like Cliven Bundy.
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/food-stamps-for-cows-237418051982
All In 04/25/14
How the government subsidizes ranchers
Steve Ellis joins Chris Hayes to discuss the federal government’s subsidies to ranchers.
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/how-the-government-subsidizes-ranchers-237425219796
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Today, I see this on Facebook:
GOP candidate compares food stamp recipients to wild animals
05/01/14 12:38 PM—Updated 05/01/14 04:53 PM
By Morgan Whitaker
A candidate hoping to become the Republican party’s next nominee for U.S. Senator from South Dakota has generated buzz for her campaign this week after comparing food stamp recipients to wild animals in a Facebook post.
Dr. Annette Bosworth posted an image to her campaign Facebook page Monday, which compares the National Park Service’s policy of discouraging feeding wild animals to the food stamp “hand out program” to provide a “lesson in irony.”
“The food stamp program is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture,” text on the image reads. “They proudly report that they distribute free meals and food stamps to over 46 million people on an annual basis.”
“Meanwhile, the National Park Service, run by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us, ‘Please do not feed the animals,’” the text continues. “Their state reason for this being that… ‘The animals will grow dependent on the handouts, and then they will never learn to take care of themselves.”
more here:
http://www.msnbc.com/politicsnation/gop-candidate-compares-food-stamp-recipients-wild-animals
comment:
https://www.facebook.com/msnbc/posts/621726604590262
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Which US States Have The Most Welfare Benefit Programs? [Interactive Map]
By Lisa Mahapatra
on August 22 2013 5:44 AM
Welfare benefits programs have seen the most expansion in Vermont, Hawaii and Washington, D.C., in the time period between 1995 and 2013, according to a just-released report from the CATO institute.
Alaska, Maine and Virginia have seen their welfare programs shrink the most in the same time frame.
There are 126 programs targeted at low-income people in the U.S., according to the CATO report, and 72 of these programs provide cash or in-kind benefits to individuals.
The CATO report looked at the full package of welfare benefits available in each state and in Washington, D.C., in 1995 and 2003, excluding Medicaid, and found that welfare programs had shrunk in some states and expanded in others.
For example, in Hawaii, the state with the largest welfare benefit programs, a hypothetical household that is eligible for every single welfare program and successfully manages to gain access to aid, could receive up to $49,175 in aid.
However, such a household is strictly hypothetical as it is nearly impossible for any household to be eligible for every welfare program.
And few eligible households actually receive all the benefits they are eligible for, according to Elise Gould, an economist with Economic Policy Institute.
more here:
http://www.ibtimes.com/which-us-states-have-most-welfare-benefit-programs-interactive-map-1394989
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The Biggest US Welfare States
As the recession grinds on and people run out of unemployment benefits, the last safety net is the government's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Though benefits vary by state, TANF provides a maximum of 60 months of coverage throughout a recipient's lifetime.
To get an idea of which states pay out the most welfare checks, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) surveyed state governments. Using the most current information, NCSL then compared the total number of recipients of TANF to the overall state populations (through June 2009).
So, what are the biggest US welfare states? Click ahead to find out!
By Paul ToscanoPosted 21 July 2009
15. Oregon
14. Pennsylvania
13. Michigan
12. Rhode Island
Tie-10. Indiana
Tie-10. New Mexico
9. Washington
8. Minnesota
7. New York
6. District of Columbia
5. Vermont
4. Massachusetts
3. Tennessee
2. Maine
1. California
more here:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/31910310
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"Nine out of the 10 poorest states are Red states."
Occupy Democrats on Thursday, December 26th, 2013 in a Facebook post
Pro-Democrat group says 9 of the 10 poorest states are Republican
On Jan. 12, 2014, we rated this statement as True. We decided to re-rate our item after considering an additional poverty ranking that incorporates factors such as housing costs from state to state. The original item can be found here.
The partisan blogosphere is filled with arguments over whether liberal or conservative policies are better for states. No matter what is proposed -- cutting the sales tax, raising the minimum wage, etc. -- someone can always come up with a state to cite as an example of why it's a good (or bad) idea.
But we were struck by this claim posted by the pro-Democrat group Occupy Democrats on Facebook:
"If Republican economic policies are so great for America, how come 9 out of the 10 poorest states are Red states?"
We're not going to rule on the cause-and-effect question posed by the posting. Yet because Red states have a reputation for being more business-friendly, and because many argue that pro-business policies lead to better lives for everyone, we wondered whether the Occupy Democrats' claim was correct.
When we emailed Occupy Democrats, founder Omar Rivero sent us links to several sources including a sortable Wikipedia table based on the 2010 U.S. Census, along with more recent data from the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis. We also did our own search of the U.S. Census database.
We’ll start with the standard definition of a Red state.
At PolitiFact Rhode Island, we recognize that whether a state is Red or Blue can be a matter for debate. Our state is considered to be among the bluest of the Blue, yet it has had Democratic governors in only 20 of the last 50 years. Nonetheless, the color is typically defined by how a state votes in the presidential elections, so we're going to classify states by how they voted in the 2012 Obama-Romney race.
It should be noted that there are different ways to measure poverty. Occupy Democrats says its claim is based on per-person income. We looked at that, along with median household income and median family income.
By all three measures, 9 out of the 10 poorest states voted Republican in the last presidential election. (In fact, they voted Red in the last four elections.)
According to the latest Census data, 9 of the 10 states with the lowest per-person income levels were Red: Mississippi, Arkansas, Idaho, West Virginia, Kentucky, Utah, Alabama, South Carolina and Oklahoma.
