GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions: Food Stamps ‘Out of Control’
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ABC News "Top Line"
ABC News’ Z. Byron Wolf (@zbyronwolf) reports:
The number of Americans receiving federal aid for food has skyrocketed in recent years, partly from need and partly, according to Sen. Jeff Sessions, because of abuse.
Food stamps, he told ABC News’ “Top Line” today, are a symptom of a government run out of control.
“No program in our government has surged out of control more dramatically than food stamps,” said Sessions, R-Ala. “And now, nothing is being done at it, about it. Nobody is looking under the hood. It had doubled in the last three years. It had quadrupled from 20 billion to 80 billion in the last 10 years.
“When it started,” he said, “it was one in 50 people on the food stamp program. Now, it’s one in 7. Lottery winners, multimillion-dollar lottery winners are getting food stamps because that money is considered to be an asset, not an income.”
Read more here about a $2 million Michigan lottery winner on food stamps.
But for every lottery winner, there are many more of the 46 million Americans – 1 in 7 – who receive federal food aid who really need it. The numbers have, indeed, skyrocketed in recent years, from 26 million to more than 46 million since the recession began.
Read government statistics on food insecurity.
We pointed out to Sessions that for every lottery winner abusing the food stamp system are families that likely need the help.
“Well, look, do you think there are four times as many people that need food stamps today as they did in 2001?” he asked. “This year, they are proposing another 14 percent increase in food stamps without any real reform to understand how it is that it surged so dramatically. We cannot do this. We don’t have the money. If Congress doesn’t understand that we can’t continue to double the food stamp program every three years, they don’t understand how deeply we are impacted by the debt. The debt is already pulling down economic growth, costing jobs. We need people working with jobs, not receiving food stamps.
Sessions wants to tighten restrictions on who can get food stamps and has proposed defeating a planned $9 billion increase to the program.
Revisit ABC’s Hunger at Home series from September.
Food stamps are only part of the problem. He’s concerned even that parts of the president’s jobs proposal that have bipartisan support – infrastructure spending, for instance, will simply add to the debt.
“I am very dubious about the idea of more debt,” Sessions said. “We’ve got to reduce our debt. The debt is a detriment, a blanket over the entire economy, and the more we dig that hole deeper the harder it is to get out of it.”
Sessions said he’d go even further than President Obama’s proposal for a payroll tax cut. Sessions argued the payroll tax, which is meant to fund Social Security, has been raided by big-spending Washington, which uses the cash from the payroll tax and puts IOUs in the trust fund.
“Wouldn’t it be great to totally eliminate the payroll tax?” he asked. “Wouldn’t it be great to do so? But this is the money that funds Social Security. … How do we keep the money in Social Security? The government borrows money to put into the Social Security trust fund to fill back the money that’s not paid in anymore or been reduced. So this is a dangerous trend, it weakens Social Security, it weakens a trust fund concept. I don’t think we can continue. I wish we could. I really wish we had the money to be able to do that, but I’ve concluded we just can’t keep borrowing to spend.”
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Have they changed the rules on how you qualify for foodstamps? He knows the rules have not changed so if you want to change the rules, then change them. His implication that the Government is to blame for the increased number of people who qualify for stamps is wrong. I would like to know the facts, how many are due to the increased number of unemployed? I think his salary should fall in the category of waste. Any elected official that make accusations of abuse in social programs that help the misfortunate in our country MUST show proof.
You don’t have to beat-up the poor to save money….nothing is stopping him from digging into the regulations to find out the problem. Save your speeches and fake outrage for corporate welfare, they are the ones that can afford to defend themselves.
Posted by: focusonjobs1 | October 20, 2011, 4:57 pm 4:57 pm
Sen Sessions is such a precious idiot. He can be counted upon to say the dumbest things.
Food Stamps?? If people “qualify” for them maybe they NEED them.
Could it be anywhere the 4 trillion we pay for the Iraq war for oil?
Posted by: Jon Adams | October 20, 2011, 6:36 pm 6:36 pm
Maybe if he lived the way the rest of us American familes are he would shut his mouth and understand whats going on better. This guy needs to see what it feels like to be jobless with no money and kids to support!
Posted by: Jenny | October 20, 2011, 6:38 pm 6:38 pm
Why don’t you help the debt and take a PAY CUT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Jenny | October 20, 2011, 6:39 pm 6:39 pm
He wants people to have jobs and not be on food stamps….he didn’t look far enough into the statistics to see that most of the people on food stamps DO have jobs….but by the time they pay their bills, there is no money for food!!! Our heating and cooling bills have gone through the roof….everytime we go to the store, the prices have jumped anywhere from 5 to 50% an item on the things we need. Forget eating healthy…..the cost of fresh foods is totally outrageous, but the growers need to feed their families too…. I agree there are abuses in the program. I also agree that the lottery winners winnings should be counted as income instead of an asset….as for the Social Security thing…..He and his fatcat buddies need to quit raiding the funds and leaving the IOU’S….quit taking the coporate payoffs and gifts, and start living like the rest of us have to!!!!
