# Omnibus thread for how the current admin is sticking it to the poor & middle-class **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 13, 2018, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763 "2018-02-13T14:12:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2018, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/21 "2018-02-13T21:50:20Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I wonder who Trump thinks is going to transport, sort, divide, package, and ship 38 million boxes of food every month. No problem; they’ll have it done in the workhouses set up for the poor to labor in to deserve their pittance. I’m sure they can find benevolent corporations to set them up and run them, for a modest profit, of course. I’m currently reading a series of police-procedural novels set in Victorian London, and the parallels between then and now in attitudes toward the poor among the comfortably off are harrowing. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2018, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/22 "2018-02-13T21:53:32Z")
Quote]The administration didn’t detail exactly how families would receive the food boxes, saying states could distribute them through existing infrastructure, partnerships or directly to residences through delivery services. The proposal would save nearly $130 billion over 10 years, as well as improve the nutritional value of the program and reduce the potential for fraud [/quote] Since trump and his administration is a fraud, I would love it if this ‘program’ got rid of them all. As far as cost savings? They are clueless lying bastards. But we know that. The cost savings will happen when not one box of food is delivered. Now, to make this really happen would probably quadruple the cost we now subsidize for food stamps. I might consider supporting that. But it could really hurt local groceries that take in money from food stamps. Of course, this will never happen. Just another idiot idea from an idiot. Does no one in his administration have a ‘Um NO’ button? We should just pack the White House with spaghettios, ONE can opener and lock it down. Whom ever survives can live on an island rock in the Antarctic Ocean. I’ll be gracious and give them a pup tent and a book of matches. ---
**Author:** ![markdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@markdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markdash)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2018, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/23 "2018-02-13T21:54:45Z")
I’m not saying that this is a good idea but logistics and technology are changing at a rapid rate. I could see something like this working if families were able to choose from a wide list of products and either have them delivered or pick them up at a convenient location. The problem is in the exceptions; those with dietary restrictions, etc. Also, families most likely to use SNAP benefits are also more likely to lack access to smartphones or other digital devices to help manage such a system. Not to mention the entire system would have to be built from the ground up. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2018, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/24 "2018-02-13T21:58:59Z")
> [@mischievous](#): > > It’s not like hypertension and diabetes (best controlled by diet) might disproportionately affect poor people, right? That’s what makes the plan so effective at reducing the surplus population, silly! ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2018, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/25 "2018-02-13T22:03:02Z")
> [@Randolph](#): > > Do we really need another one of these types of threads? The rate of message accumulation in this thread suggests that it’s meeting a pent-up demand, so the answer “YES” has clearly been handed down from Mount Self-Interest by Saint Ayn Herself. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2018, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/26 "2018-02-13T22:18:51Z")
Oh please please PLEASE tell me the boxes will include cake! They must include cake. I just live for the day we hear Trump declare, “Let 'em eat cake. Cake’s good. People like cake! It’s the best cake!” ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2018, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/27 "2018-02-13T22:32:43Z")
Trump’s tax cuts put an extra 50 bucks a week (according to her) in a coworker’s paycheck. I try to avoid politics at work, but was overheard ripping Trump voters one time. The gal who overheard me was a Trump voter, and she told me that it makes her sick when she hears the things he says, but that “my job hasn’t been outsourced to China, and I have $50 extra in my paycheck every week.” Moral: You will never convince Trump voters that they are being screwed. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2018, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/28 "2018-02-13T22:51:17Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > Oh please please PLEASE tell me the boxes will include cake! They must include cake. > > I just live for the day we hear Trump declare, “Let 'em eat cake. Cake’s good. People like cake! It’s the best cake!” The cake is a lie. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2018, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/29 "2018-02-13T23:19:26Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I have no idea if this will work or not, and my instincts are to distrust Trump, but with Food Stamps, the recipient has to go somewhere to get the food. With the new program, why would you assume that the recipient should sit at home and have the food delivered? The article linked to in the OP is a bit hazy on how the distribution would work, or rather it notes that the plan itself is a bit hazy. But anyway, I’m not seeing that home delivery of these packages is necessary except perhaps in some cases. But it looks like this will be administered by the states, not the feds. Because there wouldn’t be any place to put the food otherwise. The whole point of food stamps is that we are leveraging the existing capitalist infrastructure. It’s a much cheaper way to implement subsidies. There’s not really a way to build a market just for the government in every place where people need to go get food. So the only alternative is to build bigger places and ship it out. And thus you add anti-market waste into the system. You want an argument that Trump is bad at business? Look at this: a plan to make thing less efficient and more expensive. There’s a reason that all that “government cheese” stuff went away: it cost more doing it that way. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2018, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/30 "2018-02-13T23:39:12Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > Trump’s tax cuts put an extra 50 bucks a week (according to her) in a coworker’s paycheck. I try to avoid politics at work, but was overheard ripping Trump voters one time. The gal who overheard me was a Trump voter, and she told me that it makes her sick when she hears the things he says, but that “my job hasn’t been outsourced to China, and I have $50 extra in my paycheck every week.” > Moral: You will never convince Trump voters that they are being screwed. And this is what I mean that actual Trump supporters tend to be immoral people. She recognizes that what Trump says is horrible, but it doesn’t matter to her as long as she gets hers. I doubt $50 is even much for her. The only way it makes financial sense for her to get $50 more is if she’s making a pretty substantial amount already. And, if she’s getting $50 more, then she was never in danger of her job being outsourced any time soon. They’re willing to pay her more, so they aren’t pressed for money. But even if she bought all of this, how is this a defense of Trump? Kick him out and let Pence take over. He’s the same party. The tax cut is a Republican thing, not a Trump thing. No, these sorts of arguments are just excuses. She knows what he is doing is wrong, and thus must make excuses for why it’s okay to still support Trump. This is why I have the problems I have with Trump supporters. Not just hatefulness and wanting “liberal tears.” Not just authoritarianism. But the willingness to sell out their morality. That is what Trump represents, above all. I am not the most well off, but I literally did not consider my own well being when I decided that voting for Trump was not okay. ---
**Author:** ![mischievous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mischievous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mischievous)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/31 "2018-02-14T01:01:41Z")
> [@markdash](#): > > I’m not saying that this is a good idea but logistics and technology are changing at a rapid rate. I could see something like this working if families were able to choose from a wide list of products and either have them delivered or pick them up at a convenient location. That sounds like something we could implement with existing technology! We could have some place that stores supplies of various foods, where people can come and pick what they want. We could call it a “supermarket”. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/32 "2018-02-14T02:23:24Z")
> [@StarvingButStrong](#): > > You just know he’s going to want to get the most calories for the least bucks… So some mother is going to come home from some physically demanding job and be faced with the next month’s allotment: a fifty pound sack of wheat flour and two gallons of corn syrup. Chow down! Having the poor mine and distribute fatberg chunks could solve two problems at once. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/33 "2018-02-14T03:13:45Z")
Donald Trump’s Nasty Budget > **[Opinion | Donald Trump’s Nasty Budget (Published 2018)](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/opinion/trump-budget-cuts.html)** > > What happened to all that talk about sticking up for working people? > [@](#): > > On Monday, President Trump proposed a budget that would slash spending on Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, transportation and other essential government services, all while increasing the federal deficit. > > … > > If Congress adopted Mr. Trump’s proposal, millions of people would stand to lose health insurance, subsidized food, low-cost housing and other benefits. The result would be to greatly increase poverty and hunger in America. > … ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/34 "2018-02-14T05:37:44Z")
