Food Stamp Funding Set to Drop by $5B, Still Spend $75B Annually

Thanks to the automatic sunset of stimulus funding, food stamp funding is set to shrink by $5 billion annually – but we’ll still be spending $75 billion annually on food stamps, enrollment in which has swelled in excess of 70% during President Obama’s administration.

Overall, some 47 million Americans are on food stamps. The average level of benefits now stands at approximately $133 per month. That means that households of 1 will lose $11 per month.

The House and Senate are currently fighting over the farm bill, which Democrats want to boost spending on food stamps – they want to spend $760 billion on food stamps over the next decades. Republicans would prefer to spend some $721 billion over the next ten years. The House would also prefer to see able-body childless adults work rather than living purely off of government assistance – benefits would increase based on working. The House also wants to match up federal benefits with state benefits so that people stop double dipping. The Democratic Senate doesn’t want to do any of that.

Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org. Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.