You are now changing this thread to one that should be in Great Debates (or maybe Elections). It’s clear that it does take some money for the President to take vacations. It’s clear that all recent Presidents have taken vacations. Whether it’s worth the money that the federal government spends to let the President is no longer a General Questions topic.
An outright and egregious lie, unsupportable by facts.
I think this debate is better off in IMHO rather than General Questions. Moved.
samclem, moderator
Actually, what with SSI, food “stamps” and charities, nobody *has to *go hungry in this country.
As someone who spent a month eating off what I’d eat if I had zero earnings (Foodstamps and Charity) I have discovered that the diet is filling but bland, however does depend somewhat on having someplace to cook and store it. I could have easily gained weight.
Perhaps. 25% of the kids in our local elementary school are on subsidized or free lunch programs. For many of them, it’s the only substantial meal of the day. That only applies during the week. On weekends, they share whatever may be in the house, which often is non-nutritious or non-existent. You might say “well, still, they’re not going hungry”, but you’d be wrong. The brain doesn’t function properly on high sugar or high carb foods, which are the cheapest foods to buy. Most of those kids come to school on Monday tired and unable to concentrate, waiting for the lunch meal to provide some solid sustenance. We volunteer with a backpack weekend lunch program, but it’s a drop in the bucket since it relies on donations, which are never adequate to cover the need.
Hunger in America has been on a steep rise since Reagan was elected. Prior to that, it was nearly wiped out in the 70s because of government programs targeting the problem. Faith-based programs, food banks and the like just can’t meet the demand, and food stamps are not available to everyone who is poor. It doesn’t take much income to negate the food stamp program.
Back to my previous statement: Since the President can basically take vacation any time he feels he needs it (and I have no problem with that), there is no limit on how much or how often. My wish that the money for his vacation could voluntarily be donated is based on an unlikely premise that the POTUS had a finite amount of vacation he could use and maybe therefore be donated if the funds were fungible. Wishful thinking on my part and not worth a shitstorm.
If children qualify for free lunches then would their care giver not also qualify for food stamps?
No. Subsidized school lunches are a different program, different income threshold from food stamps.
What’s the threshold for each?
I seriously doubt that when he goes on vacation that he does not still have to attend to his regular duties. Yes, there is a VP, but there is a process in order for the VP to take over for the role of the President. Instead of working 80-100 hours a week he probably just does 20-30.
Also, he is just a human being. He needs time away or else he’ll collapse. This idea that he already has a place to go to and has to answer to the whim of every piss-ant is ridiculous. It’s not the same. He needs to go home and visit friends and family, maybe actually make his own bed, cook dinner for his kids, etc. He probably does not have time for all that in DC.
For food stamps, it depends on how many people are in the house, if someone is pregnant, if someone is elderly, etc. To add to the confusion, states can relax the requirements.
A good documentary that’s available on demand is “A Place at the Table”, which is a sobering look at hunger in America. It doesn’t address the side of the coin about childbirth rates, resistance by the right to teaching sex education in schools, or the lack of funding for orgs like Planned Parenthood, but a movie can only be so long. One family that was followed was a woman with two children. A competent administrative person, she had been out of work for some time. Food stamps vary by state, but generally run from $115-140/month. In order to feed all three of them, she had to buy the cheapest food available, which, as I mentioned before, tends to be high on carbs and sugars, with almost no fruits or vegetables. So the woman finally lands a job, much to her joy. Her pay disqualifies her from food stamps and other assistance, but is too low to adequately support her family. Within a few months, the family is in worse straits than they were when she was unemployed.
Sounds like a job even you can do then. :rolleyes:
Well at least one of us could do it then.
I’ll just have to catch it when it comes on PBS.
That’s a shame; it’s something most people should see, as it dispels the myth of welfare families. IIRC, some 85% of those classified as “poor” hold down one or more jobs. These are not just urban poor. One of the families followed was a farming family, where the kids were routinely going hungry. Another issue that surprised me was farm subsidy, which basically only applies to major conglomerate farms and only for particular crops such as corn, which has industrial applications. This is why basic fruit and veg are so expensive and usually not affordable for those just getting by.
Added to that dilemma is the fact that produce companies will not deliver to a shockingly high number of stores either because it’s not profitable to do so (size), or because the store is in a poor area where most can’t afford to buy the products. No semi driver is going to go 50 miles out of his way to deliver a few crates of produce. One woman, who had a decent job, traveled an hour each way by bus each week to get to a supermarket where she could buy produce for her family. Many people who can afford the food won’t bother because of the travel required; again, this happens in rural areas as well as in cities.
No matter where the President goes, as other have pointed out, he has to be able to respond to any crisis. But I can see the value of getting out of the pressure-cooker of the White House, described by Harry Truman as the “Crown Jewel of the Federal Penal System.”
I can’t afford cable right now for economic reasons. I could give you an earful on the apartments and houses I’ve worked on (with people who are on assistance) or what happens on the first of the month at grocery stores. You’d be surprised at the number of people on assistance who CAN watch the show.
There is a tremendous amount of waste involved in this venture. The amount of money pissed away and food thrown away from vendors is staggering. I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that we should abandon direct transfer of money and go back to the direct transfer of food where we can control what is served and where it needs to be delivered.
I hear you. I worked for a public housing agency and was impressed by the number of large-screen TVs and the like in many of the units, although most often it was the only piece of furniture of any value in the house. In a lot of cases, the bedrooms were just mattresses on the floor. It’s easy to make judgments about those sorts of things, and difficult to reconcile at times, but I tried not to make judgments since I couldn’t justify asking someone about their personal circumstances and without that information my conclusions couldn’t possibly be correct. There’s certainly abuse of the systems, however; but I don’t think it’s as widespread as people are led to believe.
Your second paragraph is right on the mark. The subsidy program started, of course, as relief for farmers in the dust bowl. It’s a program that has completely outlived its usefulness and has become nothing more than corporate welfare for the likes of Dole (aptly named) and Fresh America. Small farmers can’t survive under this system, but few in WDC seem willing to take it on.
If someone on public housing can afford something that you cannot, then there are three possibilities: you are part of the working poor who are in that valley where you actually make less money (which shouldn’t exist, BTW), they are making money under the table in some way (meth or selling their kid’s Ritalin is popular for that around here), or you have different priorities for funding. Only Magiver knows which he falls into, but my default assumption is number three for anyone. Most people who complain about not having money really do have money but spend it on other things.
It’s really frustrating when you are poorer than these people who are constantly complaining about not having money.
Fourth option - they have other resources.
One of my former Girl Scouts was poor - her father didn’t hold a full time job the whole time I knew her and her mother was dead.
They kept their head above water because HIS mother was comfortably middle class - she bought the shoes and the XBox (and kept them from becoming homeless - the reason she is a former girl scout is that eventually the kids ended up moving in with grandma).
What **Dangerosa **said. Many poor people live in extended families who pool resources. They don’t go out to dinner, they don’t take vacations, don’t go to movies, don’t own new cars (or quite often any car at all), and eat on the cheap. A used TV is cheap, and basic cable isn’t all that expensive if everybody is chipping in. I’ve always thought it odd that many people believe that because a person is poor they shouldn’t be allowed any fun in life. The stereotype of a poor minority living in a shack with a Cadillac parked outside has been around at least since I was a kid in the 50s.