Video: Thousands Line Up In Philadelphia For Food Stamps

Why the shock that when you throw other people's money on the street that thousands show up to stuff their pockets? From CBS Philly: Thousands Line Up In Philadelphia For Food Stamps

Thousands of Philadelphia residents gathered in long lines, citywide, waiting hours outside of 12 County Assistance Offices, hoping to apply for relief following Hurricane Irene.

The residents, many confused and lacking official information, hoped to receive a month of food stamps for food ruined by floods and power problems caused by the hurricane.

The program, called Disaster SNAP (supplemental nutrition assistance program), was created by the federal government and is administered by the State Department of Public Welfare.

Because of unexpectedly large turnouts, the application process was moved from Disaster Recovery Centers in Philadelphia to the 12 state offices in neighborhoods citywide.

The video report:

It's going in the direction of Greece, no? Speaking of, via Instapundit, a revolt:

AS WELFARE STATE COLLAPSES, GREEKS SUFFER AND FEAR FUTURE: “Sitting in the modest living room of the home she shares with her parents, husband and two teenage children, Stella Firigou fretted about how the family would cope with the uncertainties of an economy crashing all around them. But she was adamant about one thing: she would not pay a new property tax that was the centerpiece of a new austerity package announced this month by the Greek government. . . . Critics say the country has failed to adequately crack down on tax evasion among the wealthiest segments of society — and failed to carry out more focused cuts because it is reluctant to take on some public-sector unions that protect a small, powerful cadre of workers who have deep ties to the governing Socialist Party.”

Plus this:

“WE WON’T PAY:” Greek Middle Class Revolts Against Higher Taxes. “Small business owners in Greece have long been the backbone of the economy and reliable taxpayers in a country where tax evasion is rampant. That, though, is now changing. Self-employed workers like Angelos Belitsakos have had enough of rising taxes and have begun to revolt.”

And this:

DAN MITCHELL: The Tea Party Goes Global: Revolt Of The Greek Tax Slaves. “The fiscal turmoil in Greece is not about fiscal balance. It’s a fight between looters and moochers such as Olga Stefou, who think taxpayers should endlessly subsidize everything, and the shrinking group of productive people who are pulling the wagon and keeping Greece’s economy from total collapse. Not surprisingly, the Greek government has tried to prop up its uncompetitive welfare state by pillaging that group of productive people. But it appears that the kleptocrats may have gone too far and triggered a Tea Party-type revolt. . . . These two stories underscore the message that I’ve been repeating for years. Greece’s problem is not deficits and debt. Red ink and imminent default are bad, but they are symptoms of the real problem of a bloated public sector and the dependency culture created by too much government.”

UPDATE: Speaking of Philly, perhaps Sodom and Gomorrah  is a better analogy than Greece: Flash Mob Home Break-In Edition: Philly Mob Busts into “White Mother-F**ker’s” House – Beats Him With Pipes

Video: Sen Tom Harkin (D-IA) Encourages Citizens To Riot, ‘Get Arrested’ To Save Welfare

The predictable result of coerced government dependency: "Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) spoke at a rally in Washington DC and said "we need some of you probably getting arrested for doing things you shouldn't be doing" to save Medicaid."

It wasn't just Harkin either: SEIU Honcho Calls For Mass Civil Disobedience To Create & Spread Crisis Across US

'Never let a crisis go to waste.' Especially one that you yourself create.

Predictable: MA Welfare Recipients Spent Money On Resorts, Nail Salons

Why be surprised when those that get other people's money simply piss it away?

