Thursday, August 18, 2011  Food Stamps as Stimulus  Ag Secretary
Vilsack said,   On February 10, 2009, NPR ran a story about how
the economic stimulus would help fund food stamp programs
because States were experiencing such a high caseload due to the
downturn in the economy:  Congress is on the verge of increasing
funding for food stamps as part of the economic stimulus bill,
because of the steep rise in the number of Americans applying
for the aid.  For example, in the past 20 months Florida's food
stamp caseload has grown by more than a half million people, to
1.8 million. George Sheldon, who heads the state's Department of
Children and Families, says many applicants are in former boom
areas, such as Fort Myers, where construction has ground to a
halt.  I don't buy the Ag Secretary's logic. In order to give
someone a dollar, you have to take a dollar from somewhere else.
That means that instead of $1.84, you are actually only growing
it by 84 cents.  Don't get me wrong - I am not against food
stamps. While