Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: Ben on February 13, 2018, 07:31:05 PM
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Apparently Trump is suggesting replacing food stamps with food deliveries.
I think I might actually agree with one of the opposing points: That it will cost more than giving people money. I'm guessing at that. Maybe it's actually cheaper?
Otherwise it's fun watching the progressives have a fit about how it's degrading and "like communism" telling people what to eat. Hey - if you come to my house for dinner, you eat what I make. If someone is eating on my dime, I have no problem with restricting the menu a bit to ensure someone on food stamps isn't eating lobster while I'm eating hamburger.
https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2018/02/13/oh-man-he-really-did-it-this-time-alyssa-milano-is-super-pissed-at-trump-for-feeding-the-poor/
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I think the major point is that there would be a lot of people that would not want their neighbors to see that box on their porch.
Make it bright red with yellow stripes so it's unmistakable and you'll get a lot of people eschewing the service.
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The intent is wonderful, eliminate the funny money of ebt fraud and resale. To the same end I like my dad's plan more and more. Kids get three meals a day and after school programs from school. Adults can come with their kid for one meal a day and access to vocational or other assistance. No money given out.
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When people were getting government cheese; at least there was cheese. I can imagine a worse fallout than healthy food being readily had by everyone.
That said; this really is another chance for the government to be picking winners and losers in the market place. Mixed feelings as any drop of socialism removes the expectation of caring for your fellow man as its not your job; its the government. As ever, the devil is in the details of implementation and consequences.
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Otherwise it's fun watching the progressives have a fit about how it's degrading and "like communism" telling people what to eat. Hey - if you come to my house for dinner, you eat what I make. If someone is eating on my dime, I have no problem with restricting the menu a bit to ensure someone on food stamps isn't eating lobster while I'm eating hamburger.
This is exactly my problem with food stamps.
As I'm sure I've mentioned here before, my ex wife and I got food stamps briefly during a lull in employment for both of us. I don't recall ever having as much of a grocery budget for two adults as we got in food stamps alone, even though I was still working part time and properly reporting that income. On top of that, TWC (which serves as local contact for food stamps) would always remind us of how to get more food from various churches around the area to supplement the food stamps.
What happens is that you get people who either buy the most expensive food they can get for the first couple weeks of the month and manage to run their budget dry, or the ones who flat out buy to sell the food for cash, then use the churches to stay fed all month.
Give them HDRs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_daily_ration) and if they want better, they can figure out how to feed themselves. I can't imagine any way that providing those in containerload quantities can possibly be more expensive than the current system. No need for extra admin costs either; I'm pretty sure you could hand out 7/week to every man, woman and child who asks nicely for less than the $70 BILLION we're spending on food stamps. (Roughly, the current cost translates to about $215/person/year of the total population. Figure the vast majority wouldn't be asking every week, and likely most wouldn't ask more than a dozen weeks out of their whole lifetime.)
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HDRs sound like a plan. Street value of zero and you will truly know who is hungry. Or some guy like me, gets as many as I can and tosses them in the bunker. :D
The WIC program seems to do a lot better than EBT, it only allows approved food to be bought, just doing that to EBT would be a great start.
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HDRs are typically air-dropped into the disaster area on large pallets. The HDRs initially dropped in Afghanistan were yellow before it was realized that the packages were the same color as the bomblets in American cluster bombs, which were also dropped in Afghanistan.
:facepalm:
Looking at the choices I'd take some of those now!
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This is exactly my problem with food stamps.
As I'm sure I've mentioned here before, my ex wife and I got food stamps briefly during a lull in employment for both of us. I don't recall ever having as much of a grocery budget for two adults as we got in food stamps alone, even though I was still working part time and properly reporting that income. On top of that, TWC (which serves as local contact for food stamps) would always remind us of how to get more food from various churches around the area to supplement the food stamps.
