I think I understand your reasoning, but I see a couple of problems I see with this type of restriction:
For one thing, I think it would be hard to implement, and I imagine it would cost a fortune to do so. WIC works in the way you’ve suggested–certain sizes and brands are programmed to work when scanned, others aren’t. As someone has discussed upthread, WIC requires a lot of resources to run, because of the demands of the program–training, testing, education, flyers, all of it takes money to keep it in place. And if you have ever used WIC, you probably know the vitriol that can be directed at you as you pull out your vouchers…people often react just like some of the folks here.
But here’s the real kicker for me: I don’t think $5.99 is reasonable for meat. I never spend more than $2.50 per pound for meat. Ever, no matter what my budget is. $2.50, to me, is not luxury buying. $5.99, to me, IS luxury buying. Frankly, I don’t think anyone, anywhere, needs to spend that much on meat, period.
So…who gets to make the call? You, or me?
Now, now let’s not go over-board. They’re not saying that the least of our brethren should starve or have no shelter. What they are saying, is that the least of our brethren should have the pride to live, eat and die in the manner in which fits the least of our brethren.
So no lobster, no setting the thermostat past 55, no name brand shampoo; because they haven’t earned the right to consider themselves equal…they need to realize that they are lower caste and should act accordingly.
Shuffle their feet and be glad for the ability to purchase the family pack of chicken wings, end cuts and day old bread. How dare they purchase lobster, when a hamhock, bag of dried peas and water can feed them just as well. The nerve of them, purchasing the same type of food that decent people do.
The poor should have the decency to act…poor. If they can’t, then someone will have to show them.
Next week…why should we pay for realistic human looking artifical limbs, when metal hooks will do. i pay a lot of money for my nails, why should a cripple be given a fake hand that looks like it has a better manicure that mine?
Scylla, it’s clear that you loathe the poor. That makes you a jerk, but we can live with that. But when you dress it up as “I love the poor, I will starve them for their own good”, then you come off as a patronizing jerk. You sure you want to go down that road?
“Simple” is a good word for it.
Unless I’m missing something, don’t welfare recipients get a fixed amount of food stamps/EBT funds a month? It wouldn’t matter whether the recipient uses all their month’s benefits for a small amount of expensive food or a larger amount of less expensive food, since if they blow it all on expensive food they aren’t getting more benefits until next month.
This obvious point has been conveniently and consistantly ignored by the no-choicers.
Or as I like to say:
People complain about spending 5 million to feed the world, yet they cheer about spending 10 billion to blow it up.
Zabali-are you saying you have an abscessed tooth? If I were you, I’d see about getting that taken out, ASAP, if it’s that bad. An abscess left untreated can lead to more problems later on-they can even be fatal. (Ask your family doctor about options-dental schools, programs for those who don’t have the money for it, etc).
Or, as others in the thread like to say, it’s only a tiny percentage of the total that you pay, so shut up and quit whining.
How dare you try to dictate how she should spend her money? You arrogant, hard-hearted conservative, you. You want her to starve in the streets by forcing her to spend her money on dentists instead of filet mignon.
What we need is more classes on dental care in the schools.
Regards,
Shodan
No, what they’re saying is that if you didn’t earn the money yourself by working, if you take money from the government, you may have to give up some freedoms, one of those being the freedom to buy whatever you want with the money. There is always a trade-off in life. Always.
Here’s an example for you; if I work and make money, I spend it on whatever I please. If I ask my mom for money, she has every right to ask me what I plan to spend it on BECAUSE IT IS HER MONEY, NOT MINE. I can decide to take her money on her terms, or I can decide that I don’t want her telling me what to do, and go earn my own money.
Do you really think that a family on the dole should be living exactly the same lifestyle as a family that is working? Where would the incentive to get off the dole be if life on the dole were as pleasant as can be?
Not lower caste; just not paying their own way at the moment.
The poor are going to stay poor if they always do what they’ve always done. This is not a liberal or conservative viewpoint; this is a natural law of the universe.
That’s beside the point of this discussion.
As a bystander in this thread, I gota say that Shodan, WeirdDave** and company are making reasoned argumentrs and the liberal s have only anger and appeals to emotion.
There is definitely a need to subsidize food for the indigent and the temporarily distressed, but the liberals here have yet to answer a question the conservatives have repeatedly asked. . . . how do you prevent permanent dependence on public charity?
The conservative here need to learn about sharing with the less fortunate, and the liberals need to find practical, real-world solutions to the questions that the conservatives ask.
