[knowtheory]

Unless you can a) point to numbers indicating that your claim is true, and more importantly b) justify how this isn't just a teeeeny tiiiiiiny drop in the bucket compared to defense spending, tax cuts and health care costs, your post is essentially irrelevant noise in the grander scheme of federal budget politics.

And come to think of it, even if food stamp spending is at an all time high, isn't that consistent with the idea that the economy is fucked and suddenly there are a lot more families dependent on food stamps because of the inability of the labor market to bring down unemployment?

[jstalin]

Food stamp usage breaking historical pattern of going down when joblesness decreases (and at an all time high): http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-26/food-stamps-keep-go...

Two Charts Exposing America's Record Shadow Welfare State - Disability going up dramatically: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/two-charts-exposing-americas-r...

Oh, and I never said I support gigantic amounts of defense spending. I'm talking about dependence, not federal spending or budgeting. You've diverted what I said to another topic.

[dlokshin]

On top of that, the US Gov now accounts for ~25% of wages in this country:

http://cl.ly/2a0p1T3a1B0y1B08050g

[jbooth]

And that figure's been on a downward trend for the last several years. Take out military and it's been on a downward trend for a decade.