Foodstamp Program Shutdown Imminent?

I know what everyone must be thinking but rest assured there will still be enough money for the war machine!

marg6043
reply to post by DancedWithWolves

 

Wrong, is a tax that will be imposed on the working able young people to pay for the sick, is more enslavement of the working tax payer class.

Learn the facts about Obamacrap. Nothing in America is free, in order for one person to get something, they think is free, somebody else have to work their butts off and pay taxes.

Is a bastardized type of socialism in a capitalistic country, so the ones of the top keeps getting rich while the ones in the middle gets screwed to pay for the ones at the bottom of the pyramid.

Considering that i'm part of the top 40% in income, and already feel the largest amount of weigh on taxes, I really don't care if my taxes go up to help other people in our nation.

Single-payer healthcare system? Yes please.

Subsidized higher education, and better (more critical thinking skills) K-12 education? Oh hell yes.

If those two things were enacted, I would be livid with joy to pay 45% in taxes. It would save us money in the long-run across the board, and our society would benefit greatly from it.

How old am I? Well I just started looking at the hill... and plan on living to around 200 - 300 years old, with maybe 40 - 50 years of retirement at the end of that stretch. That means that I'm looking at another 100 - 160 years of working.

And I know the ones at the bottom, heck for 2 years I lived with 3 people that blew my mind. All three of them were suckling on the government, one with SSDI, another on long-term unemployment because he refused to work on the weekend (religious to the core) and would only apply for retail, and the third is a walmart emp who also gets food stamps. All on medicaide or medicare, and the irony? All vote republican on everything. Yet they're the exception to the rule. If our society was to change into one where the poor are empowered to move up in life, instead of our current situation of enabling everyone to stay at the bottom, we would see some miraculous things happen in the next 20 years.

reply to post by Libertygal


It's probably a real letter.

It doesn't say what people think it says though. All it says is 'If you normally send your issuance files early, then please don't. We'll let you know when to send them. Thanks'.

No matter how much some people on here seem to think it's their wet dream fantasy zombipocalypse shooting looter frenzy fest, that isn't what it says.

khimbar
reply to post by Libertygal

 

It's probably a real letter.

It doesn't say what people think it says though. All it says is 'If you normally send your issuance files early, then please don't. We'll let you know when to send them. Thanks'.

No matter how much some people on here seem to think it's their wet dream fantasy zombipocalypse shooting looter frenzy fest, that isn't what it says.

I agree with your assessment, but the language in the PDF is a bit different, and discusses lapses in funding. you should probably view the PDF I provided the links to on the previous page.

Would love to hear your opinion, if you do.

reply to post by Libertygal


Just read it.

It does say that all benefits for October are sorted and paid for but makes no mention of Novembers, or later months other than to say 'Should a lapse extend through late October, federal WIC funding may not be sufficient to cover benefits.'

WIC seems to be the name for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.

But then it wouldn't mention Novembers as it states this is only for lapses of a short duration, in their words, of under one month.

'Should the funding lapse be longer, the FNCS contingency plan and these associated impacts will be re-visited and updated'

So to recap...I'm none the wiser! Interesting though, thanks for the tip off about it.

Some of the text referenced from the USDA letter, which, in the first paragraph, refers the reader to an emergency contingency plan:

We have tentatively determined that no additional federal funds would be available to support several Food and Nutrition Consumer Service (FNCS) Programs beginning on October 1 if continuing appropriations are not provided. States may make the decision to continue operations for some period, but they will be doing so at their own risk with the understanding that Federal funds may not be forthcoming.

Specific program impacts of a lapse in funding are provided below. These impacts assume that the lapse is of short duration (i.e., less than one month). Should the funding lapse be longer, the FNCS contingency plan and these associated impacts will be re-visited and updated: • The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will continue operations and eligible households will still receive monthly benefits for October. The authority to make October benefit payments comes from the Recovery Act, through which Congress provided “such sums as are necessary” to finance the SNAP benefit provided for in the Recovery Act. In addition, about $2 billion in contingency funding will be available and could be used to support State Administrative activities essential to continue the program and issue and process benefits. These contingency funds were provided in the FY 2013 appropriation and do not expire until the end of FY 2014.

• USDA is working with WIC State agencies to use all available funding resources to provide benefits to participants. FNS will be allocating both contingency and carryover funds to State agencies for use in operating their FY 2014 WIC Program, in addition to other available funds. Should a lapse extend through late October, federal WIC funding may not be sufficient to cover benefits.

According to the PDF, she followed the Contingency Plan, and accordingly, it matches the date on the letter. The table of tasks for October 1, 2013 was to mail out these letters.

Can be no more confirmation than this.

One note, according to the PDF, they expect the "shutdown" to be less than one month. If it goes over one month, they will re-advise.

The PDF does not mention the debt ceiling, or default.

reply to post by khimbar


Nps. just linked some text in case some people are dubious about visiting .gov links. This *is* ATS, afterall!



Thanks for checking out, though. I, like you, am none the wiser for it, just noticed some interesting things that continue to verify this is very real.

I just consider it a warning, and the EBT issue last weekend was a dry run alright. Now, I think it was a dry run of how fast they can shut it down, and put it back up. They were testing the kill switch.

