Pearl River      The editorial page crew at the Wall Street Journal in the privacy of their own offices and clubs probably still believes that the world is flat, women shouldn’t vote, majority rule is debatable, and cranial size might still be a good way to judge race and ethnicity.  They definitely have no interest in looking at the facts and data past their own noses, if it conflicts with their atavistic ideology.

That’s the only rational conclusion that can be made after reading their lead editorial, which could have been titled “The Sun Rises in the West,” but is titled “The Food Stamp Reform is Working.”  They come to this conclusion solely based on the evidence that more people are not receiving benefits and the cost of the food stamp program is declining, both of which are tragically true statements.

From these two facts, their callous ideology races to the conclusion that, “A major reform goal was to encourage work and to stop enabling the homeless with drug addicts who resist treatment.  The regrettable reality is that food stamps are fungible, giving addicts more money to spend on drugs.”  The hapless reader wasn’t half-way through their biased screed before running headlong into this wildly pejorative effort to insinuate that food stamps were mainly about the homeless; that the homeless are drug addicts; that not only are they drug addicts but they resist treatment; and, finally, that food stamps are fungible – spendable like money – and give these homeless drug addicts more money for drugs.  Amazing!  Not one word of this paragraph is support by facts or data, only the editorialist’s bile.  Overwhelming evidence from the government, both state and federal, supports the reality that the vast majority of recipient families are in fact gainfully employed, just at wages that are inadequate to support their families in the communities in which they live.  As for fungible, they must not read their own paper or listen to their comrade yahoos in the Republican Party that they tout for this supposed “reform,” since there are increased restrictions on what can be bought and huge penalties for any store that allows stamps to be cashed out.

Almost anyone who can look at the facts, realizes that these drastic drops in benefits are being triggered by the bureaucracy embedded in the new regulations, and not the work requirement.  There is no sign that unemployment is less, or that more have found jobs.  Arizona state officials, where the drop-off is more than half of recipients are clear that these are paper cuts of eligible recipients.  The Journal’s hit parade of states with the highest drops includes Connecticut, Indiana, Texas, Utah, Illinois, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Florida, Nevada, and Georgia, in addition to Arizona, all with 15% of more declines.

Liars use numbers, but numbers don’t necessarily lie, even if the editorialist has no interest.  There is no indication that any of this means more found jobs on offer, they simply had hungrier families.  Of course, pretending that these are families are nothing but homeless drug addicts is the way the Journal wants to change the characterization from underemployed working families to scum.

They report that food stamps are going to cost $85.7 billion this fiscal year, less than $100 billion projected.  Taxpayers are going to be on the hook for $400 billion for Trump’s ballroom for the rich and diplomats, but for goodness’ sake, let’s join the Journal in attacking working family at less than a quarter of the cost.

Shame!