Absolute bull fucking shit. I absolutely guarantee you that it’s more expensive to live in the Baltimore/DC corridor than it is to live in Kansas, and basically on par with any area of the country, yet by checking the circular for Giant, the largest chain of supermarkets in the area, we find that that my paltry $5.99/lb limits our hypothetical food stamp shopper to a choice of only New York strip steak, center cut pork chops, boneless salmon fillets, fresh turkey breasts, country style pork ribs, London broil, boneless chuck roast, lamb chops, chicken wing drumettes, boneless skinless chicken thighs, split chicken breasts, chicken drumsticks, whole chickens, sausage, bacon, Angus beef ground round and ground turkey, and that’s just on the first two pages of the circular.
No fuck you, you goddamn arrogant asshole. I don’t begrudge you your disability check, assuming that your disability is legitimate and not an addiction to Everquest, but your mine, mine, mine attitude is pathetic. We as a society have decided that we will provide support for members of the society who are unable to work for whatever reason, a decision that I agree with 100%, by the way, but you would do very well to remember that you are living off of the sweat of the backs of the rest of us and demonstrate a little common decency and humility by remembering that we don’t owe you either Jack or shit, and perhaps some slight gratitude that you live in the U.S. and not Ghana where you’d be on your own. This mine, mine, mine, gimme, gimme, gimme, more, more, more attitude that you have has no business coming from someone who is living off the generosity of others.
You betcha. You can and do restrict where and how I drive through the medium of laws regulating my operation of a motor vehicle.
You betcha, and you do, VIA the chain of command which is answerable to a civilian government, which is in turn elected by you and every other citizen of the US who is eligible and decides to vote. How can you be so blind as to not be able to see that it’s the exact same thing WRT food stamps? There are already limits on what one can and can’t buy with food stamps, I fail to see how my dollar limit on the price of meat is such a radically different kettle of fish.
Food stamps are redeemed through the medium of an ATM like card, here in Maryland it’s the screamingly ironically named “Independence” card. Any store with the technology to accept this card has the technology to restrict what customers can buy, and in fact are by law required to now. If you bring a pound of ground beef, a dozen oranges, a gallon of milk, a tomato and a carton of cigarettes to the cashier, you swipe your card and it pays for the meat, oranges, milk and tomato, you have to fork over the cash for the smokes. Simple, innit?
You can do whatever you want with cash, it’s no skin off of my nose.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh thank you, thank you, thank you. I needed a good laugh, it’s been a boring day. wipes tear from eye Really I needed that, thank you again. Someone who doesn’t realize that a government program that gives away a can of dog food a week for every citizen’s dog breeds puppies is telling me I don’t understand how things work in the real world. Priceless, absolutely priceless. I really wish there was a way to use it in a MasterCard commercial, it’d win a Cleo for sure.
Can you show me anyplace in this thread where I have said that I am advocating anything for someone else’s “own good”?
Isn’t that pretty much guaranteed by the fact that they only get $5/day? What does it matter how they spend it? If anything, buying expensive food is going to make one’s lifestyle worse, not better, since you’re going to have significantly less money to eat on for the rest of the month. If eating steak comes at the cost of eating nothing at the end of the month, how is that so luxurious so as to remove any disincentive to get a job?
Wow, natural law of the universe! Steven Hawking would be so proud. Maybe next you can explain quantum theory via forcing people to eat rice and beans.
If this “natural law of the universe” is so immutable, do you really think that forcefully stopping people from buying name brand corn flakes is going to get them to see the light and start building a stock portfolio?
I must have missed that part of the thread. That is a good question, and a valid concern, but what does that have to do with controlling how people use their food stamps? I might add that there is some (small) percentage of people that will require permanent dependence on public charity for one reason or another.
I don’t see any solid reasoning on why controlling how people use their food stamps would be a Good Thing.
There are ways that are workable.
There used to be “operation bootstrap” programs and job training programs. The idea was, to offer those who can work, a way out of the welfare system.
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Train them to have a marketable skill that will support them at a better level than they would get on welfare. Not some quicky course in a field that is glutted or dying, but real training in a field where there are openings at least at the entry level. Encourage private industry to offer entry level training, and give them tax breaks for doing it.
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That includes a concerted effort to stop the new game being played - juggling the schedule and books to keep people on part time so as to fuck them out of pay, security and benefits.
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Give these companies tax incentives to stay in country, instead of giving them tax breaks for outsourcing to other countries.
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For those who will never be able to work - the old, the sick, the woman whose husband deserted her (or just died) with several children, the disabled veteran - fix the welfare system so they can live in dignity. At the same time, go after the cheats and press charges, dump them from the rolls, and be done with them.
That’s the “librul” approach. Give people a way out.
