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Judicial
Watch...
State Gets $5 Mil
Bonus For Food Stamp
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October 1, 2011
In its quest
to promote
taxpayer-funded entitlement programs, the Obama Administration has
actually
rewarded one state with a $5 million bonus for its efficiency in adding
food-stamp recipients to already bulging rolls.
It’s part of
the administration’s
campaign to eradicate “food insecure households” by improving access
and
increasing participation in the government’s Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance
Program (SNAP). Incidentally, the
program was recently changed to SNAP to eliminate the stigma that comes
with a
name like food stamps. Just a few months ago the federal agency that
administers the program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA),
launched a
multi-million-dollar initiative to recruit more food-stamp participants
even
though the number of recipients has skyrocketed in the last few years.
This week
Oregon officials bragged
that the USDA has given the state $5 million in “performance bonuses”
for ensuring
that people eligible for food benefits receive them and for its “swift
processing of applications.” The money comes on the heels of a separate
$1.5
million award from the feds for making “accurate payments of food stamp
benefits to clients.” So welfare recipients are clients? .
It marks the
fifth consecutive year
that Oregon has been “recognized” by the federal government for
“exceptional
administration” of the entitlement program, according to the
announcement
posted on the state’s Department of Human Services web site. The state
official
who runs SNAP assures that her staff will “continue working very hard
to exceed
expectations” so that Oregonians can “put healthy foods on their table
quickly.”
Could this be
why the number of
food-stamp beneficiaries in Oregon has increased dramatically in the
last few
years? Since 2008 the state has seen a 60% boost in the number of
food-stamp
recipients, which means that more than 780,000 people (one out of five
Oregonians) get groceries compliments of Uncle Sam.
As if this
weren’t bad enough, the
feds are also giving the state a two-year grant to test an “innovative
approach” to the food-stamp “client eligibility review process.” This
will make
it even easier for people to get food stamps because it grants state
officials
a waiver that allows them to grant the benefit without interviewing the
candidate.
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