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 hotsauceman1 wrote:
We are arguing in circles. I give up.

Then please explain why we should do it instead of just asking us what the harm is in allowing candy and soda to be used via EBT/foostamps/etc... Let's start there because I don't think I've seen you suggest why we should allow it while the three of us are saying why we shouldn't allow it.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
If that is all they are drinking yes. But why not one every once in awhile. Im not saying they should be able to but nothing but candy and soda with it. What im saying is that where is the harm in allowing a small amount of it?

because its not their money.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
We are arguing in circles. I give up.

Only because you're missing the point of the entire argument.

Point in fact: The SNAP program is the new name for the 'food stamps' program in the United States. SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.

Notice my emphasis. Nutritional. Soda is not.

The SNAP Website has TONS of recipes on it. TONS. Nutritional ones. There are no recipes for Soda. Or Candy. They're bad for you, and they cost money that could go towards something of value and substance.

$2.50 for a Pepsi and a Snickers? gak, that's a whole gallon of milk. Thats 2 dozen eggs. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Ok,
1: I think we should allow it because one once in awhile is not harmful. Like all "Unhealthy" foods if you have one once in awhile it is not bad, it isnt good but it is not bad.
2: People on welfare, living off the state are in a crap situation. They live in crap situations and constantly get embarrased and shamed for being in that situation. Let them have a soda, they dont have much else to look forward to.
3: Living on welfare does not meean you are a mooch. Sometimes with kids, school or other things like that that can prevent you from working, it is the best option. My cousin hurt his leg on the jb and cannot work. He is living off EBT. All he has to look forward to is a soda and sitting infront of the TV. Why take that from him?
Also, most places over here sell soda for 1$, and milk for 8$

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
What money, if you are living off foodstamps you tend to not have other money. You tend to have money for rent/bills and for clothes or things like that.

But you don't need much money for rent, as you can get government subsidized housing. The requirement for that is to not have income exceeding 30% of the area's median.

For STL, that would be about 15,000. That comes out to about 7.37/hour, full time. That's about $1153 a month, before taxes (that you'll get all of back).

So two part time McJobs and you can still have housing assistance. It looks like they'll subsidize roughly 30% of the housing payment. That means that, for the 2 bedroom 1 bathroom apartment I just found at $595/month, you pay about $416/month for it.

You have electricity. That runs you roughly $86/month in St Louis per Ameren's site.

You don't need a car, because you work two McJobs. You can find those on every street corner, so it's not like you have to drive to work.

Phone? $30-50/month, depending on your plan. Even less if you go with a prepaid.plan.

Since you're under $1211, you manage to still qualify for EBT too.

So, at this point, I have rent, phone, electricity, and a phone covered, and I have $591/month left over to spend on anything else needed. Oh, and I also get however much food subsidized by EBT still!

On a personal note: I really have a problem with wealth inequality, but I really feel like these arguments you keep making about deserving Pepsi and junk food off of EBT are silly and devalue the significant and insightful comments that are actually made about the vast difference in wealth between the poorest guy and the richest one.



Sources:

http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/topics/housing_choice_voucher_program_section_8

http://www.myfoodstamps.org/eligible.html

Hey hotsauce, this is pulled from a HuffPost Article linked in another thread:

3.Food stamps for alcohol and junk food. Though they were intended to ensure hungry children received healthy meals, taxpayer-funded food stamps were instead spent on fast food at Taco Bell and Burger King; on non-nutritious foods such as candy, ice cream, and soft drinks; and on some 2,000 deceased persons in New York and Massachusetts. Food stamp recipients spent $2 billion on sugary drinks alone. Improper SNAP payments accounted for $2.5 billion in waste, including to one exotic dancer who was making $85,000 per year.

Emphasis Mine.