What happens is that you get people who either buy the most expensive food they can get for the first couple weeks of the month and manage to run their budget dry, or the ones who flat out buy to sell the food for cash, then use the churches to stay fed all month.
Give them HDRs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_daily_ration) and if they want better, they can figure out how to feed themselves. I can't imagine any way that providing those in containerload quantities can possibly be more expensive than the current system. No need for extra admin costs either; I'm pretty sure you could hand out 7/week to every man, woman and child who asks nicely for less than the $70 BILLION we're spending on food stamps. (Roughly, the current cost translates to about $215/person/year of the total population. Figure the vast majority wouldn't be asking every week, and likely most wouldn't ask more than a dozen weeks out of their whole lifetime.)
Agreed. Even if there is graft in the food contracts it will cost less. Fewer people will apply for the food since it is just food not money and no concerns about using the food stamp money to buy other stuff due to fraud or other issues. It isn't supposed to be an income.
Fix that, then we can look at welfare. Maybe look at disability fraud.
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HDRs sound like a plan. Street value of zero and you will truly know who is hungry. Or some guy like me, gets as many as I can and tosses them in the bunker.
Yeah, I figure there would be a fair number of us who would stash 6-8 weeks worth that we don't actually need at the moment. OTOH, that's food FedGov won't be having to hand out in a disaster. Not worth discouraging, though maybe worth concentrating for logistical simplicity; maybe allow a month supply to be picked up at a major hub, or during one week each year, so the rest of the time the weekly pickup numbers for a given area should stay fairly steady.
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I think the major point is that there would be a lot of people that would not want their neighbors to see that box on their porch.
Make it bright red with yellow stripes so it's unmistakable and you'll get a lot of people eschewing the service.
I doubt it; there seem to be plenty who don't mind being seen lined up down the street just off the square waiting at one of the churches' food banks here. And it's the same crowd week after week, so not the folks who just had a 1-2 week slump and needed some groceries; these are almost certainly people who burn through their food stamps every month for one reason or another.
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Apparently Trump is suggesting replacing food stamps with food deliveries.
I think I might actually agree with one of the opposing points: That it will cost more than giving people money. I'm guessing at that. Maybe it's actually cheaper?
According to the reporting I've seen, they are claiming that edible aid will be cheaper. Of course, that was the same article that called it "a novel approach." Perhaps I'm misinformed, but wouldn't this just be a reversion to the way the government used to do things?
I think the major point is that there would be a lot of people that would not want their neighbors to see that box on their porch.
Make it bright red with yellow stripes so it's unmistakable and you'll get a lot of people eschewing the service.
I don't really know first-hand, but from what I gather, there are whole neighborhoods where signing up for your govt. benefits is one of the rites of adulthood. A lot of those people aren't ashamed of it, at least not among their own neighbors, because it's just normal to them.
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Yeah, I figure there would be a fair number of us who would stash 6-8 weeks worth that we don't actually need at the moment. OTOH, that's food FedGov won't be having to hand out in a disaster. Not worth discouraging, though maybe worth concentrating for logistical simplicity; maybe allow a month supply to be picked up at a major hub, or during one week each year, so the rest of the time the weekly pickup numbers for a given area should stay fairly steady.
And already there's a (ready made) Black Market for the HDR's.....
Here are two other options:
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFJ_jmTaZ3Q
An appropriated sized bag of each per person per week. Go to your local grocery store and pick them up after turning in your voucher. Still will be a black market, but not a large one.
2) There's a organization near here called "Feed My Starving Children" They have volunteer (groups) come to their facility and pack, well, gruel, into plastic bags for them to distribute around the world. (We can get into whether I think that's a good idea or not, later). But boil some water, add the pack, and you've nutritionally complete food for a family for a day.
https://www.fmsc.org/
If the goal is to get people back on the feet, then there needs to be incentives to get them moving. If you read the book The Last Centurion, then you understand that .gov provided food needs to be nutritious, but also the last resort.