A WCVB Investigation found more than $2.3 million in Massachusetts welfare money, meant to help the needy buy food, pay their rent and clothe their children, has been spent in locations outside the state in a three-month period, including pricey vacation destinations like Hawaii, Las Vegas, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Via BreitbartTV

Video: Rappers joke about receiving welfare $$$

The logical result of handing out other people's money to those that refuse to be productive (language warning):

And from moonbattery: "To be honest that wasn’t exactly inspired. We’ve seen better:"

The War On Poverty Is Lost (And Was A Stupid War To Begin With)

The longest war we have ever been involved in? That would be the war on poverty, almost 50 years, $trillions down the toilet, and a higher poverty rate to show for it. The War on Poverty was launched during the time of Lyndon B Johnson with the 'Great Society' legislation  in the 1960s (specifically the Economic Opportunity Act in 1964) that had 2 features: 1) Medicare which is going to bankrupt the country soon, and 2) Welfare which was supposed to be a nuke in the war (it was - just not in the way it was intended). We have supposedly been fighting that war ever since. It's now been 47 years. Trillions of dollars have been thrown at the war. How's it going? It's gotten WORSE in the 47 years of the war. Here's a relevant graphic of poverty rates:

This should be harry Reid on the War on Poverty, not Iraq:

From the AP:

The U.S. census bureau says 46 million people now live in poverty. 70 miles outside Chicago is Pembroke, where 50 percent of the people are unemployed.

Thank Obama and Democrats next November by putting them in the long unemployment lines that they themselves created:

Headlines over at drudge:

• POVERTY SOARS
  SETS NEW RECORD
• 46.2 million Americans are now poor...
• 22% of children in poverty...
• Dramatic drop in median income...
• Likely to worsen...

UPDATE: Rush Limbaugh - When Obama Shows Up At A Soup Kitchen,It Reminds All Of Us To Remember, That It Is Obama Who Put All The People Who Were In The Soup Kitchen,In The Soup Kitchen

Video report: Woman convicted in "rare" welfare trial

Why rare? Because the ruing class for the most part doesn't care. Prosecuting welfare fraud goes against their government dependency agenda:

Here in MI, the GOP is starting to crack down on the leeches, and the establishment MSM is of course up in arms about it. For example, college students can no longer get on the dole for food stamps, wit this reaction by the media: Bridge card victory! Michigan continues its policy of letting college students suffer. Yeah - no food stamps for college kids is 'suffering.' Uh um.  But where one hole gets plugged, elsewhere a new leak occurs: New program offers affordable Internet service for low-income families. Yup -internet welfare. Ugh.

UPDATE: Via Carpe Diem: A New Civil Right: The Right to Raise Hell in Section 8 Rental Housing in Formerly Nice Neighborhoods: Another Failed Government Housing Policy 

"Section 8 rental subsidies have long been one of the most controversial federal social programs. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the Obama administration is making a troubled program worse.

In the 1990s, the feds were embarrassed by skyrocketing crime rates in public housing—up to 10 times the national average, according to HUD studies and many newspaper reports. The government's response was to hand out vouchers to residents of the projects, dispersing them to safer and more upscale locales.

Section 8's budget soared to $19 billion this year from $7 billion in 1994. HUD now picks up the rent for more than two million households nationwide; tenants pay 30% of their income toward rent and utilities while the feds pay the rest.

But the dispersal of public housing residents to quieter neighborhoods has failed to weed out the criminal element that made life miserable for most residents of the projects. "Homicide was simply moved to a new location, not eliminated," concluded University of Louisville criminologist Geetha Suresh in a 2009 article in Homicide Studies. In Louisville, Memphis, and other cities, violent crime skyrocketed in neighborhoods where Section 8 recipients resettled.

Recall that Obama famously stated that he wanted to "spread the wealth around" to Joe the plumber. But socialism does no such thing. Instead, it spreads the misery around, as the above story demonstrates.

Mark Steyn: The West has incentivized non-productivity on an industrial scale.

A snippet from Mark Steyn via Instapundit: The West has incentivized non-productivity on an industrial scale.