1. Determine once in a while. Once a day? Once a week? Once 1. a month? What is it?
2. You still haven't responded to why they can't buy one with their own money, as opposed to mine.
3. I haven't said it means that. I accept welfare. My father grew up on it. But we've also striven to rise ourselves above it. I will be off all forms of welfare next year. You know what? With what I get, I've never once bitched that I have to buy Shredded Wheat cereal, instead of Lucky Charms. I've never said my life was crap, and I'm so depressed because I couldn't use other peoples money to pay for something I didn't need. I've been thankful for the assistance I've had, because there have been days where that assistance was the only way I could make sure my children were fed. I was happy for what I got, and I didn't sit around and bitch about not getting more.

Maybe Im wrong. I dont know. I just feel alot of this "You cant have this, or this or this" idea from food stamps is just a "I have mine, why should you have yours" mentality I see on dakka alot and hate

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
My cousin hurt his leg on the jb and cannot work. He is living off EBT. All he has to look forward to is a soda and sitting infront of the TV. Why take that from him?

His hurt leg prevents him from working at all? I'm sorry, I can't say I can feel a ton of sympathy for someone that just sits at home in front of the TV all day, so I don't know how good an example that is.

Also, most places over here sell soda for 1$, and milk for 8$

Where in the US are you paying $8 for a gallon of milk? Hawaii? Alaska maybe? I have trouble believing that, especially considering the national average is hovering around $3.50.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Maybe Im wrong. I dont know. I just feel alot of this "You cant have this, or this or this" idea from food stamps is just a "I have mine, why should you have yours" mentality I see on dakka alot and hate

And you'd notice that half of these comments are coming from dudes also trying to help the guy in the other thread (that you're also participating in) find a job.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Maybe Im wrong. I dont know. I just feel alot of this "You cant have this, or this or this" idea from food stamps is just a "I have mine, why should you have yours" mentality I see on dakka alot and hate

No one's arguing that the service shouldn't exist. I'll happily pay in a part for someone to eat to live. The problem is that American's don't eat to live, it's the other way around.

The purpose of the plan is to make sure you can survive. Nothing more, nothing less. Drinking crap drinks might make you feel good, but it's not helping you survive. Drinking them to an extreme (which is easier than you'd think) is actually doing the opposite, and is probably as bad for you as drinking large amounts of alcohol.

I don't like the Dakka "got mine, feth you" groupthink either, but this is seriously the wrong place to make that stand.

sorry, I meant 2 for 8$, that is how I alway buy it so I remembered that. And his skillset(Truck Driver) He cant. And by hurt I mean hurt hurt. several surgeries and massive amounts of pain killers everyday for his leg.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
sorry, I meant 2 for 8$, that is how I alway buy it so I remembered that. And his skillset(Truck Driver) He cant. And by hurt I mean hurt hurt. several surgeries and massive amounts of pain killers everyday for his leg.

Then he's the kind of person that SHOULD get unemployment and SNAP until he can work again. But that doesn't mean he should get to buy non-vital, non-nutritional food with it. No one is saying it shouldn't exist, brosef. The government is about to spend BILLIONS on the Affordable Healthcare Act. BILLIONS, in part to treat problems that teaching foundational nutrition would curb in many instances.

The SNAP website looks great. It's full of healthy recipes, and healthy options, and healthy everything. The primary photo is of a women buying produce. The present First Lady has made the "Get Moving" program a foundational piece of her tenure as the First Lady. So why then, if the program puts on that facade, would you even let people purchase garbage food with your "Nutritional Supplement" program?

hotsauceman1 wrote:Maybe Im wrong. I dont know. I just feel alot of this "You cant have this, or this or this" idea from food stamps is just a "I have mine, why should you have yours" mentality I see on dakka alot and hate

Sacrifices have to be made. I've cut out 90% of my luxuries because I can't afford them. I gave up on Netflix, Xbox Live, most of my hobby purchases (bought some magic cards with money I'd been saving up), and satellite tv (I mostly just miss AMC and the sports stuff). I have my cell phone because I need it for work and I have internet because my job occasionally needs me to have it, and my dad has to have it for his job. If your cousin is out of work then he might have to give up soda until he's healthy enough to work again and can start getting those luxuries back. No one is saying he shouldn't have SNAP or other things to give him the food he needs to live, but we're just arguing that he shouldn't be allowed to spend 'our' money on things that don't keep him alive but in fact can make him unhealthy (especially if he's too injured to move off the couch and can't work them empty calories off.