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And already there's a (ready made) Black Market for the HDR's.....
Black market pricing would have to be insanely cheap to have any market at all if anyone can go get a week's pack on request. The only reason to buy them would be if you wanted your month supply without driving to the regional depot or picking it up one week at a time. For that matter, even that could be eliminated by offering unlimited quantities for legitimate purchase at cost.
Bonus is that the seller would get zero sympathy from anyone with two brain cells to rub together when they're hungry in a system that offers everyone 2400 calories a day for free.
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If the goal is to get people back on the feet, then there needs to be incentives to get them moving. If you read the book The Last Centurion, then you understand that .gov provided food needs to be nutritious, but also the last resort.
And that's why I think the HDR is pretty much a ready-made solution; it's good enough that anyone who truly is hungry will be thrilled to have one every day, but not so good that people would want to live on them long term when there's an alternative.
Plus, looking around at typical food stamp recipients, only a couple thousand calories a day will have them eating each other fairly soon, reducing the issue further.
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Plus, looking around at typical food stamp recipients, only a couple thousand calories a day will have them eating each other fairly soon, reducing the issue further.
^^^ This! QFT.
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I don't know if Trump's idea is good or not, but...
There is a lot of fraud in food stamps. Specifically, it is very common for people to spend all their food stamp money on canned soda, and then sell it back for half price to get cash.
At the very least, you should not be able to buy soda with food stamps.
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I don't know what the solution is but there is rampant fraud and abuse with the current system.
Illinois has the "LINK" card ie electronic food stamps. I've waited patiently at the meat counter while a whole tribe debated what kind of steaks everybody wanted and the baby daddys told the young mothers to use they link cards for all the food and they would buy the booze.
They pass their link cards around freely between friends and family and everyone seems to know each others PIN.
I stood at the checkout lane when one man was told he couldn't buy dog food on his (or his girlfriends) card so he got mad, left everything on the conveyor and returned with 10 pound bulk pack of ground beef and announced his pit bull liked ground beef better anyway.
I believe that the Illinois system restricts what they can buy on their LINK card but it is linked to a debit account and every deposit includes a set amount of available cash that is supposed to be for soap and toilet paper etc but it seems to sometimes go for cigarettes beer and lottery tickets.
I'm not worried about embarrassing the recipients with a different system. Any fix that saves money is good.
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Probably a bit of thread drift, my biggest problem with all the assistance programs is they tend to trap people into staying on them. Most programs stop giving aid at a certain income level, but that level ends up being less than if they stay on aid. We really need to fix that problem first. Then we can start discussing other issues and of course cracking down on fraud and waste. Kind of like how we shouldn’t even discuss DACA until we fix issues with border and chain migration.
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I don't know if Trump's idea is good or not, but...
There is a lot of fraud in food stamps. Specifically, it is very common for people to spend all their food stamp money on canned soda, and then sell it back for half price to get cash.
At the very least, you should not be able to buy soda with food stamps.
I have read articles about this and also buying/reselling Tide laundry detergent. The soda and detergent scam is apparently very big in Appalachia.
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I have read articles about this and also buying/reselling Tide laundry detergent.
Well, these days Tide is a food source.
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Well, these days Tide is a food source.
:lol:
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Well, these days Tide is a food source.
:lol: :lol: :lol:
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I would have expected good support from the left for this. It addresses a number of issues currently facing the impoverished, such as lack of transportation, and food deserts; issues Michelle Obama worked to raise awareness of.
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Would the HDRs still be delivered on pallets via parachute?
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Looks like about 5.4% of food stamps are spent on soft drinks:
https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/ops/SNAPFoodsTypicallyPurchased.pdf
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Looks like about 5.4% of food stamps are spent on soft drinks:
Considering how cheap generics are, that would explain a lot about the health of the typical food stamp recipient.