I bet money there wasn't one a couple of weeks ago.

ETA: according to that text, (I left this out accidentally) the Recovery Act provides for funds through 2014.

I don't think anything is going to happen to EBT. TANF, probably, but that is a different beast.

skuly
This memo was first posted on the Crossroads Facebook page and has been picked
up by zerohedge today.

To wit: "understanding the operational issues and constraints that States face, and in the interest of preserving maximum flexibility, we are directing States to hold their November issuance files and delay transmission to State electronic benefit transfer (EBT) vendors until further notice." In other words, as Fox13News summarizes, "States across the country are being told to stop the supplemental nutrition assistance program for the month of November, pending further notice."

Zerohedge

If Zerohedge is reading this right then if there no deal in Congress then the food stamps stops
and with 47 million on them its going to hurt a lot of people.

you are reading right.and what is concerning is "until further notice" I hope everyone understands the language in the phrase.Why are impeachment proceedings not being pushed forward?please tell me my countrymen are not this ignorant.

reply to post by dellmonty


Anyone willing to wager the "several states" referred to in the letter are the 17 states that had issues over the weekend?

reply to post by Pimpintology

You know I am surprised they didn't kick medicaid immediately, no one takes it the only thing that its good for is a very small list of prescriptions.

I don't know where you are getting your information from, but it's way off as far as Medicaid goes. Sure, Medicaid dropped a lot of coverage over the yrs., as far as certain operations and RX's, but still covers a lot, including 24 Drs appts. per yr., and a lot of RX's necessary to keep some people alive (with zero to a small co-pay). Because I became disabled at such a young age and was a few credits off, I qualified/qualify for Medicaid myself.. so know a bit about it. There are medications that I must take every day of my life and one of those is necessary to keep me alive.

Some may say that I'm nothing more than a useless eater, however, I don't believe those people are qualified to make that call.

I imagine there are several programs that I would be eligible for if I were to inquire about them, but I choose not to-I'm managing so far. But for those who do get food stamps and find themselves hungry, we should all do what we can to make sure that people don't lay their heads down to bed in hunger. It's up to all of us to help in whatever way we can-if at all possible.

reply to post by netbound

Anyway, for the life of me I can’t imagine where these lunatics in Congress are coming from. The very idea that they’re not only willing, but actually eager about the prospect of tanking our economy is simply unthinkable

I could not agree more. Political posturing in a way that hurts our country and to what end? There is no excuse for allowing things to come to this point.

Honestly, I feel that our dear leaders are completely out of touch with the real people-and the fact that they work for us is a joke--to me and I believe-to them!

reply to post by skuly


What is the problem????

If the Govt can't pay for one thing, how can it pay for another?


The food stamp program needs to be scaled back, along side with every other Govt program.

It may come down to taking away the children in poor families. It can also lead to placing the elderly in convalescent homes. For their own safety that is. When the gov stocks up it is a sure sign of a red flag. At some point the poor and needy will have to line up for their rations rather than being given the right to purchase what they choose. The contracts will be part of a new farm bill whos only contracts are those who comply with companies like Monsanto. Most will either be big BIG agri or South American/ Asian contracts.

reply to post by macman


What's the problem? I have no doubts the memo of services being discontinued to these folks is also in the mail...



What's the problem? Really?

We must live in two very different Americas. This isn't how any honorable government "scales back."

Hunting season is upon us and the deer population is way up.

reply to post by wildtimes

NONE of those asshats are getting back into office....

they just sealed their own fates. Finally.

I hope you are right but something tells me, wont happen.

reply to post by macman


I agree, America has become the welfare state of the world, but is not oversight to check who really needs the help, most of the people in my neck of the wood are able and healthy to find a darn job, but they get to ride the system and take it away from the ones that really needs it, meanwhile the working class get screwed every time that the government wants to keep feeding the welfare system.

Who is letting the children go hungry? first of all parents that uses them to ride the system, no all the millions of people that receive welfare are disable, sick and unable.

Veterans disability is a necessity as the veterans earned that right, no like welfare that is a service no an earned right.

hal4511
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

Think about it, cold weather is coming and people will do just about anything for food, I’m sure there will be riots but then what? After the stores are looted what will people do? The government will step in to feed them and in all this they will want to keep track of them too, this is where they start tagging people, chipping them.

We may be farther along the timeline than we realize … this could get scary in a quick hurry.

Doesn't anyone hunt or fish anymore, grow a garden, can some goods, be prepared.

Even if you are on food-stamps, buy a few non perishables ever month, store things.

I wish I had four or five hundred extra a month to pay for food.

Seriously, we all need to learn to live off the grid, think about it, if you are unemployed and healthy go hunting or something.

The government is not going to default so this is just irresponsible of officials to send out - too early to do so (if it only has to do with shutdown). It is common knowledge among my clients as they have been told the possibility exists by someone.

These people in office (including the USDA) need to get it together and think before sending out notices like this, if this is a contigency should the government not figure it out. Having said that - that's what I'm unclear about - are they doing this even if they do reopen? If so or if not - they need to make a public statement as the info is now distributed through the population, and it has spread fast.