Then in that case the government shouldn’t be in the corporate welfare business either. I’m going to go buy a big supersize snickers, and a pepsi…no, make that one of those expensive energy drinks, with grub stubs, just to spite you.
<goes to the store and comes back>
Mmmmmm…taxpayer provided chocolate, argglarggle.
Jon
Actually, the Teeming Millions have already figured out People Chow. 
I agree.
As for welfare, I’m all for it. As long as I’m able to voluntarily contribute. But it becomes immoral when the government sticks a gun to my head and forces me to pay.[sup]1[/sup]
[sup]1[/sup] [sub] And that’s exactly what happens; in other words, I’m not exaggerating. If I do not pay my taxes, I will be eventually be hauled off to jail. By men armed with guns.[/sub]
I had an uncle who got food stamps and he bought anything he dang well pleased. Gasoline, cigarettes–you name it. Never had a problem at the places that he frequented. That’s not to say everyone everywhere in the county would have let it slide. This was the early 70s.
I’m going to get brave and side with you, Crafter_Man .
I have had enough jobs in places that accept welfare that I have turned very against it. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who really do need it and use it properly, but the numbers of abusers seems greater to me. And while I do feel sorry for children born in to these families, it shouldn’t be my responsibility to feed them. It wasn’t my decision to have a baby when I couldn’t afford it, it was theirs.
People in this country need to learn to be responsible for taking care of themselves. Why expect other people to feed you? It’s really sad that we’ve created so many people who know nothing but dependence on the government. What did people do before we had the welfare system? They managed to make it through somehow, didn’t they? We were never well off growing up, but we had a garden that provided us with fresh veggies and fruit and mom was awesome at budgeting our money so we didn’t starve. We didn’t eat T-bone steaks every night, but we had food.
I remember when I was younger (this would be in the 80s) that there was a program where staples such as rice, flour, and cheese were given out during the month to those with low incomes. What ever happened to that program?
And I’m sorry, but government dependent people should not be able to purchase high dollar steaks and lobster with food stamps. These are a treat for me when I can budget my money to fit them in, which is very rare. This type of purchasing is why I have the attitude I have now. It’s not fair to all of those who do work and pay for welfare programs.
I apologize in advance if my comments make anyone mad. Maybe I’m too young and have ideas that are incompatible with “the real world”, but this is how I feel. I have been in the situation where I had to work 2 jobs while I was going to school full-time in order to support myself and my education. But I did it. Last year my fiance and I managed to survive on the small salary I make while he finished school. We had to budget every dollar we had to make ends meet, but we did it. It takes work, but it can be done. If you can’t manage on what you have, then maybe a lifestyle change is in order.
I’m going to quit now because I have a feeling this isn’t going to go over well. I’m so sorry I even opened this thread. Nothing makes me hop on my soapbox more than foodstamp discussions. Sorry guys.
I am not a recipient of any kind of government aid, but many of the people in my neighborhood are. The local Met Food where we all shop is stocked with the the absolute oldest food I’ve ever seen. I can’t buy cheese from there anymore, because even if the expiration date says it’s fine, it most often turns out to be moldy when I open it. The vegetables last for two days tops. I’ve even bought canned corn that was completely inedible. That’s why, when I shop at that particular store, I only get processed foods that are not likely to have gone bad. I imagine the people who buy their groceries with stamps do the same.
The government is gonna take your money no matter what. Welfare is only a small fraction of what the goverment spends. IMHO, and keep in mind that I don’t claim to really know what I’m talking about, the government spends far more of your tax dollars on pork barrel projects, like roads and stadiums we don’t need, the war on terrorism, and all tose other things the government claims we need. I believe the right makes such a big issue out of welfare and othe social programs to keep people from realizing how much the government spends on other things.
If there were no social programs, than the country would be a far more dangerous and poverty stricken place. There’s just not enough jobs to go around. If you think crime is bad now, just imagine if there was no welfare. The addiction to food is worse than a heroin addiction. How long to you think it would take an otherwise law abiding person to resort to crime in order to feed their family?