Please enough with the cliches, “there’s always a trade-off…” yeesh, like watching a very special epsiode of Family Ties…
Once she gives it to you, it’s no longer hers; it’s yours. At least that’s the way I always consider a gift to/from family to mean. Not strings, no lectures; a gift. Same thing with a loan, here’s the money; pay me back. If you need the money enough to swallow your pride and ask, then I need to have enough respect for you, not to treat you like a three year old. That’s assuming you’re not a junkie or a screw-up.
If a person asks me for $100 for clothes and they spend the entire $100 of a pair of sneakers. It’s their money, I gave it to them to purchase clothes, if they decide to spent it on one item, then that’s their decision. See me next month, which is exactly what happens. They receive a set amount, they don’t get to go back and ask for more.
Still, let’s say your mother gives you the money to buy a car. You decide that FOR YOUR NEEDS, you need all-wheel drive. Does she now after giving you the money, have the right to follow you to the dealership and prevent you from purchasing that car, because she doesn’t think you ‘deserve’ all-wheel drive? Not because you don’t need it, but because she gave you the money; you can’t have a car she preceives is the equal of hers.
Nice mom. Does the fact that she gave you money, forever indebt you to accept her will over yours, even though she has no idea of what your day to day needs are?
Is it the fact that it’s lobster or the price that’s the problem? If I find a place to sell me lobster for $2.99, is that allowed? Can I buy organic foods, or must I purchase the cheapest? Can I purchase “exotic” herbs and spices, or must I only purchase salt and pepper? Clarify how much rights WE as taxpayers have, to set the menu for millions of people. Is there to be a check list? Citizen’s arrest? If I see a poor person using their assistence card to purchase Imported Virgin Olive Oil, when Lard is available, do I get to call them on it?
Please no more cliches. If you think living on the dole is pleasant, I suggest you try living on half your paycheck for a month or two and get back to us. i don’t think you’ll be living the same lifestyle, as a person making twice your salary, EVEN if you purchase lobster once every 6 months…do you?
Explain to me how spending money that is allocated for food, on food; regardless of what that food is, keeps people poor.
i don’t think it is.
Easy. Lifetime cap on “welfare” benefits, which already exists in some states. TANF, or the cash assistance program that used to be AFDC and is commonly known as welfare, has a lifetime cap of five years. Food stamps have a lifetime cap of three years, in my state. So, permanent dependence is not an option.
Could we ask the conservatives the same question? They seem to be of the opinion that if you can force people to be miserable enough, or to restrict their choices, they will suddenly flourish financially, as if by magic. Clearly this is not the case.
In fact, let’s ask this question of the conservatives (assuming this is a partisan issue at all). After all, it is they that want to change the system, the burden of proof is on them. Tell us, no-choicers, how a forced diet will teach people how to fill out a resume or diversify investments.
To answer the question myself, well, if I had all the answers, I’d be in a different business. But back in my poor days, I would not have done a more diligent job search had I been forced to eat Cheerios instead of Wheaties. In fact, knowing that I could make my own choices instead of having to follow some government program is what gave me the confidence to do a job search in my own way. The moment I said “Fuck what the world thinks I should do, I’m doing things my own way”, a job fell into my lap.
I’m a great believer in the idea that a feeling of dignity is an immense aid to improving one’s lot. There’s a vicious cycle in unemployment in that it robs you of your pride, which makes finding a job more difficult, which robs you of more pride, etc. I think that a lot of the welfare problem stems not from people getting more comfortable with a free ride, but less comfortable with themselves. The stigma of welfare probably makes people want to just stop trying altogether. Institutionalizing a ban on “luxury” foods just adds another layer to that stigma.
Guinistasia, yep it’s abcessed. The best I can get is doctor’s attention for when it’s infected atm though. There is a “clinic” once a year where people get free dental care, and I tried when it was happening last year, only to be turned away because they had begun taking applicants before the stated time that the clinic was set to begin. (We got up at 3 am to drive there in my father in laws truck, only to be turned away at 5 am and told they were full up, and the clinic didn’t start until 6 am according to the leaflets they circulated.) I’m not the only poor person in this area with this problem either, the doctor stated “Lots of my poorer patients need dental care badly, but can’t afford it.”