The Census data also show that 9 of the 10 states with the lowest median household income were Red: Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oklahoma.
And 9 of the 10 states with the lowest median family income were Red: Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana and South Carolina.
The only Blue state on each list: New Mexico.
more here:
http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2014/mar/28/occupy-democrats/pro-democrat-group-says-9-10-poorest-states-are-re/
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Interactive: Republicans More Likely to Have Constituents Who Use Food Stamps
larger image, here:
http://aattp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Screen-Shot-2014-02-18-at-3.15.41-PM.png
As Congress debates fate of program, several of those seeking cuts have high percentage of constituents who benefit
By Chris Wilson and Alex Rogers @chriswilsondc
Dec. 04, 2013
When the House voted in September to cut $40 billion from the federal food-stamp program over 10 years, all but 15 Republicans supported the measure while not a single Democrat did so.
But according to a TIME analysis of county-by-county food-stamp-enrollment data compiled by the nonprofit Feeding America, it appears that House Republicans represent more districts with high levels of participation in the program than House Democrats. Of the 350 congressional districts in which TIME was able to estimate the percentage of people enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), 76 had levels of 20% or higher. Of those, 43 are held by Republicans while 33 are controlled by Democrats.
SNAP Enrollment
SNAP enrollment is visualized by county where data is available and by state where it is not. Use the buttons below to reorient by Congressional district. Note: Estimating congressional districts from county-level data is prone to error in densely populated locations.
Nationwide, 15% of Americans (47.7 million people) participate in SNAP, according to Department of Agriculture figures, and the program receives around $80 billion in funding annually.
Over the summer, the Democrat-controlled Senate passed its own version of the bill that trimmed only $4 billion from the program. Negotiators from both chambers met on Wednesday to try to negotiate a compromise on the two bills.
Representative Austin Scott, one of the farm-bill conferees, represents a district in southern Georgia in which approximately 1 in 4 constituents currently receives farm-bill aid, according to the data — considerably above the national average of 15%.
When asked about the program on Tuesday, Scott suggested that abuse of the system warrants the cuts in the House bill.
“Anybody who is realistic acknowledges that there is some abuse in the system, and those abuses need to go away,” Scott said. “We’re going to protect seniors, we’re going to protect the disabled and those that can’t work, but if someone can work, then they’ve got a responsibility to work.”
The farm bill spends around 80% of its $100 billion a year on food stamps. Enrollment in SNAP jumped by nearly 20 million people during the recession, leading many House Republicans to argue that corruption in the program is common.
While congressional districts with the absolute highest levels of enrollment are more likely to be represented by Democrats, many rural districts with very high participation in the program are represented by Republicans leading the charge in cutting billions from the program. In Kentucky’s 5th district, represented by Republican Hal Rogers, 1 in 3 people receives SNAP benefits. After the House passed its version of the farm bill, however, Rogers wrote: “Struggling children, seniors, veterans and families, clearly in need of assistance … compete against scammers, lottery winners, gamblers and others who may be able to work, but simply refuse.”
Because of limitations in Feeding America’s data, which is missing county-level data for about a dozen states, it is not possible to make a definitive correlation between SNAP enrollment in a district and the party of the member who represents it in Congress. (It is also difficult to translate county data into congressional districts in small or highly gerrymandered districts, leading to some margin of error.) Based on the available figures, there does not appear to be a significant difference in food-stamp usage in Democratic or Republican districts, with both averages in the neighborhood of the national mean.
Unlike the Senate plan, House Republicans achieve a significant portion of the cuts by restricting able-bodied, childless adults who receive SNAP benefits and ending state waivers to those who have been unemployed for more than three months. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that on average a total of 2.8 million people would lose their SNAP benefits over the next decade, and another 850,000 households would see an average reduction of about $90 a month in benefits. The Senate makes relatively minor changes in the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program that decrease SNAP benefits.
Liberal groups argue that the House bill goes above and beyond the need for reform. “Those who would be thrown off the program include some of the nation’s most destitute adults, as well as many low-income children, seniors and families that work for low wages,” writes the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Republican Representative Steve King of Iowa, the House subcommittee chairman on nutrition — whose district has below-average SNAP enrollment — says the four principal negotiators may have to decide to “put a number down on a piece of paper and roll the dice.”
The current farm-bill authorization expires at the end of the year. Wednesday’s meeting involves the chair and ranking member of the Agriculture Committee in both chambers: Senators Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Thad Cochran of Mississippi and Congressmen Frank Lucas of Oklahoma and Collin Peterson of Minnesota.
interactive map, here:
http://swampland.time.com/2013/12/04/interactive-republicans-more-likely-to-have-constituents-who-use-food-stamps/
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Honestly, it does not matter which state receives the most for Welfare.
One cannot make the arguement that government is stealing from them while at the same time receiving benefits of that very same system.
Cliven Bundy made statements concerning black people on welfare, and yet he's on a form of welfare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_programs_in_the_United_States
Funny takes on racism:
part 1:
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/5dbo97/the-amazing-racism
part 2:
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/5l1leo/the-amazing-racism---incredibly-not-racist-racists
part 3:
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/wqzl6m/a-diverse-array-of-american-racism
BONUS:
The Daily Show lividly audits the 'bureaucracy of dunces' behind recent federal screw-ups
http://theweek.com/article/index/260827/speedreads-the-daily-show-lividly-audits-the-bureaucracy-of-dunces-behind-recent-federal-screw-ups
Yes, the IRS did "target" the left and the right over taxes, but not for the reasons you might think.
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