Edit to the above section: I make far too much to be on EBT/SNAP etc... I'd love a soda (if I still drank them ) but I don't ask for people to buy me a 24 pack of Bud Light if I want to get drunk on the weekend, I man up and drink a few 40oz

hotsauceman1 wrote:sorry, I meant 2 for 8$, that is how I alway buy it so I remembered that. And his skillset(Truck Driver) He cant. And by hurt I mean hurt hurt. several surgeries and massive amounts of pain killers everyday for his leg.

Shouldn't that stat disgust you? 8 bucks for 2 gallons of milk yet you can get cheap pop for a dollar. There's a reason why 1 costs as much as it does and the other is dirt cheap because 1 offers nutritional value and the other is just carbonated water, caramel coloring, and high fructose corn syrup.

 Alfndrate wrote:
Sacrifices have to be made. I've cut out 90% of my luxuries because I can't afford them. I gave up on Netflix, Xbox Live, most of my hobby purchases (bought some magic cards with money I'd been saving up), and satellite tv (I mostly just miss AMC and the sports stuff). I have my cell phone because I need it for work and I have internet because my job occasionally needs me to have it, and my dad has to have it for his job. If your cousin is out of work then he might have to give up soda until he's healthy enough to work again and can start getting those luxuries back.
.

See, this is the think that irks me the most about parts of this conversation. When I got laid off from my job, we had to do the exact same thing, Alf. And I didn't think anything of it. We had to cut our spending so that it was in balance with the much lower amount of money we were earning. We switched almost entirely to store brand food. We couponed a LOT harder than we do now. We didn't have cable for half a year. We never went out to eat. Etc, Etc.

You don't have a right to tons of things. You simply don't. And Soda is on that list.

 cincydooley wrote:

See, this is the think that irks me the most about parts of this conversation. When I got laid off from my job, we had to do the exact same thing, Alf. And I didn't think anything of it. We had to cut our spending so that it was in balance with the much lower amount of money we were earning. We switched almost entirely to store brand food. We couponed a LOT harder than we do now. We didn't have cable for half a year. We never went out to eat. Etc, Etc.

You don't have a right to tons of things. You simply don't. And Soda is on that list.

The company my dad worked for folded when I was in high school. I gave my parents money from my part time job, and among various other cutbacks, we (the kids) learned to like iced tea and water instead of soda, because it was cheaper.

I don't think they actually even went on any of the aid programs other than unemployment.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
sorry, I meant 2 for 8$, that is how I alway buy it so I remembered that. And his skillset(Truck Driver) He cant. And by hurt I mean hurt hurt. several surgeries and massive amounts of pain killers everyday for his leg.

quick question. where was he working before he was injured? cause if he has a Class A he could of been working In north dakota driving equipment/supplies around the oil field towns... they always need new drivers and you can make nearly 6 figures your first year and can make over 6 figures your 2nd and so forth. also once his leg is healed tell him to head out there. (http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/28/pf/north_dakota_jobs/ granted this is 2 years ago but its still like that up there)

 cincydooley wrote:
It's pretty easy to not have 3 kids though, isn't it? And free.

So what do you do if you already have the kids and then you lose your job/your spouse that was the primary income for the family divorces you/etc? Put them up for adoption so you can spend all of your time trying to work your way out of poverty?

 djones520 wrote:
Pull the wax out of your eyes. No one is saying they cannot have it. What we are saying is they cannot buy it, with OUR MONEY. Those food stamps are not theirs. That is money that the rest of us gave to them, so they can do things like eat. Stuff like soda provides no nutritional value. Which means it is a pure luxury. Our tax dollars do not go to providing luxuries to people. They go to providing necessities. There is not a single thing necessary about a coke and hershey bar.