Granted, if I broke my grocery budget down, I'd probably come out with about the same, but 1) it's my money, and 2) I burn more calories getting to the grocery store than most of them do in a week.
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I don't know if Trump's idea is good or not, but...
There is a lot of fraud in food stamps. Specifically, it is very common for people to spend all their food stamp money on canned soda, and then sell it back for half price to get cash.
At the very least, you should not be able to buy soda with food stamps.
Everyone always says there should be limits to what can be bought on food stamps, but I never see it happen. Stores are incentivized to stretch the rules even if just to avoid dealing with angry customers. The govt agency isn't budgeted the way most companies would do so they have little incentive to limit fraud or much else. Getting away from using money or credit would be a very easy way to limit what sorts of foods are obtained from the system without having to try to "fix" anything.
Of course, I am assuming the current food stamp program would be shut down and replaced by this; not just a new program added. If it were up to me, I would just get rid of it altogether at least at the federal level.
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If it were up to me, I would just get rid of it altogether at least at the federal level.
You're saying that Donald Trump shouldn't have control over the daily bread of millions of poor people (some of them minorities)? What kind of crazy, white-nationalist Trump-worshipper are you, to suggest such a thing?
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You're saying that Donald Trump shouldn't have control over the daily bread of millions of poor people (some of them minorities)? What kind of crazy, white-nationalist Trump-worshipper are you, to suggest such a thing?
American?
Just a wild guess.
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Would the HDRs still be delivered on pallets via parachute?
I would assume that is the safest way to do it for Chicago.
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You wanna hear some real howling announce that the local welfare offices will now be stockpiling foodstuffs which can be picked up when exchanging food stamps. No more purchase of food at any retail store. :angel: :angel:
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American?
Just a wild guess.
I was pointing out the irony of left-wingers insisting that the government is in the hands of science-denying, woman-hating, xenophobic Nazis; yet they seem to want those same Nazis to have control over whether poor, brown people have anything to eat.
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I was pointing out the irony of left-wingers insisting that the government is in the hands of science-denying, woman-hating, xenophobic Nazis; yet they seem to want those same Nazis to have control over whether poor, brown people have anything to eat.
The key word is control. If one controls a person's food and/or income, then one controls that person.
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The key word is control. If one controls a person's food and/or income, then one controls that person.
Though I reckon a question is: Do we recognize a difference between people who asked to be controlled and those that don't? I'm sure I made my bias clear in my earlier post :laugh: , but if it's my money, then government control is bad. If I want to use my earned money to buy a banana or a banana split, I get to do that without government interference. If someone is going to the government (in essence me and you) and saying "give me money", then shouldn't we be allowed to restrict (i.e., control) that? I am open to debating the right or wrong of either side and what's in between.
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I would have expected good support from the left for this. It addresses a number of issues currently facing the impoverished, such as lack of transportation, and food deserts; issues Michelle Obama worked to raise awareness of.
The left won't support it becauseTRUMP.
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You wanna hear some real howling announce that the local welfare offices will now be stockpiling foodstuffs which can be picked up when exchanging food stamps. No more purchase of food at any retail store. :angel: :angel:
No kidding! I seem to recall that about 20% of Kraft's $ comes from food stamp purchases.
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You wanna hear some real howling announce that the local welfare offices will now be stockpiling foodstuffs which can be picked up when exchanging food stamps. No more purchase of food at any retail store. :angel: :angel:
QFT. Would love to see it.
Also, EBT is basically Danegeld to keep the damned savages from burning the place down. Be it the corner CVS or local Walmart.
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For a few years, I worked a non-emergency medical transportation job in Detroit. I've driven down probably every street in the entire city, and it was common to pass by party stores that would openly advertise "We buy EBT benefits" on a huge sign out front.
Michigan's EBT (called the Bridge Card) allows some cash to be withdrawn, but the rest has to be spent directly on food. Party store owners would debit the food stamp portion, and give the "customer" 50% in cash.