Missouri Republicans are trying to ban food stamp recipients from buying steak and seafood

[jknowgood]

Exactly.
I used to bristle at the thought of denying foodstamp recipients carte blanche when it came to spending their snap dollars as well, I was like "If it's legal for them, they should have the authority to spend it as they please".

Except that begs the question....what is the purpose of the program? The purpose of the program is to stave off starvation. If that's the purpose, then why are we providing empty calories that serve no purpose?

My change of mind came after having a series of involved discussions with a DHS program manager, over the course of 4 years. She said it wasn't a hardship and it wasn't micromanagement...this is CHARITY..and all the rest of us have to budget our food allotment, why should snap recipients be any different? Why should they be able to buy doritos and m&Ms and soda fountain pop..when those of us who are PAYING for their food can't afford them? That's just backwards and wrong.

The purpose of the program is to provide people the means to purchase food. At some point, we have to stop treating people like children, assume they can make decisions for themselves, and then let them live with the consequences of deciding badly.

First it wasn't enough to let people go hungry if they wouldn't provide for themselves (I'm not a supporter of letting people suffer if they're incapable of providing for themselves); we had to provide for them. Now it's not enough for them to be fat and unhealthy if they don't choose to eat properly; we must force them to eat what we think they should. At what point do we stop treating adults like retarded five-year-olds and taking over more and more of their independence?

You can when you're responsible enough to support yourself. If you expect tax payers to support you then you lose certain choices.

Is it reading comprehension or ignorant dick attitude that makes you incapable of having a conversation without making it about the personal? No wonder you're eating your liver out over what you imagine other people are doing. Get a grip.

It's my fucking money you dumbass. If you want the best of foods get a job and support yourself. If not be grateful to the tax payers that are supporting your dumbass.

Ignorant dick attitude it is. Call me when you grow up into a real conservative instead of stumbling by accident into a position and thinking it makes you mature.

This is what liberalism has created. Ungrateful little shit heads.

 

[Conservative65]

The purpose of the program is to provide people the means to purchase food. At some point, we have to stop treating people like children, assume they can make decisions for themselves, and then let them live with the consequences of deciding badly.

First it wasn't enough to let people go hungry if they wouldn't provide for themselves (I'm not a supporter of letting people suffer if they're incapable of providing for themselves); we had to provide for them. Now it's not enough for them to be fat and unhealthy if they don't choose to eat properly; we must force them to eat what we think they should. At what point do we stop treating adults like retarded five-year-olds and taking over more and more of their independence?

You can when you're responsible enough to support yourself. If you expect tax payers to support you then you lose certain choices.

Is it reading comprehension or ignorant dick attitude that makes you incapable of having a conversation without making it about the personal? No wonder you're eating your liver out over what you imagine other people are doing. Get a grip.

It's my fucking money you dumbass. If you want the best of foods get a job and support yourself. If not be grateful to the tax payers that are supporting your dumbass.

Ignorant dick attitude it is. Call me when you grow up into a real conservative instead of stumbling by accident into a position and thinking it makes you mature.

This is what liberalism has created. Ungrateful little shit heads.

It's created a large portion of society thinking someone owes them something and when those of us that are forced to pay for it say something about it, we don't get a "thank you" we get "gimme more".

 

[Moonglow]

I think someone telling me buying processed cheese is ok but real meat is not is an idiot.

You can stock up a wagon of cereals on your welfare and eat healthy.

If you don't mind rickets...

 

[Moonglow]

The purpose of the program is to provide people the means to purchase food. At some point, we have to stop treating people like children, assume they can make decisions for themselves, and then let them live with the consequences of deciding badly.

First it wasn't enough to let people go hungry if they wouldn't provide for themselves (I'm not a supporter of letting people suffer if they're incapable of providing for themselves); we had to provide for them. Now it's not enough for them to be fat and unhealthy if they don't choose to eat properly; we must force them to eat what we think they should. At what point do we stop treating adults like retarded five-year-olds and taking over more and more of their independence?

You can when you're responsible enough to support yourself. If you expect tax payers to support you then you lose certain choices.

Is it reading comprehension or ignorant dick attitude that makes you incapable of having a conversation without making it about the personal? No wonder you're eating your liver out over what you imagine other people are doing. Get a grip.

It's my fucking money you dumbass. If you want the best of foods get a job and support yourself. If not be grateful to the tax payers that are supporting your dumbass.

Ignorant dick attitude it is. Call me when you grow up into a real conservative instead of stumbling by accident into a position and thinking it makes you mature.

This is what liberalism has created. Ungrateful little shit heads.

Ungrateful shit heads come from all walks of life...

 

[tresbigdog]

I haven't had time to read through all 45 pages of this, but I wanted to clear up a few things.