And the point you keep missing is that you're talking about spending a lot of money to enforce good behavior. How much extra are you willing to pay to prevent people on food stamps from buying the occasional luxury? Are you ok with spending $5 to prevent them from having a $1 candy bar once a month? Because I still haven't seen the evidence that buying "bad" food is so common that adding a bunch of new restrictions to stop it is anything other than a spiteful "stop being happy".

I realize you guys are right. Ok. So I was working at the register today. At my work(I work at a campus Cafeteria) there are regalements. 7$ a day for food from a campus eatery a day. for 5 days. One of my co-workers comes in and uses hers to buy 3 bags of chips and a soda on those regalements.....Me and her work in the same place, the same hours and the same time. She gets 7$ a day for food when I bring my lunch and have 10$ a week at school for drinks and the occasional snakes. I know realize people o this alot. Do nothing but use free 7$ to buy drinks or chips. 7$ a day for 5 days......I know realize you guys are right

Peregrine, your ability to completely ignore salient points in a conversation is admirable. You're really impressive at it.

As to the three kids situation: A: that ex spouse will owe you child support, B: there are plenty of programs that provide child care subsidies up to 100% so you can work.

$2B in EBT spent on sugary drinks. If costs $1.5B to prevent it, do, it. That's $500MM better spent elsewhere.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I realize you guys are right. Ok. So I was working at the register today. At my work(I work at a campus Cafeteria) there are regalements. 7$ a day for food from a campus eatery a day. for 5 days. One of my co-workers comes in and uses hers to buy 3 bags of chips and a soda on those regalements.....Me and her work in the same place, the same hours and the same time. She gets 7$ a day for food when I bring my lunch and have 10$ a week at school for drinks and the occasional snakes. I know realize people o this alot. Do nothing but use free 7$ to buy drinks or chips. 7$ a day for 5 days......I know realize you guys are right

If it can be abused, it will be. Sad fact of life. Make it harder to abuse, less abuse will occur.

 cincydooley wrote:
Were it up to me, you'd get something like this:

Milk
Eggs
Chicken
Rice
Potatoes
Oatmeal
Fruits
Veggies

Without any flour or sugar, they're going to have a hard time baking the cake you wish to let them eat.

 Ouze wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
Were it up to me, you'd get something like this:

Milk
Eggs
Chicken
Rice
Potatoes
Oatmeal
Fruits
Veggies

Without any flour or sugar, they're going to have a hard time baking the cake you wish to let them eat.

But if we give them access to sugar they can develop their own forms of soda! We can't have that can we? They might create something better than Cheerwine!

 Ouze wrote:

Without any flour or sugar, they're going to have a hard time baking the cake you wish to let them eat.

While I appreciate the let them eat cake allusion, read above. I meant to include baking needs. Said as much.

But you know, pick and choose. Pick and choose.

 Alfndrate wrote:

But if we give them access to sugar they can develop their own forms of soda! We can't have that can we? They might create something better than Cheerwine!

hey you leave my Coke'd Cherry drink alone, moved down south a year ago and i love the stuff.

 Ninjacommando wrote:

hey you leave my Coke'd Cherry drink alone, moved down south a year ago and i love the stuff.

Cheerwine is starting to get into the northern markets via the "Old Carolina BBQ" joint... the Cheerwine alone makes the little journey to fast food bbq worth it.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ok,
1: I think we should allow it because one once in awhile is not harmful. Like all "Unhealthy" foods if you have one once in awhile it is not bad, it isnt good but it is not bad.
2: People on welfare, living off the state are in a crap situation. They live in crap situations and constantly get embarrased and shamed for being in that situation. Let them have a soda, they dont have much else to look forward to.
3: Living on welfare does not meean you are a mooch. Sometimes with kids, school or other things like that that can prevent you from working, it is the best option. My cousin hurt his leg on the jb and cannot work. He is living off EBT. All he has to look forward to is a soda and sitting infront of the TV. Why take that from him?
Also, most places over here sell soda for 1$, and milk for 8$

$8 for milk? Where the heck do you live?