Tea at Trianon: Hidden Bloat in America’s Food Stamp and School Lunch Programs

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, November 13, 2025

Hidden Bloat in America’s Food Stamp and School Lunch Programs

From Sharyl's Substack:

12.5% of the U.S. population gets food stamps, costing taxpayers nearly $100 billion.
About 3 million children of illegal immigrants get food stamps.
72% of public school children get free or reduced-priced school meals.
One in three kids getting school meals is an illegal immigrant.
In our wealthy nation, nearly 42 million people rely on “food stamps.” Twenty-one million kids get free or reduced-price school lunches. It’s reasonable to ask two key questions: How many people are getting the help— but aren’t truly needy? And what toll is America’s illegal immigrant crisis taking on the programs?
As welfare enrollment hovers at historically high levels, stories from states that cracked down on ineligible food stamp users reveal a stark truth: minimal reforms can slash caseloads by up to 80% without harming the truly vulnerable, exposing how years of loose enforcement have inflated the system to unsustainable proportions. Additionally, the lax oversight stands to drain billions from taxpayers, while some Americans’ needs may go unanswered.
Read on for details. (Read more.)