I live in Ohio, and work for my county's Jobs & Family Services Department. Let me give you guys some numbers here. First, app. 80% of able bodied SNAP recipients work. They either work regular jobs like you and I, and just don't make enough to sustain buying groceries for their family, or they are assigned to a worksite for X number of hours per month, where they work off their SNAP assistance.

The majority of SNAP recipients are a) the elderly, b) children, and c) those on disability. None of which are expected to work, and a) and b) cannot work in most cases.

Our tax dollars contribute VERY little to welfare, very little, so worrying about what your neighbor is doing with his food stamps is a waste of your time.

As for fraud, yes, it does exist, however, fraud has been reduced dramatically in the last decade, in part because of things like the EBT card, etc.

Look, I could throw numbers at you all day, but I know the majority of you that are against people receiving assistance aren't going to change your minds. The funny thing is the majority of the people complaining about people on assistance are either on assistance themselves or applied and were turned down

Wait, does this mean if I complain I can get food stamps? I'd like some food stamps...I gotta start bitching about more stuff...

Im not sure what you mean....but no, thats not how it works.

Complain about what??

 

[tresbigdog]

The county doesn't issue foodstamps.

Yes, more and more people who shouldn't be eligible for snap benefits receive snap. That's what we're talking about. Exactly. It's ridiculous because they are in no danger of starving.

I know the county doesnt issue SNAP, but each county has an agency (like the one I work for) that is in charge of it.

 

[KissMy]

Hamburger will cost more than steak if this passes. When the recession hit, hamburger prices here went up 400% within a year, but steak prices dropped 30% because hamburger was a by-product of steaks that was sold at a loss. Now demand drove hamburger prices through the roof because the explosion of unemployed & working poor could only afford the cheapest crap . This was a huge punch in the gut for poor people while the rich who caused the disaster get a break. Even the BLS price index shows hamburger is up 130% while steak is only up 30%. Unless some of the working poor are allowed or can afford steaks, hamburger will cost the same or more than steak.

Hamburger Prices

Steak Prices

Walmart Hamburger is $5.98/lb and Save A Lot T-Bone Steaks are $4.97/lb.

Why would you pass regulations that force people to waste taxpayer money on crap?

Where is this Save A Lot?? I want t-bone and I have govt. vouchers....

You don't need govt. vouchers to buy T-Bone Steaks from a Save A Lot store near you for 20% less than Walmart sells hamburger for.

Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance. They outsourced a significant chunk of their labor costs to the taxpayer. Plus “Walmart told analysts last year that the company has captured 18 percent of the SNAP market,” it reads. “Using that figure, we estimate that the company accounted for $13.5 billion out of $76 billion in food stamp sales in 2013.”

We should ban any company who has employees on the government dole from profiting from employees on the government dole. Walmart clearly marks up profits on items poor workers buy most with government food-stamps. This is why they sell Hamburger for 20% more than T-Bone Steak. Prior to the economic meltdown, Hamburger sold at an 80% discount to T-Bone Steaks. Forcing food-stamps recipients to buy certain foods will greatly increase retailers fleecing of taxpayers & underpaid workers. This is why "Consumer Staples Stocks" prices soared during economic market crash, pay cuts, increasing UE & expansion of food-stamps.

 

[EverCurious]

To get back to the food bundles thing, I'm guessing that's now community stuff rather than government stuff (or is it more like /some/ states do that still? I doubt it would have ever been feasible up here honestly, 3mo growth season and all)

Anyway, I've been trying to research this a bit in my spare time and I found the following for Alaska SNAP:

(Household Size, Urban, Rural I, Rural II)
1 $227 $290 $353
2 $417 $532 $648
3 $598 $762 $928
4 $759 $968 $1178
5 $902 $1150 $1399
6 $1082 $1380 $1679
7 $1196 $1525 $1856
8 $1367 $1743 $2121
Each additional $+171 $+218 $+265

So family of five in the city gets $902/m. This sounds high to me, we had a family of 5 (3 teen age boys) and it was like $600-700/m groceries for us... We're not real fancy eaters, but we do buy steaks and pepper bacon from the butcher every week...

Now I presume these kids are also getting free school lunch too, I don't suppose that cost comes out of their SNAP benefits? I paid out another $300/ish a month for my boys to get school lunch (which I guess argumentatively would put our bill at about $900/m.) Though the free food at school program up here offers kids both breakfast and lunch for free though... Anyway, even if the kids are getting free breakfast/lunch we'd be roughly talking about like $2/meal (ish). ~shrug~ /That/ doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

I don't think those numbers are right...what site are you using?

Snap is a fed program. Unless Alaska has a state supplement (which I doubt but isn't beyond the realm of possibility, given the fact that they have oil subsidies to play with)....I just am not seeing it. And I've never seen different *rates* based on where you live? Though again, it could be an Alaska thing. But more than a hundred bucks per person?????

