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I don't understand the idea that you can have a foodstamp system and not tell people what types of food they get to spend the money on... You're already dictating the money has to be spent on food, why not go a step further and dictate that it has to be spent on good food?

I mean, if you're going to assume people can spend their money how they please, why bother having a food stamp system at all? Why not just roll that money in to social security and save on the processing costs?

 sebster wrote:
I don't understand the idea that you can have a foodstamp system and not tell people what types of food they get to spend the money on... You're already dictating the money has to be spent on food, why not go a step further and dictate that it has to be spent on good food?

Ignoring the moral question it's just not something that's practical to deal with. The current system works because the cost to grocery stores is minimal. You don't have to worry about whether or not a specific product is an acceptable kind of food, you just flag every item in your inventory as "food" or "not food" and the customer pays with their food stamp card just like with a credit card (leaving the non-food part of the transaction to be paid separately). If you want to start making rules about which specific items are allowed you have to convince the store to spend the time and money to decide whether, say, that bag of baked "healthy" chips is junk food or not. The cost and difficulty in dealing with that is probably going to be more than any benefit you get from forcing people to spend that money on "appropriate" food.

 sebster wrote:
Why not just roll that money in to social security and save on the processing costs?

Because food stamps are a big form of welfare, and not just the obvious kind. The original plan was to just give cash stipends, but the agriculture lobby pushed hard for redeemable stamps (because hey, guaranteed business, and them stamps ain't exactly gonna bounce); which is why the food stamp appropriations are part of the farm bill in the first place. They got behind it just like the insurance industry got behind the ACA, and for the exact same self-serving reason.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I generally find corporate welfare odious but in this one specific case, everyone is a winner. hungry people get fed, agriculture has good profits, and the taxpayer money gets spent on something that, in addition to being pretty effective at helping the needy; actually stimulates the economy in a direct and meaningful way.

Anyway, I also don't agree with restrictions greater than what we already have on food stamps. People who need SNAP are poor, but they're not stupid children who don't know how to live their own lives - they're typically not on them for very long. If they want to eat Lucky Charms instead of cheerios - I mean, at some point we need to stop shoveling psychic guano on the neediest among us.,

 sebster wrote:
I don't understand the idea that you can have a foodstamp system and not tell people what types of food they get to spend the money on... You're already dictating the money has to be spent on food, why not go a step further and dictate that it has to be spent on good food?

I mean, if you're going to assume people can spend their money how they please, why bother having a food stamp system at all? Why not just roll that money in to social security and save on the processing costs?

This is is just my opinion coming in here, but if someone is already in the position of needing help to get food, the supplier would at least want them to get food that will keep them healthy and not needing doctor care as much. I think that might be part of the reason at least. I guess we could look up statistics on eating habits of low income groups to see if they vary widely from upper income, possibly through the CDC.
As I said, just my opinion, and I know there are any number of ways around the system, but there ya go.

 Peregrine wrote:

 sebster wrote:
I don't understand the idea that you can have a foodstamp system and not tell people what types of food they get to spend the money on... You're already dictating the money has to be spent on food, why not go a step further and dictate that it has to be spent on good food?

Ignoring the moral question it's just not something that's practical to deal with. The current system works because the cost to grocery stores is minimal. You don't have to worry about whether or not a specific product is an acceptable kind of food, you just flag every item in your inventory as "food" or "not food" and the customer pays with their food stamp card just like with a credit card (leaving the non-food part of the transaction to be paid separately). If you want to start making rules about which specific items are allowed you have to convince the store to spend the time and money to decide whether, say, that bag of baked "healthy" chips is junk food or not. The cost and difficulty in dealing with that is probably going to be more than any benefit you get from forcing people to spend that money on "appropriate" food.

WIC does it, no reason food stamps can't.

 djones520 wrote:
WIC does it, no reason food stamps can't.

WIC is also a massive pain for the store to deal with. Having to treat food stamps (which are much, much more common) the same way would be a nightmare.

 Peregrine wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
WIC does it, no reason food stamps can't.

WIC is also a massive pain for the store to deal with. Having to treat food stamps (which are much, much more common) the same way would be a nightmare.

