Just how much did it cost for Obama to play golf with Tiger?

[Magiver]

Originally Posted by Chefguy

Complicated, ain't it? Handouts are handouts, and no different than if you gave money to a relative. Once given, you have no say in how it's spent (food stamps being an exception). You can only hope that people make intelligent choices. As for buying luxury items, I think I covered that previously. You can't make a judgment on what you see without knowing the story behind it. If I had a relative on the outs and I had an extra TV, I'd likely give it to him. Or if he had a TV, I might pay for his cable service. If the person is in Section 8 housing, perhaps he used the savings on rent to buy the TV and pay for cable. I'm not at all a fan of food stamps, for a variety of reasons already stated. But food delivery for everyone who needs it requires enormous logistics problems and just isn't practical on that large a scale.

there is no logistical problem to a soup kitchen. It combines the food wasted by a variety of sources and allows for control over nutrition. It requires no judgement or oversight because no money passes into the user's hands.

[Dangerosa]

Originally Posted by Magiver

there is no logistical problem to a soup kitchen. It combines the food wasted by a variety of sources and allows for control over nutrition. It requires no judgement or oversight because no money passes into the user's hands.

Really? No logistical issues? If you live ten miles out of town, how do you get there? How do you keep the kids away from the mentally ill street people? What happens when you have food for 80 and 100 people show up? How about the problem of theft? - very often people show up with most of their possessions, and theft in a soup kitchen can be a huge issue. For every day except Thanksgiving and Christmas, staffing most soup kitchens is a problem.

There are a TON of logistical issues in a soup kitchen.

[Chefguy]

Originally Posted by Magiver

there is no logistical problem to a soup kitchen. It combines the food wasted by a variety of sources and allows for control over nutrition. It requires no judgement or oversight because no money passes into the user's hands.

They rely on donations and volunteer help, like most any relief organization. Often the kitchen help is recruited from people who frequent the places. Nutrition is hit or miss, depending on what is donated, and as Dangerosa mentioned, a soup kitchen in the city doesn't help someone who lives in a rural area. But all that aside, not all who are hungry are homeless, which are who soup kitchens normally feed.

[Loach]

Originally Posted by Alessan

If the president never left DC, people would complain that he never actually bothered to see the country he was leading. It's a no-win situation.

I would be very happy if the president was barred from leaving DC except for important diplomatic visits. I've witnessed several presidential visit and participated in the security for a couple. It is staggering the time, effort and expense that every movement of the president. I participated in the security detail for a visit which shut down two towns, took 90% of the police in those two towns away from their normal jobs, emptied the Secret Service offices for NYC and took them away from their cases and snarled traffic for hours. Not to mention the expense of multiple helicopters, transporting his whole staff, the huge security detail, advance visits, dry runs and full dress rehearsals. All so that the president could have lunch with a couple small business owners and talk about a proposal. Just a photo op that got a 20 second sound bite on the evening news.

[Chefguy]

Originally Posted by Loach

I would be very happy if the president was barred from leaving DC except for important diplomatic visits. I've witnessed several presidential visit and participated in the security for a couple. It is staggering the time, effort and expense that every movement of the president. I participated in the security detail for a visit which shut down two towns, took 90% of the police in those two towns away from their normal jobs, emptied the Secret Service offices for NYC and took them away from their cases and snarled traffic for hours. Not to mention the expense of multiple helicopters, transporting his whole staff, the huge security detail, advance visits, dry runs and full dress rehearsals. All so that the president could have lunch with a couple small business owners and talk about a proposal. Just a photo op that got a 20 second sound bite on the evening news.

And they all get paid for their efforts, right? Overtime, even.

[Loach]

Originally Posted by Chefguy

And they all get paid for their efforts, right? Overtime, even.

Overtime? They who? Secret Service? No. The guy I was working with got pulled off his cases and thrown on the detail. As it happens everytime the president visits the area. My department? No. We just got pulled off our normal duties and the town was covered by a skeleton crew. The businesses near where the president was going? No. They had to shut down because the roads were closed. All those people stuck in traffic when dozens of roads were closed? Nope. Sure those of us working were getting our salaries. But not for serving the people we were hired to serve. And it was literally for a photo op and a short sound bite. I'm not complaining because I had to work. It was easy for me. I got to ride around and bullshit with a Secret Service agent for several hours. He was a nice guy and had some good stories. But the incredible waste pissed me off as a taxpayer. In this instance it just happened to be Obama. But I have seen 8 lanes of the NJ Turnpike shut down between Newark and New Brunswick so the HW Bush could drive from the airport to a fundraiser. I was locked in a parking lot for two hours at a college because Clinton came to make a speech in front of a couple hundred people. I don't begrudge any president getting a chance to relax. But the cost on many levels which they incur anytime they move is immense. I would be happy if it only happened for the most important reasons. Like a G-192 conference.

[Magiver]

Originally Posted by Dangerosa

Really? No logistical issues? If you live ten miles out of town, how do you get there?

The same way you get to the current sources of food paid for with subsidized funds.

[Dangerosa]

Originally Posted by Magiver

The same way you get to the current sources of food paid for with subsidized funds.

So you are going to add a soup kitchen in a town of 200 with that has a mini mart to serve the twelve people in town that would qualify for food stamps? That doesn't seem efficient.

(My sisters live in rural North Dakota - there is a poverty being served out of mini marts in towns of 200 people. The 180 people who can afford to drive into Jamestown go to a real grocery store. The poor use their food stamps at the mini mart, well, that is a lot of Northern Minnesota as well).