Food Stamps
(It's DHSS for Alaska, sorry I forgot to put in the link before)

According to the state Alaska only pays for 50% of the cost to operate the program, so I do not believe there is a state supplement to the SNAP program's benefit payouts.

For sure the urban/rural is an Alaska thing; "Alaska has special rules that allow for higher Food Stamp benefits in rural areas." That was my whole point in using it for my analysis of the amounts paid out though, because I'm quite sure we will have one of the highest benefit amounts for SNAP given our uniqueness, and size.

Thing is, even given our higher cost of living, and the vast uniqueness of the state, I personally do not find the benefits paid out to be unreasonable. $2/person per meal is simply NOT unreasonable. This leaves me personally only seriously concerned with abuse of the program, rather than the amount of benefits paid out, or, quite frankly, what said benefits are spent on.



As a note, most of our "oil benefits" are given out on an annual basis through the Alaska Permanent Fund to every Alaskan resident, and, as far as I know, oil related taxes, aside from the PFD, go into the states general spending fund. Oil money has historically paid up to 90% of Alaska's spending, though I believe currently it's at around 16% as we've diversified our "portfolio" in the wake of all the oil/government corruption crap in the 80s - now we rely heavily on tourism, being an international trade hub, and international air travel hub, etc. We're trying to expand the port so we can tap, and create, a sea to air international trade/travel route atm - which [we hope] will bump international trade/travel hub into the number one spot for long-term economic stability regardless of fossil fuel reliance down the road. We've already got a solid hook into international air trade, most of your iPhones come through Anchorage, and tourism is pretty stable since a huge portion of the state is protected parkland, but we want to become more of a pre-stop; cruise or fly into Anchorage, do some whale watching, then continue onto Europe/Russia/Asia, for example.)

Also, to expand further on the urban/rural thing if one is interested: I'm sure the native corporations leveraged the rural rate differences because of the heavy reliance on commuter planes and the "non traditional delivery of goods" that is par for the course up here.

The state is huge, yet we have one highway (and it only goes from Anchorage on the south central coast of the state, north to Fairbanks roughly in the center of the states main body which is about 360miles - or 6hrs of nothing but wilderness and "blink towns" as I call them; "don't blink you'll miss it"), then we have our one railroad line (which doesn't go north past Fairbanks either - muskeg makes a constant roadway pretty much financially impossible in the Arctic, and certainly not profitable or logical for a 400+ mile stretch of it. (That's why we have "ice road truckers" - ya know, that reality show - because that is the only economically feasible time to drive from say Fairbanks to the North Slope, even for the oil companies. I believe it's officially highway 11, but we just call it the ice road.)

Thing is we have a lot of villages in "the bush," as we call it, which are not along the highway or railway - places that sprung up off mule back homesteads looking for gold, and, mostly, native villages. My educated guess is that rural 1 is for villages/towns outside the big cities (aka Anchorage, Palmer/Wasilla, Fairbanks, probably Valdez, maybe Whittier) along the roadways, or near a whistle stop on the railroad (yea we still have whistle stops, there's one about 2 miles from my house) and rural 2 is likely the rest of them, I'd say most of them, with zero road/rail connection what-so-ever.

There are towns up here that are 100% inaccessible for half the year (aka you can only boat into them in the summer, or can only snow machine into them in the winter.) We also have a bunch of towns that rely heavily on small commuter planes for 100% of their goods movement. There are Arctic coastal villages can only have fuel and supplies delivered in the summer when the ice pack melts; where land travel isn't possible because of the muskeg (we had to have a Russian ice breaker come save one of our villages fuel delivery tankers not too long ago because the ice came too early and blocked them, basically had the Russian's not helped out that entire village of like 2k would have very likely died, no joke.) Which of course attests to the real master of Alaska; nature and the weather - urban or rural, ALL Alaskan's are nothing but slaves to her fickle whim.

 

[EverCurious]

Regardless of who controls what and what you can buy where... the debate should be about our national responsibilities to provide for "the needy" in society. I understand it's an honorable and good thing to do, to help your fellow man... but should it be a requirement as a citizen? Should I be obligated to pay for whatever you think is satisfactory? Is it the role of our federal government to shake people down and make them pay for things that should be charity?

Because charity by force isn't really charity, is it?

Agreed and thanked.


I have no problem helping someone back on his/her feet, but I do have an issue with fully supporting him/her, and his/her family - as if they were my /own/ children (oft better than) - and, worse, to do so seemingly, if not actually, FOREVER.

Real life example time:
As it stands right now I am paying for all three of my children's college educations, I am paying rent for one of them, I've bought all of them cars, and one of them had a dipshit moment with a girl so I'm helping him pay off a credit card he stupidly abused. The two out of the house [my mother and I] give about $500/m for groceries/gas/bills to get to school/work. (I am also helping, along with other family members, to pay for the aftermath of a gambling and drinking addiction for my brother.)

