Hunger for dependency in the Demcorats program

Washington Times:

Budget hawks are criticizing efforts to expand a welfare program that many people decline to use, even though the government has spent millions of dollars to tout its benefits.

The House voted last month to add $4 billion to the granddaddy of America's domestic nutrition programs for the poor: the Food Stamp Program.

The measure, part of the farm bill that passed by a vote of 231-191 on July 27, also would ease the program's eligibility rules and increase food stamp benefits.

Anti-hunger advocates are pleased with many of the changes to the program, which provides about $33 billion a year in assistance.

"These investments represent real progress in addressing hunger in the U.S.," the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), an anti-hunger advocacy group, said after the bill passed.

But Jeffrey M. Jones, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative-leaning think tank, said now is not the time for the government to cajole poor people into using a federal entitlement program.

"The drive to reduce entitlement spending while simultaneously expanding participation [in the Food Stamp Program] is tantamount to having two trains racing toward each other on the same track — catastrophic," Mr. Jones wrote in December.

"It's one thing to offer a program to people in need," said Chris Edwards, a tax-policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute. "But I don't think we should be beating them over the head with a bat, saying you've got to take federal welfare. I mean, c'mon. My taxpayer money is being used to encourage people to cost me even more tax money? I have a problem with that."

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The Democrats insatiable desire for dependency is pushing an unneeded program in an attempt to tie people to the party rather than to lift them from poverty. If there was truly a need, they would not have to be advertising this program, people would be flocking to it.