WIC is very stringent, but Food Stamps don't need to be as such. Simple rules. No candy, no booze, no little debbie snacks, no soda, etc... Don't need specifically coded items in it.

 djones520 wrote:
WIC is very stringent, but Food Stamps don't need to be as such. Simple rules. No candy, no booze, no little debbie snacks, no soda, etc... Don't need specifically coded items in it.

But those rules aren't simple. WIC isn't just a pain because it's specific, it's a pain because you have to have the cashier verify everything before accepting the check. Currently food stamps are efficient for the store because there are so few exclusions and it works just like any other transaction. If you want to have the stores enforcing rules about what counts as "junk food" then you're going to slow things down and you may find that stores are less tolerant of food stamps.

 Peregrine wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
WIC is very stringent, but Food Stamps don't need to be as such. Simple rules. No candy, no booze, no little debbie snacks, no soda, etc... Don't need specifically coded items in it.

But those rules aren't simple. WIC isn't just a pain because it's specific, it's a pain because you have to have the cashier verify everything before accepting the check. Currently food stamps are efficient for the store because there are so few exclusions and it works just like any other transaction. If you want to have the stores enforcing rules about what counts as "junk food" then you're going to slow things down and you may find that stores are less tolerant of food stamps.

If that is the case, then so be it.

We shouldn't have things like cashiers getting fired for refusing to sell cigarettes for food stamps. The laws on this stuff needs to change.

 djones520 wrote:
If that is the case, then so be it.

You realize that the current food stamp system requires the cooperation of the grocery stores, right? If you make life difficult enough for them that they say "not worth the effort, we're not accepting food stamps anymore" the whole system falls apart. What you're probably going to have to do is pay the stores extra to do it, and now you're at the point where your solution causes more harm than the problem.

We shouldn't have things like cashiers getting fired for refusing to sell cigarettes for food stamps. The laws on this stuff needs to change.

You realize that you can't buy cigarettes with food stamps, right? That store's decision had nothing to do with the laws, and if you look closer you'll probably find that they were fired for being rude to the customer, not for refusing an illegal sale.

It wasn't with the EBT grocery card...it was with something called an EBT cash card.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/n-h-cashier-fired-refusing-sell-cigarettes-welfare-recipient-article-1.1104402

So...make of that what you will.

 Peregrine wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
If that is the case, then so be it.

You realize that the current food stamp system requires the cooperation of the grocery stores, right? If you make life difficult enough for them that they say "not worth the effort, we're not accepting food stamps anymore" the whole system falls apart. What you're probably going to have to do is pay the stores extra to do it, and now you're at the point where your solution causes more harm than the problem.

We shouldn't have things like cashiers getting fired for refusing to sell cigarettes for food stamps. The laws on this stuff needs to change.

You realize that you can't buy cigarettes with food stamps, right? That store's decision had nothing to do with the laws, and if you look closer you'll probably find that they were fired for being rude to the customer, not for refusing an illegal sale.

Well, the case I mentioned was a Michigan EBT situation, which was state welfare, not exactly the same situation. But if the stores don't cooperate, then they don't cooperate. Not all stores accept WIC already. Maybe it'll come down to the Gov giving subsidies or something to stores that do. If it cuts down on rampant fraud, the saved money would conceivably outweigh that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
If that is the case, then so be it.

You realize that the current food stamp system requires the cooperation of the grocery stores, right? If you make life difficult enough for them that they say "not worth the effort, we're not accepting food stamps anymore" the whole system falls apart. What you're probably going to have to do is pay the stores extra to do it, and now you're at the point where your solution causes more harm than the problem.

We shouldn't have things like cashiers getting fired for refusing to sell cigarettes for food stamps. The laws on this stuff needs to change.

You realize that you can't buy cigarettes with food stamps, right? That store's decision had nothing to do with the laws, and if you look closer you'll probably find that they were fired for being rude to the customer, not for refusing an illegal sale.

Well, the case I mentioned was a Michigan EBT situation, which was state welfare, not exactly the same situation. But if the stores don't cooperate, then they don't cooperate. Not all stores accept WIC already. Maybe it'll come down to the Gov giving subsidies or something to stores that do. If it cuts down on rampant fraud, the saved money would conceivably outweigh that.