Keep in mind the above is my immediate family -- I WILL NOT pay for them to have cellphones(*), cable, new laptops, new cars, or ANY other "fancy" shit like that. IF they want those "fun" things then THEY are expected to get a damn job/better job and pay for it themselves. Luckily my boys were raised to be responsible (for the most part) and they have jobs, and are attending college full time to boot - They want to be self-sufficient, and be able to afford those "fun" things on their own ASAP. Hell my middle child refuses to take rent money, and very often transfers back some or all of his $500 "allowance" if he doesn't need it. (He makes $10.75/hr flipping burgers, JS)


Mostly, what irks me about welfare programs these days, in general, is that we are not just "helping them out" anymore, we are paying for EVERYTHING through various programs. There is no end in sight and it seems like there is no motivation to get off "assistance" at all.

For fucks sake, I demand my own children to be TRYING to better their lives if we're going to help them out; they need to be working (and going to school.) EVEN in the beginning before they moved out, they knew they needed to get jobs, and they knew damn well that we were not going to pay for everything for them. AND we're not even a "typical" family in that we have money so we are able to "spoil" them more than most parents would. We give our boys around $1k/month (setting college fees aside) and that's it, that's all they are getting. We're not going to let them starve, but we're not going to just pay all their bills forever either.


(* In the past year, market conditions up here, have actually made a cellphone far cheaper than a landline, so I’ve kind of retracted my thoughts that a cellphone is a /frivolous/ thing vs just a landline.)

 

[Cecilie1200]

The purpose of the program is to provide people the means to purchase food. At some point, we have to stop treating people like children, assume they can make decisions for themselves, and then let them live with the consequences of deciding badly.

First it wasn't enough to let people go hungry if they wouldn't provide for themselves (I'm not a supporter of letting people suffer if they're incapable of providing for themselves); we had to provide for them. Now it's not enough for them to be fat and unhealthy if they don't choose to eat properly; we must force them to eat what we think they should. At what point do we stop treating adults like retarded five-year-olds and taking over more and more of their independence?

You can when you're responsible enough to support yourself. If you expect tax payers to support you then you lose certain choices.

Is it reading comprehension or ignorant dick attitude that makes you incapable of having a conversation without making it about the personal? No wonder you're eating your liver out over what you imagine other people are doing. Get a grip.

It's my fucking money you dumbass. If you want the best of foods get a job and support yourself. If not be grateful to the tax payers that are supporting your dumbass.

Ignorant dick attitude it is. Call me when you grow up into a real conservative instead of stumbling by accident into a position and thinking it makes you mature.

So it's ignorant to expect people who otherwise wouldn't have what taxpayers are forced to provide them to buy it themselves if they want better or say thank you for those of us doing for them what they should be doing for themselves?

I'm not entirely sure I even understood what your question was.

Is it ignorant to expect people on welfare to say thank you or be grateful? Humans being what they are, I'd have to say yes, expecting gratitude is . . . naive.

 

[Cecilie1200]

And who gets to decide and dictate to others what "healthy" is? I'm sure you're creaming your jeans in anticipation of even more opportunity to tell people how to live.

It is called science, but common sense can tell you lots. And I am not suggesting people be told how to live. I am suggesting that when we give charity to to people we should have some control of how the charity is used. They can spend their own money however they want. If my money is being spent to feed your kids I should be able to insist you don't spend my donated money on soda and candy. If you don't like the rules don't take the donation.

WHAT is "called science"? Your personal fucking opinion of what is and isn't healthy and acceptable?

You ARE suggesting that people be told how to live. You don't think restricting the welfare payments to only purchasing food - and that only of certain general types - isn't enough. We should now play nitpicking Grocery Police for "good enough" food, and presumably spark a big controversial debate over whose standard of "good enough" we're going to use, leading to ongoing adjustments of what is and isn't covered according to whoever's in power at the moment, costing everyone bunches of extra money to keep reprogramming the computers to exclude this or that or the other thing.

Able to insist? You are. Is it a good idea or particularly helpful to anything other than your condescending sense of self-righteousness? Not really.

Since so many of the recipients of our tax funded food program that feeds them are children, ya, someone has to show them an educated way to eat and since the funds involved are tax payer funds, it is appropriate to have some kinds of watch dog control. Nobody is telling people how to live by limiting how they spend donated food assistance funds. They have the ability and freedom to purchase whatever they want with their own money. It is not an attempt to control how people live by insisting that the five dollars we give them be spent on oatmeal instead of bacon. Only a very stupid person would not understand that science has proven beyond any doubt that eating cholesterol lowering oatmeal packed with vitamins is healthier than eating cholesterol causing processed bacon packed with chemicals and blood pressure increasing salt. To top it off, the five dollars worth of bacon will last a very short time and do little to prevent hunger while the five dollars worth of oatmeal will provide many days worth of hunger relief.

koshergrl See? This right here is what you're opening the door to. Just THINK how much money can be wasted by complicating the system with fools like this attempting to use it to impose their personal preferences onto others' lives.