> [@](#): > > If Congress adopted Mr. Trump’s proposal, millions of people would stand to lose health insurance, subsidized food, low-cost housing and other benefits. The result would be to greatly increase poverty and hunger in America. You realize Trump and company consider that a feature, not a bug, right? After all, it’s going to hurt Those People most. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/35 "2018-02-14T06:20:40Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I wonder who Trump thinks is going to transport, sort, divide, package, and ship 38 million boxes of food every month. Well, Trump has never heard of this idea unless it’s been covered on _Fox and Friends_. He can’t be bothered to read actual important documents, let alone a useless waste of paper like the budget proposal. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/36 "2018-02-14T06:43:17Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I wonder who Trump thinks is going to transport, sort, divide, package, and ship 38 million boxes of food every month. Coal miners. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/37 "2018-02-14T07:40:17Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I’ll kick off. > > [White House wants to deliver food to the poor, Blue Apron-style](http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/12/news/economy/food-stamps-box-blue-apron/index.html)A “bold, innovative approach”! It’s really kind of impressive just how much this goes against professed republican values. Instead of food stamps and individuals deciding what food they should buy and where on the free market, we have the government sending people food, whether it’s what they want or not. It’s _exceedingly_ paternalistic, and completely contradicts what the republican party allegedly stands for. This kind of paternalism wouldn’t necessarily be a _bad_ thing in some respects. I mean, we could help people get financial products that don’t screw them ov- > [@](#): > > The Trump Administration Just Gutted Payday-Lending Regulations …Oh. But as I was saying, this kind of paternalism wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing… _if_ you could trust the republicans to not completely and utterly screw the pooch on it. Which, of course, you can’t. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/38 "2018-02-14T08:39:47Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > Well, Trump has never heard of this idea unless it’s been covered on _Fox and Friends_. He can’t be bothered to read actual important documents, let alone a useless waste of paper like the budget proposal. There was a great British TV series called _Yes, Minister_, about an MP and member of the cabinet trying to run his department while being opposed by the career civil servants who’ve worked there for years. In the first episode, he takes office and instructs his permanent secretary to implement his campaign promise to shrink the number of redundant and unnecessary bureaucrats. He then hears that there’s going to be a news story that his department is hiring 200 more people. It’s quite simple, his permanent secretary explains; those people are being hired on the minister’s order to conduct a study to determine who’s redundant and unnecessary and can be let go. Things don’t just happen by magic. We have flu vaccines, safe airline travel, accurate weights and measures, and a hundred other things because people work their asses off to make it so. So Trump thinks “we’ll just send them food”; well somebody has to do the work, and somebody has to organize all the people who are doing the work. I’m not sure Trump understands that. As I said, for someone who’s supposed to be such a great businessman, can anyone give me an example of Trump running a business that actually accomplished something? Anything? ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/39 "2018-02-14T09:46:41Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > So Trump thinks “we’ll just send them food”; well somebody has to do the work, and somebody has to organize all the people who are doing the work. I’m not sure Trump understands that. I’m sure he doesn’t, but I’m 100% serious when I say _Trump_ probably has no idea this was even proposed. The budget is unimportant noise under normal presidents who pay attention to policy and care about its enactment. This president…does not. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763/40 "2018-02-14T11:13:23Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > It’s really kind of impressive just how much this goes against professed republican values. Instead of food stamps and individuals deciding what food they should buy and where on the free market, we have the government sending people food, whether it’s what they want or not. I’ll say this much: This _will_ come down to the free market, just the unregulated black market, where this food will be sold and the proceeds used to buy what the people selling it really want. It will lead to more criminality, of the fake invented kind, the kind that springs up because a stupid new law was passed, not because of people hurting each other in a way that is illegal. > [@](#): > > It’s _exceedingly_ paternalistic, and completely contradicts what the republican party allegedly stands for. Eh, kinda. The GOP has always been a big-tent dealie, even in its post-Regan post-Dubya Purity Test Era, given that it’s the fusion of the less-insane Libertarians (who are, indeed, anti-paternalistic) and the less-insane Religious Right, and the Religious Right is quite paternalistic in that it wants to enforce a purity religion on everyone. (Yes, less-insane. Moderately less-insane, but, still: The craziest Libertarians are in the Libertarian Party or holed up in a trailer with NOT FOR COMMERCIAL USE and ARTICLE V FREE INHABITANT scrawled on the sides, and the craziest Religious Right are in the Constitution Party or holed up some Fundamentalist Mormon or Independent Baptist religious compound. No matter how crazy you get, there’s always someone out there who’s crazier than you are. That means Trumplings think they’re moderate centrists, when they don’t think “U MAD, BRO?”) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-thread-for-how-the-current-admin-is-sticking-it-to-the-poor-middle-class/808763.md?page=3)