DoD: 5,000 Military Families Losing Food Stamps

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by HK_User, Jul 16, 2013.


  1. HK_User

    HK_User A Productive Monkey is a Happy Monkey

    More OBAMA Care at work> HK



    DoD: 5,000 Military Families Losing Food Stamps

    Jul 13, 2013
    by Richard Sisk

    food_stamps-ts300.
    The House action that stripped food stamp funding from a massive farm bill would threaten vital assistance for about 5,000 military families, mostly from the junior enlisted ranks, Pentagon officials said Friday.
    A Department of Agriculture report last year showed that more than 5,000 of the 48 million Americans receiving Supplementary Nutritional Assistance Program (food stamps) listed their employment status as "active duty military," the Pentagon officials said.
    "Military members who receive SNAP tend to be made up of members in junior pay grades with larger than average household sizes," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a Defense Department spokesman.


    "Military members normally 'promote out' of the need for additional subsistence benefits, due to the corresponding raises in basic pay and other allowances as one moves to a higher pay grade," Christensen said in an e-mail statement.
    "It's a small population but it's a vulnerable population," Joye Raezer, executive director of the National Military Families Association, said of the active duty military families receiving food stamps.
    Older recruits who already have several children and join the military because of the poor job market tend to need SNAP, Raezer said. "If you're junior enlisted and you're single, fine," Raezer said, but if the servicemember has children and a non-working spouse, "you're going to be on food stamps."
    "It gets tough, even with a housing allowance," Raezer said.
    The 5,000 military families receiving food stamps was a tiny percentage of the 48 million recipients nationwide, but it was a major increase over the previous year when the Department of Agriculture reported that only 1,000 recipients listed "active duty military" as their employment status.
    In addition, the Defense Commissary Agency reported that food stamps were being redeemed at base commissaries at a record pace.
    Last year, $99 million in food stamps were cashed in at bases by military families, disabled vets and others with military identification, and more than $53 million in food stamps were cashed in this year through June, according to Defense Commissary Agency data provided to the Huffington Post.
    The concerns over the threat of a food stamp funding cutoff were raised by the 218-208 vote in the House Thursday that passed a $500 billion farm bill that stripped out $80 billion in SNAP funding. It was the first time since 1973 that a farm bill failed to join farm subsidies and food stamp funding.
    Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., the House Agriculture Committe chairman, said he would introduce a separate food stamp bill "as soon as I can achieve a consensus," but consensus could be difficult to reach in the gridlocked Congress.
    Democrats charged that the bill would devastate poor families and the White House threatened a veto of the farm bill if the House and Senate failed to reach a compromise that would restore SNAP funding.
    White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that House Republicans were using poor children as pawns "in the name of deficit reduction. It smacks of hypocrisy to me."
     
  2. VisuTrac

    VisuTrac Ваша мать носит военные ботинки Site Supporter+++

    Not to cause an uproar or anything, but why should these bill be married together.
    they should be 2 separate issues.
    Actually 3 issues
    Axe the farm subsidies (big ag welfare)
    Axe the snap program (unless you can pass a drug test, not a felon, are going to school and not a baby factory)
    and give the servicemen and women a living wage.

    Let the flaming begin! [flm]
     
  3. Mindgrinder

    Mindgrinder Karma Pirate Ninja|RIP 12-25-2017

    What are you talking aboot man?
    Barry LOVES the Vets and takes care of them 100%...they are treated like heros when they return home from their 7'th DU snorting combat tour...if I was a yankee i'd sign up immediately...unfortunately I don't qualify for the Royal Canadian Armed Forces.

    /me launches bottle rocket (firecracker) @Brokor s house and drives away VERY fast...
     
  4. Mechwolf

    Mechwolf Monkey+

    no flame Visu I agree with you.[winkthumb]
     
    Yard Dart likes this.
  5. HK_User

    HK_User A Productive Monkey is a Happy Monkey

    It's all the Pork Barreling that screws up Chicken Pot Pie.

    Mil should receive a living wage and they sure enough earn it. Once lived on E3 pay, no Mil barracks, lived in town on COMrats, I like to have starved! Non Mil area no PX etc.
     
    tulianr likes this.
  6. tulianr

    tulianr Don Quixote de la Monkey

    I ate a lot of peanut butter sandwiches, back in the day.

    Still, bad decisions shouldn't be rewarded; and an E-2 or E-3 with three kids has made several bad decisions. Getting married was his first questionable decision, and the first child (whether it was conceived before or after the former questionable decision) was another. One would hope that after the first child, even a Marine would figure out what causes them, and take appropriate precautions. I was one of those youngsters who made two questionable decisions, and life was hard, but I learned something from those peanut butter sandwiches.

    When I left the military, years later, I wasn't driving around in a Lexus and spending my weekends at the country club; but I was making what I consider to be a very fair wage. If you interact with the military forces of other countries, you come away with a whole new perspective on our military pay. Our troops, compared to those of Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Turkey, or even many of the western European nations, live like kings. Of all the different forces that I worked with, the only ones that seemed near on par with us were the Danes, but they had a labor union, and could engage in collective bargaining. ;)
     
  7. HK_User

    HK_User A Productive Monkey is a Happy Monkey

    Yes there is a reason you're not issued a wife and kids! Never played that game till I was out.
     
    tulianr and kellory like this.
  8. enloopious

    enloopious Rocket Surgeon

    Here's an idea, let people pay for themselves and get rid of ALL entitlement programs (aka Socialism programs) and see how the world heals itself... as if YOU had any say in the matter.
     
  9. Mechwolf

    Mechwolf Monkey+

    letting the lemmings loose without the pied piper is what I usually envision
     
  10. fmhuff

    fmhuff Monkey+++

    Kinda piss's a person off that the government pays our military so poorly they need to have food stamps. IMHO they should pay them at the level of any other government employee.
     
    tulianr likes this.
  11. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    That's what they said in the 60s and earlier, too. We were willing to give up a bit to serve, and we got things the civvies had to pay for, like medical and dental. Post and base exchanges usually had necessities less expensive than on the beach, too. (Exceptions for those bases that were leased in some states that had restrictions as to how big a price break we could get.) My pay just out of boot was 73.50 from which taxes were deducted. Of course, that was in the days of the draft, but even volunteers took the same pay. No overtime, either.

    It might be worth the exercise to look up GS pay grades and match them against military pay and allowances. I'm done with that comparison, it makes no difference to me these days other than an academic exercise. Fact is, were I a betting sort, the DOD has done that already.

    Yes, low level married enlisted needed help back then. (If Uncle Sam wanted you to have a wife and kids, he would issue them in your seabag.) There was only a limited amount of family housing, especially for the lower grades and in transient postings, like schools. But where available the price was right. As it still is if you can get into base housing. If there isn't any, there's a basic allowance for off base housing that is not taxed IIRC.
     
  12. enloopious

    enloopious Rocket Surgeon

    Just so you know, we are all government employees...
    Want proof? Call the IRS or Social Security office (its the same place) and ask them for something and they will ask for your EIN which stands for employee identification number, also known as social security number. Don't believe me? Call and ask, I did.
     
    Hammerhead likes this.
  13. Witch Doctor 01

    Witch Doctor 01 Mojo Maker

    My first government paycheck as a second john was 13 cents.... I still have it.... big screw up in pay (travel) had just got a phone and had a car payment.... ran up an o'club bill eating that month....
     
    kellory and tulianr like this.
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