15 Replies to “Forward!”

  1. Interesting data to be sure, however intentionally misleading graphs like this one are a pet peeve. The Y axis should start at zero, not 18%. At a glance the graph is very misleading.

  2. Almost double the rate when Obama came into office.
    No wonder he won this time around.
    The US is going to default on its debt obligations and declare bankruptcy leaving these unsecured “creditors” hanging in the wind getting 10c on the dollar.

  3. Steve Mac: yep.  There’s no need to commit data manipulation to make the point — food-stamp recipients have nearly doubled since Obama took office.

  4. Agreed; the Y axis is at 17 rather than zero. But the key point is the rate has gone up from 18% to 34% since Obama took office.
    I predict that once his ObamaCare kicks in and the costs are passed on to the consumers; as well as the loss of jobs by downsizing of small businesses due to both taxes and ObamaCare, that it will increase to over 40%.

  5. This statistic brings me back to the “if all your friends jumped off a bridge…” talk mom had with me when I was a child. The actual dire need for food stamps cannot have increased this much. People are just “getting theirs” while the getting is good. Sad. Sick of being in the middle getting played by both ends.

  7. Socialist nirvana will be reached when everyone on the US will have food stamps, or ration books.

  8. This graph is “intentionally misleading” only if you can’t read or count or have just started looking at graphs for the first time in your life. The Y axis doesn’t need to start at zero to demonstrate that when the amateur progressive named Bush handed the torch to a progressive on steroids named Obama the result is a near doubling of recipients.
    Anyone who thinks that Obama is not collapsing the system as per Cloward and Piven is either sadly deluded or comatose. There is not one bone in his body that is concerned with reducing the cost of or impact and influence of leviathan. The GOP played nicey-nice to this lying POS and what did it get them?

  10. “named Bush handed the torch to a progressive on steroids named Obama the result is a near doubling of recipients.”
    Actually, the new regulations expanding food stamps began under Bush. The “pushers” of the expansion were and still are Walmart, the food industry in general, even fast food empires. It’s their welfare. You never see much direct criticism on the sources of the expansion here in the USA because usually, form the so-called “conservative” side, once the pundits see that the progenitors are cherished corporate entities and their lobbyists, they desist. “Conservatism” in America has become, at least vocally, more like a business fetish, a la Ayn Rand and similar.

  11. The U.S. is currently trying to hammer out a new Farm Bill. Included in the Farm Bill is SNAP (foodstamps)…which takes up 80% of the budget. BO says NO to any cuts in SNAP.
    You will see the “taker” numbers rise to 50 million soon.
    John Lewis asked at 12:08 if Canada has foodstamps. No.

  12. Jad, what you are describing is rent-seeking (or crony-capitalism) and while the business schools puke-out rent-seekers with moral impunity, neither Ayn Rand nor today’s Tea Party types are in favor of it. One should actually read Rand before maligning her ideas.

  13. VDH opines on Obama/Dems faux Robin Hood mantra:
    http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/…/ripples-election-victor-davis-han...
    Last week Dan Matheson of CTV made the stupendously stupid comment the the GOP stood “only for the rich” and in fact was the only major political party that was only for those “rich.”
    Maybe Matheson missed the point that asking the rich to pay “a little more” so the middle/lower/47% class can have a lot more makes no sense at all. Britain tried that one when they recently raised top marginal rates to 50% on much higher income than the Dems want to attach – and ended up with reduced revenues! I guess the “Laffer” is on them and soon will be on the Dems. That’s OK they can still blame the GOP.
    The Dems will have to seriously raise taxes to fund their entitlement programs, incurring higher and higher debt onto record levels at a time when demographic change, and pressure on productivity, pensions and medical care, make further debt extremely dangerous. The 53% better brace for much higher taxes with the 47% spending their money.
    Too bad some of them voted for what is now upon them. Too bad they don’t understand that government spending is less economically efficient (ie effect on GDP) than private sector spending and is therefore the price we bear for essential non-profitable activities (pure public goods). So be it but anyones who thinks government spending makes economies stronger is delusional or have been marooned on a desert island their entire life.
    If Greece hadn’t beaten them to it, the US could be the future poster child for economic implosion where, yes, the rich get poorer, but so do the poor (Margaret Thatcher said that, bless her heart). Perhaps they could act like Japan and hold down their interest rates further, mix in some heavy duty g-b cronyism, and perhaps ensure not one person thinks they should take any risk at all and just wait for their tax bribe.
    It’s a slow motion train wreck but it’s going to speed up real soon (1-2 years at most) when the borrowing, spending and tax bill in the US comes due, which is hasn’t yet, despite 4+ years of job bleed (ie-job growth under 150,000 per month which is required to adjust for population growth).
    While Obama isn’t ideological in the classic sense, his handlers certainly are and truly believe they are so much wiser, especially when they’re paying off their buddies, as VDH explains.

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