Not everyone has had the opportunities you may have had and not everyones circumstances are the same. Take myself for instance, I never planned on becoming a father and getting remarried at 38. I made plenty of money for myself up to then. I could sit around and smoke pot all day, buy stuff for my computer, add to my record collection…not that I would give up my son and wife to have that back, its just my circumstances have changed. The goverment doesn’t have any problem taking money from me, so why should I have a problem with taking money from them. We could get by without food stamps. We could both get better jobs, shove our kid in day care, and be grouchy and worn out when we spend what little time we would spend with him, but we don’t want that for our son. If I’m legally eligable to take advantage of a government program that makes it possible to give my child a better quality of life, than you bet your ass I’m gonna take it.
Jon
:rolleyes:
Thats all fine and good. My wife and I could get buy on next to nothing alone, but all that changes when you have a baby. What if you would have had a baby that you didn’t plan for, and a government program allowed you fiance to finish school, be it through low intrest loans, grants or :eek: food stamps? I bet you wouldn’t feel the same way.
So DID your fiance get any low intest loans or grants for school? Thats welfare, and if he did, that makes you a hypocrite.
Jon
Keep in mind that I don’t really know how to type either
Jon
Whenever I see some anti-food stamps screed (or anti-people-who-buy-things-I-deem-inappropriate-with-food-stamps screed) I think back to that Ann Landers column on this very topic (don’t you roll your eyes at me!). Someone wrote in to complain about being behind someone at the grocery store who bought shrimp and some fancy something else and a big birthday cake with food stamps and that the writer was outraged. I don’t recall Ann’s reply, but a few weeks later another letter ran, from someone purporting to be the person buying the shrimp and cake. She explained that she bought the extravagent foods for her daughter, who was terminally ill and wouldn’t live to see another birthday. Was any of this true? Who knows, but the point, that you don’t know what the circumstances are of the person in line in front of you, is valid. I also think about the two times I was on food stamps, when I was unemployed for an extended period of time and on one occasion homeless for several months. Yes, I’m sure I bought things with my stamps that others would disapprove of and yes, I even sometimes bought a candy bar so I could get change for the bus or to do some laundry. If you don’t like it, write your Congressman, but I don’t see that it’s any of your business how someone on food stamps chooses to spend it.
That said, I would dearly love for people who get food stamps to be required to undergo some basic nutrition training as a requirement for getting the stamps. Of course being a vegetarian I’m not too enthused about the idea of government-mandated training on the nutritional benefits of meat consumption, so I guess it’s really true that you can’t please everyone.
So, nitroglycerine, you think I should pay for you to work a nominal job so you and your kid can be happier? When will you pay for me to work fewer hours at a low-stress job so I can be home with my dogs? It’s not that you can’t work a better job, it’s that you choose not to. Why shouldn’t you see a reduction in your quality of life as a result? In fact, you obviously have a computer and internet access - why should I be buying your food when you can afford those luxuries? Your quality of life sounds higher than mine, and yet I’m not asking you to buy my food.
And for the record - a tax refund is reimbursement for overpayment of taxes, not a government handout. As a single individual with no children, I’m not getting many tax deductions - probably fewer than you, with your kid (and the resultant “Earned” Income Credit, no doubt).
StG
While I certainly agree with you on the first point, I disagree with the second. I think there are some practical ways of restricting what people can buy with food stamps, especially in this day of computerized cash registers.
You could easily forbid the use of food stamps for certain categories of food that are pretty obviously non-nutritious. Soda would be an obvious one. (People like Elvis would just have to change their habits.) Candy would be another. Something like “cookies and crackers” would be more ambiguous, since most crackers are certainly okay, and certain kinds of cookies, like oatmeal raisin, are good in reasonable amounts. If you start to get too specific about and restrict particular brands, then the big food manufacturers would freak out and probably try to block the whole thing. (Could you imagine–it would be like the government specifically saying that Chips Ahoy are bad for you. Oops.) But blocking the more obvious and easily quantifiable categories would cut down on abuse.