And before anyone accuses me of doing the "I got mine" crap, my family is on WIC, so we know first hand what it's like.

 djones520 wrote:
If it cuts down on rampant fraud, the saved money would conceivably outweigh that.

The point here is that fraud isn't rampant. Fraud is a small problem that is blown vastly out of proportion by conservatives as justification for killing welfare programs that they have an ideological problem with. In reality fraud is such a small problem that anti-fraud measures have ended up costing more money than they save.

It seems like implementing an "approved product list" could be fairly easy since everything has UPCs anyway.

Wouldn't we be able to have the burden of "is this food healthy enough for food stamps" placed on the actual food manufacturers? If they can show that their product meets the requirement, then it goes on a central approved list. Since approval = government money for your food there is an incentive to get that approval.

Stores could then have a simple database that sorts all UPCs into a yes/no system and then applies the money to only the healthy options.

Maybe it wouldn't be that simple, but it seems like there should be a way.

Of course any attempt to add restrictions to force people towards healthier foods has to also include an increase in benefits since healthier food is also more expensive.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
What about people that do not want to eat all those vegetables and produce? And what is "Healthy" I think the current system is fine. Also what is the definition of "Junk Food" is jelly and peanut butter Junk food? Are Tortilla chips? What about sweets? Or do poor people not allowed sweets.

Poor people are not allowed a taste of what hard-working, real Americans can eat because they are obviously lazy and stupid. If they were hard-working, real Americans then they wouldn't be poor would they.

We should change EBT so they can only buy dog and cat food in a can. That would teach and shame them to do better!

 Easy E wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
What about people that do not want to eat all those vegetables and produce? And what is "Healthy" I think the current system is fine. Also what is the definition of "Junk Food" is jelly and peanut butter Junk food? Are Tortilla chips? What about sweets? Or do poor people not allowed sweets.

Poor people are not allowed a taste of what hard-working, real Americans can eat because they are obviously lazy and stupid. If they were hard-working, real Americans then they wouldn't be poor would they.

We should change EBT so they can only buy dog and cat food in a can. That would teach and shame them to do better!

And this is why we can't honestly discuss this topic. *rolls eyes*

 d-usa wrote:
Wouldn't we be able to have the burden of "is this food healthy enough for food stamps" placed on the actual food manufacturers? If they can show that their product meets the requirement, then it goes on a central approved list. Since approval = government money for your food there is an incentive to get that approval.

Ok, and all of that is going to cost money because now you need the government to supervise the whole process and verify the manufacturer claims.

Stores could then have a simple database that sorts all UPCs into a yes/no system and then applies the money to only the healthy options.

And how much are you going to pay the stores to keep the database current as products change?

Maybe it wouldn't be that simple, but it seems like there should be a way.

The question isn't whether it would be possible to make food stamps only cover "good" foods, it's whether there's enough of a problem with people using food stamps to buy "bad" foods to justify doing it. So far it seems like this is a solution in need of a problem.

So apparently Wal-mart says letting their stores in Louisiana be looted was "the right thing to do" and they will be receiving only $50 in compensation (per customer who ripped them off) as that is the "emergency limit" in the event of an outage per the state of Louisiana.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
So apparently Wal-mart says letting their stores in Louisiana be looted was "the right thing to do" and they will be receiving only $50 in compensation (per customer who ripped them off) as that is the "emergency limit" in the event of an outage per the state of Louisiana.

*shrugs*

Walmart is probably insured against losses, and certainly operates on such a massive scale that the looting isn't going to have any meaningful impact on the company. Might as well claim a bit of moral high ground and talk about "doing the right thing" to let people get food.

 d-usa wrote:
It seems like implementing an "approved product list" could be fairly easy since everything has UPCs anyway.

Wouldn't we be able to have the burden of "is this food healthy enough for food stamps" placed on the actual food manufacturers? If they can show that their product meets the requirement, then it goes on a central approved list. Since approval = government money for your food there is an incentive to get that approval.

