From Lifeline to Hammock: How Food Stamps Became a Way of Life

[rmc51]

From Lifeline to Hammock: How Food Stamps Became a Way of Life
https://pjmedia.com/jamie-wilson/2025/10/26/from-lifeline-to-hammock-how-food-stamps-became-a-way-of-life-n4945282?utm_source=pjmedia&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&bcid=fc85d9fd0a377773055f1925941bbce485d3c69b5dace0c187ab5912dd7d0cd7&lctg=26251812

Quote:
From Lifeline to Hammock, and to Dependence
Now the safety net is showing its seams. With the federal government shut down as of October 1, 2025, the USDA has warned that full SNAP benefits may not be issued for November. States like Virginia have declared emergencies and are scrambling to use state funds to keep families fed. Why the urgency? Because for millions, SNAP is no longer a supplement; it’s the entire food budget.

This moment lays bare what decades of mission drift have built. When a temporary pause in federal spending threatens to empty refrigerators across the country, it’s clear the program has grown far beyond its intent. What was once a lifeline has become a dependency.

And that dependency has been thrown into the spotlight by the very people who claim to champion the poor. The Democrats’ refusal to pass a clean continuing resolution, choosing instead to hold out for unrelated spending priorities, has exposed just how brittle the system they expanded has become. If your household cannot eat without federal intervention, that’s not compassion. That’s captivity.

The real tragedy isn’t that people need help; it’s that Washington turned “supplemental” into “sustaining,” and then built political leverage out of it. My grandparents treated their food stamps with humility, stretching every dollar with care. Today, an entire nation is being taught to panic when the pipeline pauses. That’s not stewardship. That’s dependency weaponized.



Very good article!

 
Be careful, Be ready, Be prepared.
Buy ammo

[mountaineer]

Will read it when I have a chance - looks interesting.

In my state, we usually  blame the Fiddlin' Klansman Bobby Byrd for ensuring cradle to grave gubmint dependency. Why work and support your own family when Uncle Sugar is there to provide your every need?

[jafo2010]

As I learned in my youth, my first year in college, that welfare plays a key role in keeping the masses as a non-political threat by keeping enough food in their bellies, just wait and see the uproar when they start going hungry.

And the worst of it will be in bastions of Democommie cities.   And when they begin destroying everything, the idiot Democommies will be cheering them on with their mostly peaceful demonstrations. 

I say people in the streets destroying other people's property shoud be shot dead on sight.   

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Misnamed.

A lot of that is not used for food at all but soda water.

And the black market for sale of food stamps for cash is astronomical.

[Bigun]

Will read it when I have a chance - looks interesting.

In my state, we usually  blame the Fiddlin' Klansman Bobby Byrd for ensuring cradle to grave gubmint dependency. Why work and support your own family when Uncle Sugar is there to provide your every need?

I have always put the blame squarely at the feet of LBJ where it belongs.

[mountaineer]

... Today, SNAP has ballooned far beyond what it was intended to be. The average benefit per person is about $187 a month, and the maximum allotment for a family of four can reach around $975, more in some states. Compare that to the USDA’s “thrifty food plan,” which estimates a family of four needs about $1,000 a month for groceries. SNAP, once supplemental, now nearly covers the full cost of eating.  ...

WIC has changed as well. It used to be an austere program that helped pregnant women and young children meet basic nutritional needs: milk, cereal, eggs, beans, peanut butter, infant formula. Now it covers a much broader range of foods and services, including yogurt, whole-grain pastas, and nutrition counseling. It has shifted from emergency nutritional support to a long-term subsidy.  ...

More than that, considering the kiddies get free breakfast and lunch (and sometimes dinner) at school, plus many get "backpack buddy" bags of food to take home every Friday. Gee, what is mom (or dad, if there is one) actually buying with SNAP, considering the children are being fed elsewhere?