Taxpayers Have Spent $15 Trillion on ‘War on Poverty’
8th April 2013
And yet the poor are still with us — to hear the Democrats talk, now more than ever. How to account for this?
Since President Lyndon Baines Johnson declared “war on poverty,” U.S. taxpayers have spent $15 trillion on so-called anti-poverty programs—a figure slightly less than the national debt.
Gee, I wonder if there’s some connection.
In 1969, just 2.8 million Americans received food stamps. Today, over 47 million Americans are on food stamps. The Fox News special explained that one contributing factor to the massive expansion of the food stamp program is the crony capitalism that has cropped up around the anti-poverty program.
Soda makers, for example, bag an estimated $4 billion a year in taxpayer money through the food stamp program. Efforts to kill the so-called “soda subsidy” have been met with fierce resistance and lobbying by the soda industry.
Oh, say it ain’t so.
In Florida, State Senator Ronda Storms (R-Valrico) introduced a bill last year that would keep taxpayer-funded SNAP benefits from being spent on non-essential items like sodas, candy, chips, ice cream, and other junk foods.
“The biggest opponents I have right now are Coca Cola, the soda companies, the chip companies and the convenience store operators,” said Storms in an interview with Fox News.
It’s free! Just swipe your EBT!