If I needed no other argument against unintentional complicity with leftists, Camp here would suffice.

It isn't complicated at all. There has been a program operating that restricts and designates foods for decades and it works just fine. It is called WIC It is a program for expectant mothers, infants and children that does exactly as I have been suggesting to be implemented through the entire food assistance program. It reduces cost and insures expectant mothers, infants and children are healthier. The health benefits reduce medical cost. The foods are designated by nutrition and health experts and the producers pay for and apply the labels. No one is forcing anyone into anything. The recipients are not forced into accepting free food. If people do not want to accept free food that the government has deemed as healthy and appropriately priced, they don't have to accept the free food. What you suggest is that when we hand a bowl of vegetable soup, a fresh garden salad and apple juice to a person they can refuse it and demand a double bacon cheeseburger and fries with a milk shake. What I suggest is if they don't want the soup, salad and juice they can go get the burger, fries and shake with their own money, not mine.

It gives me the willies to hear any leftist ever say "It's not complicated" about any proposal they make, because it always means a coming shitstorm of red tape and expense.

WIC is an utterly different sort of program from Food Stamps, funded differently and administered differently and with different scale, targets, and requirements. The idea of trying to apply the workings of WIC to the massive SNAP program, particularly to accommodate the subsequent wrangling over what constitutes "proper" food from all sides, just makes me queasy.

By the way, if you really think WIC is radically revising people's eating habits and overall nutrition to the point of significantly altering medical costs, you're a bigger moron than I credited.

What I actually suggest is that we stop focusing on "how can we tinker with ever more minute details of how other people live?" and address the REAL problems instead.

By the way, shitforbrains, SNAP doesn't cover buying a burger, fries, and shake. It covers grocery stores, not restaurants. Dimwit.

 

[Conservative65]

You can when you're responsible enough to support yourself. If you expect tax payers to support you then you lose certain choices.

Is it reading comprehension or ignorant dick attitude that makes you incapable of having a conversation without making it about the personal? No wonder you're eating your liver out over what you imagine other people are doing. Get a grip.

It's my fucking money you dumbass. If you want the best of foods get a job and support yourself. If not be grateful to the tax payers that are supporting your dumbass.

Ignorant dick attitude it is. Call me when you grow up into a real conservative instead of stumbling by accident into a position and thinking it makes you mature.

So it's ignorant to expect people who otherwise wouldn't have what taxpayers are forced to provide them to buy it themselves if they want better or say thank you for those of us doing for them what they should be doing for themselves?

I'm not entirely sure I even understood what your question was.

Is it ignorant to expect people on welfare to say thank you or be grateful? Humans being what they are, I'd have to say yes, expecting gratitude is . . . naive.

Do you think it's ignorant to expect someone who would otherwise not have what they need to say thank you when what they demand is given to them?

I do expect gratitude from someone who demands another person do for them what they should be doing for themselves That doesn't mean I expect them to bow down and worship those who fund just an acknowledgement that what we're forced to provide them is something that, if we weren't, they wouldn't have it. What we get is more and more demands when what they have handed to them for nothing doesn't suit them. When those who otherwise wouldn't get something do nothing but bitch and whine when they are expected to follow what should be stringent rules on its use, it tells me they aren't grateful. Hell, how many of them don't know that in order for them to get something through social welfare, someone that actually had to earn it had a portion taken first. My brother is a postal carrier. Several years ago he told me how, while delivering to a Section 8 location, he was chastised for not having arrived sooner by one of the residents waiting for a check. He said this resident kept asking, "where's my check". My brother said he got to the point of frustration that he told the leech that he knew the check was coming because taxes had been taken out of his the previous week. My brother said the resident told him that the government wrote that check to him.

 

[Conservative65]

It is called science, but common sense can tell you lots. And I am not suggesting people be told how to live. I am suggesting that when we give charity to to people we should have some control of how the charity is used. They can spend their own money however they want. If my money is being spent to feed your kids I should be able to insist you don't spend my donated money on soda and candy. If you don't like the rules don't take the donation.

WHAT is "called science"? Your personal fucking opinion of what is and isn't healthy and acceptable?

You ARE suggesting that people be told how to live. You don't think restricting the welfare payments to only purchasing food - and that only of certain general types - isn't enough. We should now play nitpicking Grocery Police for "good enough" food, and presumably spark a big controversial debate over whose standard of "good enough" we're going to use, leading to ongoing adjustments of what is and isn't covered according to whoever's in power at the moment, costing everyone bunches of extra money to keep reprogramming the computers to exclude this or that or the other thing.

Able to insist? You are. Is it a good idea or particularly helpful to anything other than your condescending sense of self-righteousness? Not really.

