How can one prove it.. take a picture and post it? :rolleyes:
That is not a good example of what I mean by entitlement. As I said, I have been told by a woman that she felt she “deserved” cigarettes via her food stamps. If it is someone else’s money, you do not deserve it.
holy crap, apples, i will paypal you $5 to shut the fuck up about it already and get over it. that should cover a few years worth of your contributions toward foodstamps.
I believe they were referring to prepared foods. You can buy any kind of raw ingredient with food stamps/EBT/SNAP/whatever the term is now, but the only kind of prepared foods you can buy are pre-packaged processed stuff you take home and heat up yourself, like a frozen pizza or similar. If you get something from the deli or salad bar, in many states you cannot use benefit money to pay for that.
There IS a way of knowing, actually. The problem is that deploying that “way” would be so expensive that there would not likely be any net benefit to the system’s bottom line, as calculated in benefits rescinded, and payments recovered.
I read the poll question as asking if scrutiny of the beneficiaries should be increased beyond what is already in place, and I answered “No.” I still read the question as having that intent, and my answer is still “No”.
They could do a study as was done in Wisconsin. Where it was found that fraudulent food stamp claims was one quarter of one percent. One could look at prosecuted welfare frauds in PA and NY and see that that is even less than one quarter of one quarter of one percent.
Or they can get on their high horse and look down on those less fortunate and get very angry if they buy a gaming system or a nice coat.
Well, there are things that are not technically “fraud” that I deem morally reprehensible, such as buying all your food on food stamps and then spending cash right after on cigarettes and alcohol. Dumping out your water you bought on EBT and going to the bottle return. I’ve SEEN it.
You find that morally reprehensible? You want there to be moral stipulations as well as financial ones? Who will be the ultimate moral judge? What standards of morals are we going by? Who do you think you are?
I still don’t follow. If you’re talking about take-out Chinese from a restaurant, then no, EBT won’t cover that. If you’re talking about making your own salad out of spinach and strawberries that you’ve cut up and mixed yourself, yes, you can use EBT for that. That’s what EBT is for.
Yes. Every pack of cigarettes ($7-8) is $7-8 that cannot be spent on food and must come out of our pockets.
There are self-serve sald/fruit bars. There’s also a bar to put chinese food in take-out type trays. (at least at my Shaw’s YMWV)
You claim not to be disdaining poor people. You say you are not looking down on them and yet you wish to appoint yourself their moral judge? I. . . I have no more words for you.
I’m not judging anyone for being poor. I am judging the select minority of welfare recipients who indiscriminately use taxpayers’ money to fund their food while they spend the money they have that COULD be going toward their food, to support addictions and their every material whim.
What’s your point? That anonymous people on the internet can make up any accusations they want to?
We don’t need evidence from another site to establish that. We have this thread.
You do not get more benefits because you buy cigarettes, so in the fact-based world it actually has no effect on what must come out of our pockets.
But if you have the money to support your addictions, why wouldn’t you have it to buy your necessities?
Oh, gotcha. Yes, that falls under the no prepared foods rule. Basically, if some other person made it and sold it to you, you can’t use EBT. If it was made by a factory, you’re good to go.
Which I sort of think is a somewhat outdated rule, these days, as the original intent was to keep people from blowing food stamps at Spaggio’s. Back then, there weren’t salad bars in grocery stores. It could be clarified to allow salad bar potato salad from the grocery store, but not restaurant fare.
Because you aren’t expected to spent 100% of your income on sheer sustenance before you qualify. Again, cigarette use has nothing to do with SNAP benefits. If you spend money on cigarettes, you get $X. If you don’t spend money on cigarettes, you get $X. It’s the same amount of money in either situation, so the people who receive SNAP benefits and also smoke are not in fact taking any more money “out of our pockets.”
First off, no one is denying anyone benefits because they happen to own some luxury items. No one is advocating denying benefits because people own luxury items. What is being advocated is that the act of continuing to purchase said luxury items is obvious evidence that THAT particular recipient probably isn’t playing by the rules.