...The problem for the Western world is that it has incentivized non-productivity on an industrial scale. For large numbers at the lower end of the spectrum (still quaintly referred to by British reporters as “working class”), the ritual of work — of lifetime employment as a normal feature of life — has been all but bred out by multigenerational dependency. At the upper end of the spectrum, too many of us seem to regard an advanced Western society as the geopolitical version of a lavishly endowed charitable foundation that funds somnolent programming on NPR. I was talking to a trustiefundie Vermont student the other day who informed me her ambition is to “work for a non-profit.”

“What kind of ambition is that?” I said, a little bewildered. But she meant it, and so do most of her friends. Doesn’t care particularly what kind of “non-profit” it is: as long as no profits are involved, she’s eager to run up a six-figure college debt for a piece of the non-action. The entire state of Vermont is becoming a non-profit. And so in a certain sense is an America that’s 15 trillion dollars in the hole, and still cheerfully spending away.

Well, I wouldn't say 'cheerfully.' At least not for most Americans. The political ruling class on the other hand...

In between the non-profit class and the non-working class, we have diverted too much human capital into a secure and undemanding bureaucracy-for-life: President Obama has further incentivized statism as a career through his education “reforms,” under which anyone who goes into “public service” will have their college loans forgiven after ten years.

Why?

As I point out in my book, in the last six decades the size of America’s state and local government workforce has increased over three times faster than the general population. Yet Obama says it’s still not enough: The bureaucracy needs even more of our manpower. Up north, Canada is currently undergoing a festival of mawkish sub–Princess Di grief-feasting over the death from cancer of the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. Jack Layton’s career is most instructive. He came from a family of successful piano manufacturers — in 1887 H. A. Layton was presented with a prize for tuning by Queen Victoria’s daughter. But by the time Jack came along, the family’s private-sector wealth-creation gene had been pretty much tuned out for good: He was a career politician, so is his wife, and his son. They’re giving him a state funeral because being chair of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Toronto Renewable Energy Co-operative is apparently more admirable than being chairman of Layton Bros Pianos Ltd.

Again: Why?

Read the whole thing. Related via moonbattery: It’s Free, Swipe Your EBT. EBT = Electronic Benefits Transfer = 'free money' = Obama bucks from our utterly bankrupt federal government.

Doubling Down On Stupid: Obama AG Secretary Vilsack Repeats Absurd Claim That More People On Food Stamps Means More Jobs

We should all quit our jobs and go on food stamps. Rainbows and unicorns to follow: Vilsack Again: Food Stamps Helped 'Job Growth' Over Last 17 Months 

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack again claimed that government food stamps have contributed to "17 consecutive months" of private sector job creation, arguing that the federal food aid puts money into the economy more quickly than anything else.

Um - where did that money that gets 'put into the economy' come from? Same economy. So somehow, pulling money out of the economy, to put it back into the economy, and taxing it on the way through, creates jobs? The audio:

And from an earlier post: Obama AG Secretary Continues Absurd Claim: More People On Food Stamps Means More Jobs

Worse yet, it is a disincentive for people to actually find a job. Related in the welfare = stimulus idiocy: White House: Paying People Not To Work (ie - Unemployment Benefits) Could Create Up To 1 Million Jobs, And You're Stupid For Not Knowing How Even Though We Can't Explain It Either

Flashback: FDR on welfare 1935: "The lessons of history … show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit". The current crop of Democrats on the Hill think differently than that: Video of Pelosi: Food Stamps And Unemployment Give Us The "Biggest Bang For The Buck". It has lead to this situation, from Doug Ross: Two nausea-inducing charts

Fox News reports:Good News: Nearly One in Seven Americans Are On Food Stamps

Like a drug addict addicted to heroin, separating the dependent from the drug will be painful. At least during the transition. But to get back to a sustainable civilization, we need to go back to first principles. Which is the whole point why the US Constitution was written. The ruling class has drifted away from it, with the approval of activist courts. Follow our founding document and we'll be fine once again. And just remember that according to Ed Schultz, "Food Stamps" just code for racism