Since so many of the recipients of our tax funded food program that feeds them are children, ya, someone has to show them an educated way to eat and since the funds involved are tax payer funds, it is appropriate to have some kinds of watch dog control. Nobody is telling people how to live by limiting how they spend donated food assistance funds. They have the ability and freedom to purchase whatever they want with their own money. It is not an attempt to control how people live by insisting that the five dollars we give them be spent on oatmeal instead of bacon. Only a very stupid person would not understand that science has proven beyond any doubt that eating cholesterol lowering oatmeal packed with vitamins is healthier than eating cholesterol causing processed bacon packed with chemicals and blood pressure increasing salt. To top it off, the five dollars worth of bacon will last a very short time and do little to prevent hunger while the five dollars worth of oatmeal will provide many days worth of hunger relief.

koshergrl See? This right here is what you're opening the door to. Just THINK how much money can be wasted by complicating the system with fools like this attempting to use it to impose their personal preferences onto others' lives.

If I needed no other argument against unintentional complicity with leftists, Camp here would suffice.

It isn't complicated at all. There has been a program operating that restricts and designates foods for decades and it works just fine. It is called WIC It is a program for expectant mothers, infants and children that does exactly as I have been suggesting to be implemented through the entire food assistance program. It reduces cost and insures expectant mothers, infants and children are healthier. The health benefits reduce medical cost. The foods are designated by nutrition and health experts and the producers pay for and apply the labels. No one is forcing anyone into anything. The recipients are not forced into accepting free food. If people do not want to accept free food that the government has deemed as healthy and appropriately priced, they don't have to accept the free food. What you suggest is that when we hand a bowl of vegetable soup, a fresh garden salad and apple juice to a person they can refuse it and demand a double bacon cheeseburger and fries with a milk shake. What I suggest is if they don't want the soup, salad and juice they can go get the burger, fries and shake with their own money, not mine.

It gives me the willies to hear any leftist ever say "It's not complicated" about any proposal they make, because it always means a coming shitstorm of red tape and expense.

WIC is an utterly different sort of program from Food Stamps, funded differently and administered differently and with different scale, targets, and requirements. The idea of trying to apply the workings of WIC to the massive SNAP program, particularly to accommodate the subsequent wrangling over what constitutes "proper" food from all sides, just makes me queasy.

By the way, if you really think WIC is radically revising people's eating habits and overall nutrition to the point of significantly altering medical costs, you're a bigger moron than I credited.

What I actually suggest is that we stop focusing on "how can we tinker with ever more minute details of how other people live?" and address the REAL problems instead.

By the way, shitforbrains, SNAP doesn't cover buying a burger, fries, and shake. It covers grocery stores, not restaurants. Dimwit.

Sad thing is SNAP can be used in a convenient store where prices are much higher and the food is more unhealthy. Why should it matter to leeches. It's not their money and when they have health problems related to eating that crap, someone else will be forced to fund their medical care.

 

[Camp]

By the way, shitforbrains, SNAP doesn't cover buying a burger, fries, and shake. It covers grocery stores, not restaurants. Dimwit.

It covers hamburger, including ready made frozen burgers, cheese, frozen pre cut fries, cooking oil, ice cream and milk. The point was that for the cost of the unhealthy burger meal a dozen or more alternative healthy meals could be obtained.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Food stamps are suppose to be for poor people who cannot afford basic food items. If you can waste a majority of your food stamps on steak. You don't need them. If you think it's not fair that you can't buy steaks with your food stamps. Then get a job.

So no hamburger either?

Hamburger meat runs around $3.50 a pound. Ribeye steak runs around $12.99 a pound. What do you think?

I think someone telling me buying processed cheese is ok but real meat is not is an idiot.

See, there's a big problem right there. I keep asking, "Who decides what's 'acceptable, healthy' food, and by what standard?" and everyone on both sides just shines it on and rants about their own personal obsession with the food stamp program. Conservatives have their panties all in a ruffle at the idea that the poor are living it up on the taxpayer dime; leftists are in a lather at the idea that someone out there is eating something not politically correct and personally approved by Michelle Obama.

Am I the only one who can see the program potentially degenerating into a multi-sided argument with one group wanting only to buy hamburger and bologna because "poor people shouldn't get expensive food", another group wanting only organic produce and tofu because red meat and eggs are HORRIBLE, a third group wanting THEIR particular hobby horse of healthy eating, a fourth . . . you get the idea. And every time a different group get control, we the taxpayer get to pay to reprogram the system to incorporate the new restrictions and implement them in grocery stores across the nation. I can also see some stores getting so frustrated with trying to keep up with the ever-changing rules and just not accepting SNAP any more, thereby restricting the shopping choices of the poor and making it harder for them to get the nutrition assistance that was supposed to be the point of the whole exercise.