Stores could then have a simple database that sorts all UPCs into a yes/no system and then applies the money to only the healthy options.

Maybe it wouldn't be that simple, but it seems like there should be a way.

Of course any attempt to add restrictions to force people towards healthier foods has to also include an increase in benefits since healthier food is also more expensive.

Actually, it is that simple and even further, most stores ALREADY has the infastructure for this. The problem is, as always, the politics of these sort of things.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So if im on welfare, I cant enjoy a nice Pepsi once and awhile?

Nope. Not with your EBT or SNAP or food stamps. You're on the people's dime, you don't get luxuries. Soda is a luxury. It shouldn't be remotely comfortable to be on it.

 cincydooley wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So if im on welfare, I cant enjoy a nice Pepsi once and awhile?

Nope. Not with your EBT or SNAP or food stamps. You're on the people's dime, you don't get luxuries. Soda is a luxury. It shouldn't be remotely comfortable to be on it.

Don't know why it's such a hard concept.

 Peregrine wrote:
Ignoring the moral question it's just not something that's practical to deal with. .

Which is wholly dissimilar from the 'moral question' that arises when we start forcing people to buy health care and fine them if they dont......

Or 'moral question' when we try and limit the size of a drink someone can purchase in a particular city....


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Easy E wrote:

Poor people are not allowed a taste of what hard-working, real Americans can eat because they are obviously lazy and stupid. If they were hard-working, real Americans then they wouldn't be poor would they.

We should change EBT so they can only buy dog and cat food in a can. That would teach and shame them to do better!

Sure they can. But with their own money. Like they already do for cigarettes and alcohol. Not government money.

 cincydooley wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So if im on welfare, I cant enjoy a nice Pepsi once and awhile?

Nope. Not with your EBT or SNAP or food stamps. You're on the people's dime, you don't get luxuries. Soda is a luxury. It shouldn't be remotely comfortable to be on it.

So if im on the peoples dime i deserve to be miserable? A bed is a luxury. I don't get to sleep on a bed then huh? do I not get to have hot water because that is a luxery. Look at what your saying, you are saying because someone is on foodstamps, they deserve to me miserable.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So if im on welfare, I cant enjoy a nice Pepsi once and awhile?

Nope. Not with your EBT or SNAP or food stamps. You're on the people's dime, you don't get luxuries. Soda is a luxury. It shouldn't be remotely comfortable to be on it.

So if im on the peoples dime i deserve to be miserable? A bed is a luxury. I don't get to sleep on a bed then huh? do I not get to have hot water because that is a luxery. Look at what your saying, you are saying because someone is on foodstamps, they deserve to me miserable.

No, if your on the peoples dime, you deserve to be cared for. And you should get the necessities that you need. But if you want luxuries you pay for them yourself. Not being able to buy soda doesn't mean your life is miserable. If that is what you need to get enjoyment out of life... well then you've got bigger issues then a lack of money.

 djones520 wrote:

No, if your on the peoples dime, you deserve to be cared for. And you should get the necessities that you need. But if you want luxuries you pay for them yourself. Not being able to buy soda doesn't mean your life is miserable. If that is what you need to get enjoyment out of life... well then you've got bigger issues then a lack of money.

Exactly this.

Again, being on social services shouldn't be comfortable.

Why the feth shouldnt it? These are people who are stuck in a crapppy situation and looked down upon. The idea of "Generatinal Welfare" is a near myth

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Why the feth shouldnt it? These are people who are stuck in a crapppy situation and looked down upon. The idea of "Generatinal Welfare" is a near myth

See... this is why it's hard to have this sort of conversation...

What is "comfortable"?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Why the feth shouldnt it? These are people who are stuck in a crapppy situation and looked down upon. The idea of "Generatinal Welfare" is a near myth

Because luxuries are luxuries. Pepsi gives no real nutritional benefit.

 whembly wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Why the feth shouldnt it? These are people who are stuck in a crapppy situation and looked down upon. The idea of "Generatinal Welfare" is a near myth

See... this is why it's hard to have this sort of conversation...

What is "comfortable"?

54" LED TV, 2 Laptops, 3 $400 phones, and cars with $500 rims for every household.