The New Normal: Food Stamp Enrollment Hits All-Time High

While most everyone else spent their Tuesday focusing on the second presidential debate, the Senate Budget Committee Republican staff under Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) was busy putting out the following chart:

Yes, you read that correctly: food stamp enrollment in July reached 46,681,833, up from June's record-setting 46,670,301.

How do we manage to keep breaking these records? Well, it doesn't help that the feds actively encourage enrollment in the program.

“USDA has engaged in an aggressive outreach and promotional campaign to boost food stamp enrollment,” the senator’s office notes.

Examples include the collaboration between the USDA and Mexican government officials to promote participation in Latin communities, teaching recruitment workers how to “overcome the word ‘No,’” and even handing out a “Hunger Champions” award in 2011 to certain workers for “counteracting” a community’s “mountain pride.”

We’re not making this up, folks.

“Total spending on food stamps is projected to reach nearly $800 billion over the next 10 years, with no fewer than 1 in 9 people on the program at any given time,” the senator’s office adds. “Neither food stamp participation nor spending on the program are ever projected to return to pre-recession levels at any point in the next 10 years.”

And if you think the number of people enrolled in the government assistance program is embarrassing, you're not alone. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney agrees.

"How about food stamps?" the former governor asked. "When [Obama] took office, 32 million people were on food stamps. Today, 47 million people are on food stamps."

"We don't have to settle for what we're going through," he added.

But then again, who wants to talk about food stamps when there are binder jokes to be made?

Forward!

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