Personally, if we're going to pay for this at all - and that's definitely another argument entirely - I'd rather have poor kids eating frozen dinners every night than going hungry because some self-righteous twit decided to try to force his crack-whore mother to cook a real meal she's too stoned to comprehend. But that's just me.

 

[Camp]

By the way, if you really think WIC is radically revising people's eating habits and overall nutrition to the point of significantly altering medical costs, you're a bigger moron than I credited.

.

It is just one of those pesky facts you do not want to acknowledge. Babies are born healthier to women on WIC, fewer babies die in fancy and medical cost are drastically reduced for infants and children on the WIC program.

 

[Cecilie1200]

WHAT is "called science"? Your personal fucking opinion of what is and isn't healthy and acceptable?

You ARE suggesting that people be told how to live. You don't think restricting the welfare payments to only purchasing food - and that only of certain general types - isn't enough. We should now play nitpicking Grocery Police for "good enough" food, and presumably spark a big controversial debate over whose standard of "good enough" we're going to use, leading to ongoing adjustments of what is and isn't covered according to whoever's in power at the moment, costing everyone bunches of extra money to keep reprogramming the computers to exclude this or that or the other thing.

Able to insist? You are. Is it a good idea or particularly helpful to anything other than your condescending sense of self-righteousness? Not really.

Since so many of the recipients of our tax funded food program that feeds them are children, ya, someone has to show them an educated way to eat and since the funds involved are tax payer funds, it is appropriate to have some kinds of watch dog control. Nobody is telling people how to live by limiting how they spend donated food assistance funds. They have the ability and freedom to purchase whatever they want with their own money. It is not an attempt to control how people live by insisting that the five dollars we give them be spent on oatmeal instead of bacon. Only a very stupid person would not understand that science has proven beyond any doubt that eating cholesterol lowering oatmeal packed with vitamins is healthier than eating cholesterol causing processed bacon packed with chemicals and blood pressure increasing salt. To top it off, the five dollars worth of bacon will last a very short time and do little to prevent hunger while the five dollars worth of oatmeal will provide many days worth of hunger relief.

koshergrl See? This right here is what you're opening the door to. Just THINK how much money can be wasted by complicating the system with fools like this attempting to use it to impose their personal preferences onto others' lives.

If I needed no other argument against unintentional complicity with leftists, Camp here would suffice.

It isn't complicated at all. There has been a program operating that restricts and designates foods for decades and it works just fine. It is called WIC It is a program for expectant mothers, infants and children that does exactly as I have been suggesting to be implemented through the entire food assistance program. It reduces cost and insures expectant mothers, infants and children are healthier. The health benefits reduce medical cost. The foods are designated by nutrition and health experts and the producers pay for and apply the labels. No one is forcing anyone into anything. The recipients are not forced into accepting free food. If people do not want to accept free food that the government has deemed as healthy and appropriately priced, they don't have to accept the free food. What you suggest is that when we hand a bowl of vegetable soup, a fresh garden salad and apple juice to a person they can refuse it and demand a double bacon cheeseburger and fries with a milk shake. What I suggest is if they don't want the soup, salad and juice they can go get the burger, fries and shake with their own money, not mine.

It gives me the willies to hear any leftist ever say "It's not complicated" about any proposal they make, because it always means a coming shitstorm of red tape and expense.

WIC is an utterly different sort of program from Food Stamps, funded differently and administered differently and with different scale, targets, and requirements. The idea of trying to apply the workings of WIC to the massive SNAP program, particularly to accommodate the subsequent wrangling over what constitutes "proper" food from all sides, just makes me queasy.

By the way, if you really think WIC is radically revising people's eating habits and overall nutrition to the point of significantly altering medical costs, you're a bigger moron than I credited.

What I actually suggest is that we stop focusing on "how can we tinker with ever more minute details of how other people live?" and address the REAL problems instead.

By the way, shitforbrains, SNAP doesn't cover buying a burger, fries, and shake. It covers grocery stores, not restaurants. Dimwit.

Sad thing is SNAP can be used in a convenient store where prices are much higher and the food is more unhealthy. Why should it matter to leeches. It's not their money and when they have health problems related to eating that crap, someone else will be forced to fund their medical care.

Convenience stores accept SNAP because sometimes, they're the only place that's available. I remember one year here in Tucson, an entire section of town was cut off by flash floods during the rainy season for over a week. The only store that the residents could get to was the Circle K located out there, and the county had to ferry the employees and supplies out by helicopter every day just to service those poor people. (They have since improved the bridges on the roads going out there so that they can't be washed away.)

This is extreme, but the fact remains that sometimes going all the way to a proper grocery store just isn't feasible.

Actually, those "leeches" generally don't want their free food money to go away any faster than anyone else wants their money to. There are always going to be wasteful, careless people. Nothing's gonna regulate that out of existence.

 

[Cecilie1200]

By the way, if you really think WIC is radically revising people's eating habits and overall nutrition to the point of significantly altering medical costs, you're a bigger moron than I credited.