Here are some initial ideas about categories that could be restricted, taking into account the items that people complain about the most. (It’s definitely too bad that responsible food stamp users wouldn’t be able to get certain occasional treats of certain types under these restrictions, but I think the good of having restrictions outweighs the bad. Also, I think the people who would be most outraged about these restrictions would probably be the biggest abusers):
–Soda of all types
–Sugar drinks and drink mixes, including fruit drinks with less than X% juice. I know a lot of people drink a lot of this crap, but as long as they’re on food stamps, they can live without. (Things like powdered unsweetened iced tea and the little packets of Kool-Aid could still be okay, as they are economical at least.)
–Candy and gum. Completely nutritionally unnecessary. The only defensible use of candy that I can think of is to make you feel better when you have a sore throat, but there are cough drops for that. If you can’t live without it, spend cash.
–Meat, cheese, seafood, and cold cuts costing over $X per pound. Meat and cheese and fish are good sources of nutrition, and can actually be quite economical, but the more expensive types of these things are poor values in terms of nutrition per dollar. Chuck roast on sale at $1.49? Great. Ground beef at $3.29 per pound? Okay. Filet at $9.99 per pound? Not okay.
Alternatively, you could have two classes of food stamps, one unrestricted and one restricted to only certain types of food. That would make things more complicated though. Hey! I just realized that there are already two classes of food stamps–regular ones and the WIC ones. Perhaps they could build on the existing system by reducing the amount of regular food stamps people get and replacing them with WIC stamps?
(Well, I like my second idea better than my first, but I’ll submit the first anyway.)
First off, I got my computer before my -then- GF got pregnant, I have about 1200 bucks put into my stereo too, not counting the 1300 dollar record player. Sure glad I got all that stuff , because I sure won’t be getting any more steroes or computers. As far as the internet goes…We don’t really go ot to bars or anything, and we don’t really watch TV, and anyway, the internet is pretty much a basic household need these days. So there’s a twenty dollar luxery item every month. I guess I could spend that twenty on a case of beer, then I would be living up to your expectation of a food stamp recipient.
I got no problem with you paying me to work a nominal job. Thanks St. Germain!
See, that way your tax dollars won’t be going to support my son in prison when he grows up, because he grew up with parents who were actually there for him!
Jon
First and foremost-I have no objection to subsidizing families in genuine need.
Everyone may need a helping hand on occasion.
I do believe that junk food items should be restricted-as Eva Luna pointed out-there is a correlation between a high fat high sugar diet and health problems.
If you want to live on Twinkies and soda-subsidize them yourself.
Period. Point blank.
Those are luxury items-not necessities.
That said,** nitroglycerine** I find your caviler attitude towards food stamps extremely annoying.
(And no- I’ve never used student loans or financial aid while in college or any other government assistance programs, so I’m not being a hypocrite.)
Why on god’s green earth should my husband and I work to subsidize your lifestyle choices?
That’s a pretty sophomoric justification and you know.
Why not just say-“Hey, I’m a 40 year old slacker and I’m too lazy to change so fork it over.”
OK. I can live with that. Like I said though, Its there, and I’m going to use it. It doesn’t make a bit of difference in your taxes whether I do or not.
I’m not really much of a slacker though. I work as hard at my job as I did when I made twice as much. Its just the hours work out to where we don’t need daycare. If I find a job with the same hours that pays more, I’ll take it. I’d work two jobs and let my wife stay at home, but the insurance benifits for her and the baby are really good (I’m uninsured BTW, it would be to expensive to add me on to her policy) When the boy starts school in 4 years, I’ll get a better job.
Jon
quote]First off, I got my computer before my -then- GF got pregnant, I have about 1200 bucks put into my stereo too, not counting the 1300 dollar record player.
[/quote]
Here’s where we differ,** nitroglycerine**.
Before I’d take a handout (and that’s what it is), I’d sell my luxury possessions.
Now, please bear in mind that I’m a wee bit of a socialist in that I feel that anyone that is gainfully employed deserves access to decent free health care, safe affordable housing, and free quality education.
Garbage collectors should earn a comfortable living wage,as should teachers, and firemen and policemen.
However, this is Americaand not jlz’s private utopia, and you made the choice to get your wife pregnant (and even if it was an accident, you surely realized the consequences of your act when you were doing the horizontal bop) and you made the choice to raise your child.
