Food Stamp Nation

From Zero Hedge, the fact that food stamp dependency has reached an all-time high. See the two charts below (click on the charts to see a larger image).

Of course, use of food stamps should increase in economic hard times. But the problem is that, while the number of jobs in the economy has rebounded a bit (and unemployment decreased a bit) food stamp dependency continues to increase.The NFP number below is “non-farm payroll” jobs.

So why has the number of people on food stamps increased when the need for food stamps decreased.

There are two possible answers, and we don’t know of data that would answer which is the most important. First, explicit government policies designed to enroll more people in government welfare programs may be having an effect.

Secondly, a culture of dependency, which clearly exists, may be becoming more and more prevalent, as an ethic of self-reliance continues to decay. As, in some sectors of society, dependency becomes more and more the norm, it becomes less and less stigmatized. Thus, dependency begets dependency, with culture as the mediating factor.

Marquette’s Rev. Bryan N. Massingale: Still the Race Hustler

Via The Provincial Emails:

Forty “religious leaders” (read: leftist professors and a few clerical activists) recently released a statement attacking Republican candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum for “Divisive Rhetoric Around Race and Poverty.”

What are these two quoted as saying? The statement claims:

Rick Santorum attracted scrutiny for telling Iowa voters he doesn’t want “to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”

Then it asserts:

Mr. Gingrich has frequently attacked President Obama as a “food stamp president” and claimed that African Americans are content to collect welfare benefits rather than pursue employment.

But what did Santorum actually say?

“I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.”

As for Gingrich, the manifesto provides no citation for his statement, but the following is typical of what he has been saying:

You don’t get out of 9.2% unemployment, you don’t get out of — today it was announced [that] the largest number of Americans [are] on food stamps in history. I’ve said now for six months, this is the most effective food stamp President in history. That sounds like it is an attack, it’s just a statement of fact. It’s just that his administration kills jobs. They are driving Americans onto food stamps. Most Americans would rather have a paycheck.

Among the other clerical types signing the statement is Marquette’s Rev. Bryan N. Massingale, a fellow who has a history of playing the race card to promote a leftist political agenda.

Massingale also routinely trashes Catholic teaching on sexuality.

If the manifesto is particularly egregious for distorting the statements of Gingrich and Santorum, it is morally irresponsible for refusing to deal with a simple reality: dependency is far too common in the U.S. today, and it’s particularly common in the black community.

For example, in 2009, 25.1% of persons living in black households were receiving food stamps, while only 6.9% of persons in white (non-Hispanic) households got food stamps. Indeed, a bit over half of all blacks (50.9% to be exact) lived in a household getting some means-tested assistance, as opposed to only 20.5% of non-Hispanic whites.(See Table 543 here.)

The numbers, for both blacks and whites, have increased since.

The simple fact is that liberals don’t much mind dependency, since a population dependent on government will vote for the party of government — the Democrats. The people who signed the statement attacking the two Republican candidates don’t particularly mind having a large dependent population. Gingrich and Santorum do.

Mean Spirited Christmas Greeting from the Marquette Center for Peacemaking

While some of their activities are bland enough, a Christmas e-mail from the Center for Peacemaking reminds us that, at root, they are mean-spirited leftists. Here is part of the text:

After four weeks of Advent awaiting the coming of the Savior, December 25th can leave us a bit puzzled, if not disappointed.

Because we need a savior. Doesn’t take much in the way of spirituality to figure that out. We just need to look at the “signs of the times.” With a government pledged to “perpetual war,” and more and more wealth (as the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrations constantly remind us) taken from the needs of the many to benefit the very few (and yes, those two facts are related), with ongoing environmental degradation, and with over 17 million US households listed as “food insecure,” our world, our country needs some serious saving.

But what do we get on Christmas day? Not a team of expert economists, not a super committee of legislators, not a war council or a national security organization, but a baby – an infant (root meaning: “can’t talk”), someone insecure, vulnerable and needing assistance, not offering it. What was God THINKING?

So there is no “peace on earth, good will toward men.” Rather, there is class warfare and hatred of the military.

If the people associated with the Center for Peacemaking were morally serious, they might actually know that government in the U.S. spends over two trillion dollars per year to pay social welfare benefits.

If they were morally serious they would actually question why “over 17 million US households listed as ‘food insecure’” notwithstanding the fact that government spends 54 billion dollars per year on the food stamp program.

Morally serious people actually care about the details of public policy. Those who prance and preen and tout their concern for the poor in blissful ignorance of how public policy works are not morally serious. They are simply engaged in a kind of moral masturbation.