You see the difference between “recipient A owns X,Y,Z belongings” and recipient b " keeps BUYING X,Y,Z luxury belongings even though he/she is only making 1200 a month on AFDC (or TANF?) and 230 in foodstamps don’t you?
What is THEN being said is NOT “if they do, they don’t get food!” but that their ability to use their benefits to purchase the luxury items (ciggys, booze etc) should be curtailed. NOT their ability to purchase food. Yeesh!
Based on your posts, it’s obvious you didn’t read my entire previous post, just picked out a few things that bugged you, and then you lumped me right in with those posts (which are few).
Let’s be real here. People, poor, rich, or in-between KNOW when they’re being honest, honorable and above board and when they’re not. Buying a steak or lobster on occasion on foodstamps? Maybe not the best budget choice, but not dishonorable, not misuse of their cards.
Selling their EBT cards, or working and not reporting income, or not reporting someone paying their rent for them and so on? Not honorable, not honest, not the actions of people that are “just trying to feed their kids”. No one’s advocating that kids starve here, so no need to quote the party line. Stop acting as if, by wanting control measures put into place, that people are trying to make kids starve.
As I said several posts ago, no it’s not fair to impugn those who accumulated debt (even foolish debt) prior to losing their jobs and having to go on welfare. However no one in this thread, (with the slight exception of Apples), is talking about those people. The thread title is (paraphrased), “should we monitor (and presumably limit) what sorts of things people on foodstamps are buying”?
Therefore we ARE talking about people who game the system, and it’s evident that they’re gaming the system based on the material things they CONTINUE to purchase even though on welfare. There is no possible, mathematical way that a person can afford the types of things that, for instance Apples, talks about her friend doing. Therefore, we’re not (for the majority of the dopers) talking about regular people on welfare.
Okay, so ** Apples** is going a little overboard with it. That doesn’t make her entirely wrong, and it doesn’t mean that she, or anyone advocating more strenuous watch-dogging on the system “wants kids to starve”.
If a person was helping their kid out by letting them live at home rent free while they got back on their feet, that parent would be well within their rights, to be unhappy (and require an effort TO get back on his feet) if the kid was spending all day playing video games and spending his/her money on nights out for beers with the buds right?
THIS is what people are advocating here. And certain actions by some of those on welfare are exactly equivalent of a kid lazing about the basement, cleaning out the fridge, having mom still do his laundry, and yet doing nothing to change or better his situation.
The parents would also be within their rights to start curtailing or withholding certain benefits of moving home to get back on your feet, if the kid were unfairly taking advantage of it, right? Obviously they’re not going to let the kid go hungry or cold, but they’re liable to hold his/her feet to the fire and say “okay, enough’s enough, start pounding the pavement and show some responsibility here”.
That’s all most of us are saying here.
It’s fun to bitch about people taking the Cheeto out of your mouth, but the question remains: How do you solve the problem in a way that makes economic sense and still helps the most number of people?
Do you not give EBT cards to smokers? OK, so what about the kids? Should they get a healthy dose of second-hand smoke AND hunger? What about the smokers themselves? Seems to me that they can’t win. They are teh evil if they buy smokes with EBT and they’re teh evil if they buy smokes with their own money. Just what the hell are they supposed to do?
I don’t have a problem with SNAP being restricted like WIC is. But I do know that it doesn’t make sense to ban candy–which, depending on what it is–may actually provide some nutrition, while allowing white rice and bread. I have some canned fruit in my cupboard. Ever look at the nutrition information on canned pears? They may be fruit, but they’re really no different from candy. You gonna ban that? Well, it’s sad to say, but canned fruit is the “vegetable” on many kids’ dinner plates. At least it’s one they will eat. Freshed asparagus? Good luck with that.
Right.
Please show the post where even one person said anything about the ghetto.