For the first time since 1976, the number of people receiving food stamps outnumbers the number of women working full-time.

If that sounds impossible, just look at the numbers. In 2013, 46,609,000 people collected food stamps while only 44,059,000 women had full-time jobs. That’s a 2.5 million difference.

Even more concerning is the growth rate of the food stamp program. In 1969, when the program was first introduced, only 2,878,000 people qualified. Today’s astronomical enrollment reveals an increase of 1,552 percent. If this 34 percent average annual increase were to continue, the entire U.S. population will be on food assistance in the next six years.

This should absolutely shock us. It reveals just how monstrous our welfare programs have become—and this is only the food stamp program.

Billions in taxpayer dollars flood welfare programs, but fewer and fewer people are working. Without revenue from hard-working Americans, these programs have no funding. At this growth rate, our welfare program will collapse on itself in the very near future.

The age-old Democratic line that Republicans hate the poor will resurface as these numbers become public. Liberals will cry, “What? Do you think you are better than them? They need help.”

We need to fight back with this shocking data. Shouldn’t we consider the danger that runaway welfare poses to the American future? Yes, cutting entitlements hurts, but not as much as a collapsed economy. We need to be forward-thinking.

Now is a perfect time to quote William F. Buckley’s column, “Are you against the handicapped?”:

It is distinctively the conservative who looks beyond the immediate effect of any particular expenditure; that the liberal foreshortens his perspective, so that he is able to talk only in terms of, Are you or aren’t you in favor of helping invalids? It is an onerous responsibility that the conservative needs to bear under the pressure of such demagogy…

Funny how little has changed over the last forty or so years.