Posted by: Hosserdawg | October 20, 2011, 6:52 pm 6:52 pm
“Well, look, do you think there are four times as many people that need food stamps today as they did in 2001?” he asked. YES!!!! Idiot!! There are 14MILLION people under employed ore unemployed. That means more now than in 2001. That means their FAMILIES are also without. This man is the poster child of the idiotic beliefs of the Republican Party.
Posted by: pksk531 | October 20, 2011, 7:17 pm 7:17 pm
If food stamps were reduced Wal Mart would probably go bankrupt.
Posted by: david | October 20, 2011, 8:07 pm 8:07 pm
What an Idiot..how many families are surviving on unemployment or just 1 income since 2001.
people are barely able to keep the roof over their heads,So yes I can see this happening..what is he doing to get these families jobs so they don’t need food stamps???
Posted by: dawn-a | October 20, 2011, 8:28 pm 8:28 pm
Jeff talks just like a fool out of touch with what is really going on in America.There are people own Food Stamps that really need them including myself.The jobless and the employed are on Food Stamps not because we want to but because we need to.there are people on Food Stamps who use them to buy drugs and the workers know it and nothing is done.The are people on SSI that have nothing wrong with them.They use the money to buy drugs and alcohol and the workers know it.If the workers would do their job and turn in those who are high when they come in to recertify people who really need these programs could get them.There are people every where who abuse programs meant to help all over the U.S.When you go to the grocery store there are people there spending food stamps that have never used them before.If every member of congress and senate would take a pay cut like every one else that money could go to some of the debt we owe.Cut out all the free cars and perks they receive and all the kick backs they receive and run government the way they should they could get more done.If they spent time looking at what the President wants to do and stop blocking every thing may be President Obama could get a bill or four passed.And while sessions is talking maybe he should take a look at Childrens Services so our children will not die and slip through the cracks while living in abusive homes.
Posted by: Yvette | October 20, 2011, 9:23 pm 9:23 pm
With several citizens in the nation enduring the highest unemploment and under-employed year ever, it would appear that history is repeating itself and Senator Sessions is giving us his best Marie Antoinette performance. Lucky for the Senator, we are in a democracy, where the outsting of priviledged callous ruling few, who enjoy making moronic public statements, is done by the pull of the ballot box lever rather than the guillotine.
Posted by: G Angelo J-B | October 21, 2011, 1:26 am 1:26 am
Take away food stamps and see what happens. Most idiot congress-critters understand that.
Posted by: Max Fenster | October 21, 2011, 2:11 am 2:11 am
As if we needed more proof of how stunningly out of touch with America the Republican politicians are. Sessions said, “It had doubled in the last three years. It had quadrupled from 20 billion to 80 billion in the last 10 years”. And that corresponds PERFECTLY to the coming to fruition of the FAILED Republican economic policy for this country. While Middle Class incomes have been steadily declining since 2001, costs have been rising. Three years ago we were in the middle of the worst Recession in decades. Sessions, you really, really need to buy a clue…………
Posted by: Searambler | October 21, 2011, 12:08 pm 12:08 pm
So let’s consider lottery winnings income, and let’s add capital gains and hedge funds to income also. That would fix the deficit in a hurry.
Posted by: Tom Gee | October 23, 2011, 8:25 am 8:25 am
So let’s consider lottery winnings income, and let’s add capital gains and hedge funds to income also. That would fix the deficit in a hurry. Posted by: Tom Gee | October 23, 2011, 8:25 am.
Lottery winnings are already taxed as income. Yes, we need to eliminate the inherently unfair capital gains tax, and tax that income at the regular income tax rate. I cannot fathom how they can say that making money OFF OF other money is not the same ‘income’ or the same situation as making money by producing a good or a service, or working for a company that produces goods and services. And, we need to tax religious organizations as businesses and end their ridiculous tax-exempt status. All of that would eliminate the deficit and go a long way towards lowering the debt……….
Posted by: Searambler | October 23, 2011, 10:09 am 10:09 am
When will people wake up and see these slime ball politicians for what they are? According to Roll Call, in 2009 Jeff Sessions net worth climbed 124% to 2 million dollars. The politicians in D.C. are no different from what they would have us believe about the Communist party officials. Remember how they liked to point out how rich Commie Party members are compared to the general public — they are no different in D.C. which is the real source of the world’s evil and greed.
Posted by: LK | October 30, 2011, 10:55 am 10:55 am