House Republicans passed a farm bill last week separating food stamps from farming. It’s about time. From 2002 to 2012 the average number of participants on food stamps has ballooned by 250% from 19 million to 47 million. The number is growing faster than you can say “Slurpee” and is at 50 million this year. As you can see registration in Rhode Island is a SNAP! And the cost has doubled from 2008 to 2012. Meanwhile Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi cries that Republicans are taking “”food out of the mouths of babies and you prevent a bill from going forward that addresses our food banks and our nutrition needs and the rest for our country, what are you thinking?” What is she thinking? The Wall Street Journal continues:
Ms. Pelosi’s anger must be especially amusing to House Speaker John Boehner, because the Democratic leader helped to defeat the original $1 trillion version of the farm bill last month. That version included some $740 billion for food stamps, but Democrats opted to kill it because they wanted even more money for a program whose cost more than doubled from 2008 to 2012. They objected to a modest GOP proposal to allow states to adopt pilot work requirements for able-bodied food-stamp recipients.