.

It is just one of those pesky facts you do not want to acknowledge. Babies are born healthier to women on WIC, fewer babies die in fancy and medical cost are drastically reduced for infants and children on the WIC program.

Prove it.

 

[2aguy]

By the way, if you really think WIC is radically revising people's eating habits and overall nutrition to the point of significantly altering medical costs, you're a bigger moron than I credited.

.

It is just one of those pesky facts you do not want to acknowledge. Babies are born healthier to women on WIC, fewer babies die in fancy and medical cost are drastically reduced for infants and children on the WIC program.

Why would healthy babies matter to democrats.....they fund planned parent hood....isn't that their solution to under nourished babies.....?

 

[Camp]

WHAT is "called science"? Your personal fucking opinion of what is and isn't healthy and acceptable?

You ARE suggesting that people be told how to live. You don't think restricting the welfare payments to only purchasing food - and that only of certain general types - isn't enough. We should now play nitpicking Grocery Police for "good enough" food, and presumably spark a big controversial debate over whose standard of "good enough" we're going to use, leading to ongoing adjustments of what is and isn't covered according to whoever's in power at the moment, costing everyone bunches of extra money to keep reprogramming the computers to exclude this or that or the other thing.

Able to insist? You are. Is it a good idea or particularly helpful to anything other than your condescending sense of self-righteousness? Not really.

Since so many of the recipients of our tax funded food program that feeds them are children, ya, someone has to show them an educated way to eat and since the funds involved are tax payer funds, it is appropriate to have some kinds of watch dog control. Nobody is telling people how to live by limiting how they spend donated food assistance funds. They have the ability and freedom to purchase whatever they want with their own money. It is not an attempt to control how people live by insisting that the five dollars we give them be spent on oatmeal instead of bacon. Only a very stupid person would not understand that science has proven beyond any doubt that eating cholesterol lowering oatmeal packed with vitamins is healthier than eating cholesterol causing processed bacon packed with chemicals and blood pressure increasing salt. To top it off, the five dollars worth of bacon will last a very short time and do little to prevent hunger while the five dollars worth of oatmeal will provide many days worth of hunger relief.

koshergrl See? This right here is what you're opening the door to. Just THINK how much money can be wasted by complicating the system with fools like this attempting to use it to impose their personal preferences onto others' lives.

If I needed no other argument against unintentional complicity with leftists, Camp here would suffice.

It isn't complicated at all. There has been a program operating that restricts and designates foods for decades and it works just fine. It is called WIC It is a program for expectant mothers, infants and children that does exactly as I have been suggesting to be implemented through the entire food assistance program. It reduces cost and insures expectant mothers, infants and children are healthier. The health benefits reduce medical cost. The foods are designated by nutrition and health experts and the producers pay for and apply the labels. No one is forcing anyone into anything. The recipients are not forced into accepting free food. If people do not want to accept free food that the government has deemed as healthy and appropriately priced, they don't have to accept the free food. What you suggest is that when we hand a bowl of vegetable soup, a fresh garden salad and apple juice to a person they can refuse it and demand a double bacon cheeseburger and fries with a milk shake. What I suggest is if they don't want the soup, salad and juice they can go get the burger, fries and shake with their own money, not mine.

It gives me the willies to hear any leftist ever say "It's not complicated" about any proposal they make, because it always means a coming shitstorm of red tape and expense.

WIC is an utterly different sort of program from Food Stamps, funded differently and administered differently and with different scale, targets, and requirements. The idea of trying to apply the workings of WIC to the massive SNAP program, particularly to accommodate the subsequent wrangling over what constitutes "proper" food from all sides, just makes me queasy.

By the way, if you really think WIC is radically revising people's eating habits and overall nutrition to the point of significantly altering medical costs, you're a bigger moron than I credited.

What I actually suggest is that we stop focusing on "how can we tinker with ever more minute details of how other people live?" and address the REAL problems instead.

By the way, shitforbrains, SNAP doesn't cover buying a burger, fries, and shake. It covers grocery stores, not restaurants. Dimwit.

Sad thing is SNAP can be used in a convenient store where prices are much higher and the food is more unhealthy. Why should it matter to leeches. It's not their money and when they have health problems related to eating that crap, someone else will be forced to fund their medical care.

It is not the fault of the recipients. Blame the politicia

By the way, if you really think WIC is radically revising people's eating habits and overall nutrition to the point of significantly altering medical costs, you're a bigger moron than I credited.

.

It is just one of those pesky facts you do not want to acknowledge. Babies are born healthier to women on WIC, fewer babies die in fancy and medical cost are drastically reduced for infants and children on the WIC program.

Why would healthy babies matter to democrats.....they fund planned parent hood....isn't that their solution to under nourished babies.....?

Why do you enjoy sounding so stupid and ridiculous?