Weirddave, I was thinking of places like Chicago, and New York City, not to mention Wichita Kansas and Kansas City, Kansas. (Same city, just crosses state borders.) It is a legitmate disability, my mother is bi-polar, and so am I. She’s NOT on disability, mainly because my dad is retired, and they live off his retirement. To top it off, not only do I have to deal with being bi-polar in a society that mistakenly thinks this means I’m going to grab an axe and go beserk, must be stupid, shouldn’t be trusted with making my own decisions about the simplest things, want to commit suicide right now, and must hear voices (I don’t) but I have to deal with PTSD, and things like waking up screaming and swinging fists because I dreamed “he” was trying to kill me again. Look at my post again, I DO cut corners, and I’m going without the medical care I need. But, if I should so choose to spend money that I got from the Government AFTER all my bills are paid for the month on lobster, shrimp, steak, Chinese buffet, or a movie, it’s none of your business. You don’t owe me a damned thing, except to take your nose out of my budget! Again, fuck you!
featherlou There is incentive to “get off the dole”, (distasteful phrase) and fortunately for me and my husband, we have a way to do so soonish. Guess what, most people DON’T have a way, it’s a vicious cycle they are caught in, spiraling down. The “job training” programs have been severely cut/discontinued. They’d rather penalize you severely for turning down a below minimum wage job if you are in the KanWork program by cutting your benefits entirely, than see to it that you get a job that allows you and your family to keep a roof over your head and not starve to death. I don’t know what the solution is, but “dictating” what everyone can and cannot buy is not such a simple, easy solution, it would cost more money than is “mis-spent” now to implement. It also would only make things worse, as has been pointed out due to the greed of stores who would have a “captive market”.
I faiul to understand the tsuris over how food stamp recipients spend their state-subsidized funds. so what if a poor person buys lobster? That means he’ll starve for the rest of the month, thus learning a valuable lesson on the proper allocation of resources. Once you agree to give the funds, you lose control of the funds. I really don’t care how a poor person spends their public charity–I do care, however, that we don’t have generations of people living on the state dime.
This is something that I have spent a long time thinking about, and I don’t know that I have any smart answers. A few years ago, I worked as a Tech Support rep for a company that made software that assists in the property management of HUD subsidized housing (keeping track of tenants, rents and requesting the subsidies each month). A lot of what I saw while doing this was terrible. From time to time, we would need to get data from the customers for file repair and so forth. I would see entire buildings of these projects that were one extended family. Generations of families in subsidized housing. In one case, I had an owner that had set up all of his parking spots as “units” and was collecting subsidies on them (I helped send his ass to jail). In any event, I don’t know how germane that is, just my way of pointing out that events in my life have made this an issue of some interest.
I guess that my take on this is that the real solution to the problem is going to require a kind of political will that we just don’t have at the moment. For example, we absolutely need to make sure that we are not punishing people for working. If the choice is to be on welfare and have healthcare coverage for my family or to take a crap job and loose that, this is an obvious choice. But see, this is where the political will issue comes into play because we are not willing to make the changes necessary that would lead to affordable healthcare. And that is just once example. Childcare is another.
There are also some hard truths that I think that we need to admit to ourselves as a society. Specifically that the way that we have things set up right now, we are absolutely addicted to cheap, unskilled labor. While this is functional at the moment for society as a whole (after all, there is no shortage of unskilled, disadvantaged people out there. When we use up one batch, we can just hire another), I think that we could do a lot more in the way of making sure that they don’t suffer more than they have to.
I guess that perhaps my point is that society, viewed as a whole, has no real interest in solving this problem. It works out pretty well for everyone except the folks that are actually suffering, but they are pretty disposable so no big deal.
If I (as a somewhat Liberal type) were to offer some real world solutions, I guess that I would suggest the following.
[ul]
[li]Adjust the official poverty line income statistic to something that reflects a realistic income level at which a family can subsist.[/li][li]Base at very least Medicade (Medicare? (I forget which is for poor folks and which is for old folks)) benefits on that income, rather than on if you are working or not.[/li][li]We could borrow from China’s one child policy (in a more humane way) and start folks off at a relatively high benefit when they have one child, and then lower it slightly with each child that they have.[/li][li]Education: This, I think, is where the problem will be solved in the long run. We must teach kids about important, real-world skills (and be damn serious about doing so). They need to learn nutrition, balancing checkbooks, how to calculate interest on loans, how to cook, and so forth while they are still young. They need to be taught how to live in the world.[/li][/ul]
And this is really just throwing some stuff out there. Another thing that I can see is that we do want to ensure that the Foodstamps that the public is funding goes for healthy food. This comes back to the question of political will, though. It would be great if congress would come out and define some foods and junk, and refuse to spend taxpayer money to buy it. The problem is that they are all beholden to the very businesses that manufacture these foods, and so will never have the stones to do so.
I don’t know, I guess that this got rather windy. What I do know is that I believe that we are only as good as a people as is reflected in how we care for the least amongst us, and that we are not doing too well.
One final thought, for those that have endured this long post: Perhaps another way to look at welfare and foodstaps is as another form of corporate welfare. It seems to me that society is simply footing the bill (in the case of foodstamps and some healthcare programs) for the things that they do not offer.