Don’t you think that it behooves you to make some sacrifices?
I’m not impressed that you’ve stop going to bars. Big damn deal.
How else are you economizing to afford your new lifestyle choices?
My husband and I are trying to radically change our lives.
We will probably not be buying non-essential items,eating out or taking any trips for the next two or three years.
I will have to give up purchasing the two things I really like to buy-CD’s and books.
My list could go on and on but I’m sure that you get my point.
What have you given up?
What have I given up? I live a pretty non-essential lifestyle these days. Do you really want a list?
Hmmm…
Pot’s the big one I was a pretty heavy pot smoker back before my food stamp days, haven’t bought any since the baby
Concerts…I used to go to Pittsburgh and Philly all the time to see punk rock shows. Haven’t really seen even a local band since, except for the free oldies summer concerts at the park.
Smoking…Ok we still smoke, but now we either roll our own (you can buy enough tobacco for ten bucks to equal a carton of generic smokes) or get buy one get one free deals.
Going out…we went out partying after our wedding reception, but thats it. I gave up seeing the second LOTR movie cause We couldn’t afford it, and I REALLY wnted to see that movie. We never go out to eat anymore, and I really like to eat out too.
We walk a lot more instead of taking a cab or a bus.
Record collecting. I collected records for a looong time. There’s all kinds of new release vinyl that I really want to get and I’m missing out on buying new 45s by my favorite bands, knowing that in a few years those records are gonna be worth ten times as much.
I’m obsessive-compulsive about my record collection, so thats a pretty big sacrifice.
Those are just a few things off the top of my head. And I don’t really consider them to be sacrifices. I don’t look at my son as a burden.
A far as selling my stereo and comp…thats just stupid. Nobody is going to want a three year old Compaq, and I’d get nowhere near what my stereo’s worth.
I think about Ebay-ing my records every once in awhile, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Besides, I want to pass them on to my kid. They’re the only thing I have, ya know?
Jon
Yes, well you purchase your own sodas. I don’t want to be purchasing frivolous items others. If they need a soda, they can delve into what little cash they do make to accommodate such needs.
However:
This is a good point. I used to say that no one should collect from the government. We were always broke when I was growing up and I remember all the crazy things my mother would serve us for meals. They had to much pride to ask for help, and we survived. If anything, I am better for it. But I just don’t know enough about the system today to make any kind of valuable opinion.
Not only am I not married, but the government says I can’t marry the partner of my choice. Married people get more in government services than single people do (or at least can access more). Why on god’s green earth should I work to subsidize your lifestyle choices?
And out of curiosity, do you feel the same way about, say, property taxes used to pay for schools? All those hard earned dollars of yours going to support other people’s lifestyle choices…
Anyone who has worked in a grocery store changes their attitude about food stamps. You do shake your head when you see a whole buggy of junk food being paid with an EBT card.
In Pennsylvania at least, there are two types of benefits: food benefits and cash benefits.
The food benefits are for food–no paper products, no pet foods, no cleaning supplies, no newspapers, no health and beauty supplies, and oddly enough, no prepared foods (like hot foods from the deli). If any of the foods have sales tax on them, like sodas, the EBT recipient does not have to pay the sales tax on them either.
The cash benefit has absolutely no restrictions. Its intent, I believe, was to be used for paper products, cleaning supplies, and health and beauty aids. In reality it is used for cigarettes, gasoline, etc. Although I am not a recipient of EBT benefits, I think the card can be used in an ATM machine to withdraw some of the cash benefits as cash. As cash, these benefits can be used for whatever purpose the recipient desires.
Two quick things:
After starting working in a grocery store (after years in general merchandise type stores), one of my cashiers asked me if someone could use their cash benefit for cigarettes. I told them no, that it made no sense to me that they could. Afterwards I joked with the store owner that someone tried to use their EBT for cigarettes, and that’s when I found out you could.
Second, I have yet to see one food stamp recipient drive a nice car, have fancy clothes, or buy shrimp or filet mignon.
If anyone else has any questions about the store’s acceptance of them, let me know.