Corporations Profit From $75 Billion Tax Payer Funded Food Stamps Program

by Tim Brown

“Boomtown 1: Washington, The Imperial City” exposed the cronyism and luxurious lifestyle of Washington, DC’s power elite. On Friday “Boomtown 2: The Business of Food Stamps” Government Accountability Institute (GAI) President Peter Schweizer and Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon exposed how politicians and corporations have used the country’s food stamps program to profit on the backs of tax payers.

Though the food stamps program was always meant to be a “safety net” to provide temporary assistance, Schweizer pointed out that it has “become an insider game of power and profit” for corporations who are attempting to get a slice of the $75 billiion provided by the taxpayers.

Schwiezer pointed out that as the food stamps budget increases, so do the market shares of the nations’ top companies who are attempting to get a piece of the action.

The GAI president points out that the food stamps program was intended to provide basic foods, but has grown to include all types of things including soft drinks and fast food. We have also pointed out that the food stamps program has been used to purchase guns, drugs and pay for strippers and massage parlors, not to mention that the USDA has targeted illegal aliens for the program.

The fraud of the food stamps program has grown since EBT cards were issued in 2002, which gave no reason for either government or corporations to look to reform the system or limit the fraud.

J. P. Morgan, which administers many of the EBT cards, like other companies, gets a cut from each transaction provided via the food stamps program. The entire system is a fraud and immoral.

Not only do corporations profit from this corrupt system, but companies like Coca Cola and Kraft Foods have “lobbied against laws” that would make sodas ineligible to purchase with food stamps Schweizer said.

He also said “”a nutrition program designed to provide supplemental nutrition to people having a hard time making ends meet” has become a stimulus and jobs program that politicians have tried to expand with no resistance. In fact, it was House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) who brazenly suggested that welfare stimulates the economy.

Schwiezer rightly points out that this kind of thinking is nothing more than “traditional Keynesian argument, that you spend government money and somehow it multiplies.” He then goes on to state that there is not economic evidence to support that claim.

While House Republicans were threatening to cut the food stamps bill last year, the gravy train just keeps rolling.