Conservative Republicans Force the Liberal Democrats to Cut Food Stamps

           The United States Congress passed the agriculture bill, which President Barack Obama has signed into law.  The appropriation measure continues many farm subsidies, shifts funds from a subsidy program that paid farmers not to farm to other programs and increases overall spending, but there was one major concession the liberal Democratic-led Senate and President had to make to the Republican-led House: an $800 million cut in the food stamp program.

           Like other welfare and entitlement programs that have increased dramatically under the Obama Administration, the food stamp program increases dependency on government and remains riddled with fraud.  Federal welfare programs, which are of dubious constitutionality because they violate federalism, are used by the liberal Democrats to benefit their constituency at the expense of those who earn the money, with the ludicrous excuse that taking money from one person and giving it to another, after the federal government middleman takes his cut, is somehow stimulative to the overall economy.  After welfare reform resulted in significant reductions to welfare spending in the 1990s, however, the economy prospered as more people took jobs, thereby generating more taxable income and, in turn, further decreasing federal spending. Therefore, federal welfare programs should be reformed again by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse and tightening eligibility rules, if not be phased out completely, at least by giving block grants to the States to administer the program entirely as they see fit.  In the meantime, there are various proposals by fiscally responsible conservative Republicans in Congress to reduce some of the welfare and entitlement fraud. 

            As with the series of spending compromises over the last two years, about which I have posted, the agricultural appropriation increases spending, but at a slower rate than otherwise would have occurred had Congressional conservatives, especially in the House, where they are the largest group within the majority-GOP caucus, not insisted on them.  Together with the budget cuts that have come about through sequestration, the deficit is significantly lower than during the first two years of the Obama Administration, when liberal Democrats were in the majority of both chambers of Congress and went on a record-setting spending spree.  However, the level of deficit spending remains unacceptably high as the debt has ballooned to nearly $17 trillion.

           In fact, the next dispute will soon be in regard to the federal debt limit, which is once again about to be exceeded.  Conservative Republicans must continue to insist on spending cuts to pay for the current spending in order to stop the debt from further increasing.  We conservatives should remind Congress that the debt undermines market confidence and necessitates burdensome taxes, both now and for future generations.  We must demand that Congress take significant action now to rein in debt and restore fiscal responsibility.