http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-259453.html
EBT only covers food. I can literally go down the street to the Russian market and buy a can of caviar, but I cannot buy toothpaste or toilet paper.
I think WIC covers diapers.
Before my time.
And if they get a job, but they’re still poor? What if they can’t find a job no matter how hard they look.
Being poor sucks, whether you’re “on the dole” or not. I don’t understand why you feel compelled to make it even more unpleasant.
What about disabled people who don’t have relatives?
More like the other way around - for every 400 lbs woman there are ten hard luck stories.
Life isn’t fair so the gov’t should take hard working people’s money to make it even more unfair. And you shouldn’t complain about it because life is unfair, what did you expect.
Hard working people like Paris Hilton?
Not risking the edit window.
Hard working people like ME? I am poor and you may feel the need to wipe me off the bottom of your shoe but I have served in the UNITED STATES NAVY and right now I’m down as a single father are you gonna shut me out?
First DocCathode, I have read your posts for years, and I want you to know that I think (as if you care what I think) that you seem like a stand up guy caught up in some shitty circumstances----I sincerley hope things pick up for you soon!!!
In regards to your post, I (who generally feels that the food stamp program is a worthwhile use of tax money, and the majority of recipiants are probably responsible folks in a temporary bad spot) dont really understand why you shouldnt be able to buy toothpaste or soap with your voucher as needed…
I also dont understand (from both a practical and a technological standpoint) why vouchers CAN (for those so inclined) be used for Russian caviar or $20 per pound Norwegian elk chops.
Surely you agree that there is no possible justification for anyone on assistance to be able to use said assistance for those kinds of ultra luxury goods, right?
I would imagine it dosent really happen very often at all, but it does happen (read my posts upthread about my cousin, who actually used his stamps for similar foodstuffs) and I want to know why this is (or should be) an option for those so inclined.
I dont have any idea how this kind of abuse (which only acts as ammo for those who actually think that people on assistance are actually living it up on the taxpayers dime) could be curtailed, but hope that we would agree that some items should be off the table when it comes to the voucher program.
Matthew
I have an EBT card and can not imagine buying a can of fish cum just cause I could. Not gonna eat it and who the hell would I sell it to? People who eat that slime are not shopping out of car trunks. I don’t even have a car but you know what I mean.
I should add that I think that foodstamps/vouchers should be able to be used for ice cream, soda and other “unhealthy” foods and treats for those so inclined, also cleaning supplies/grooming items…
Its the ultra luxury items (caviar, fois gras, a 80 dollar bottle of Tunisian olive oil) that should be barred from purchace.
How to implement a set of allowed/not allowed items is beyond me, but there must be some standard that would be acceptable.
IMHO It starts with family values. 
Because there are hundreds of thousands of food items available, and you want to have government bureaucrats go over every one, and decide whether it fits the regulations covering “luxury food”, then their work has to be reviewed, and then litigated, and then reworked and rewritten, and then relitigated, and updated every time a new food item comes out, and then reviewed, then the program thrown out and rewritten from scratch with input from Archer Daniels Midland, then thrown out again when organic food was classified as luxury food, and so on.
You want to create a bureaucratic morass because somewhere one guy on food stamps bought something inappropriate? That’s his lookout, because those food stamps have to last him a month. Why not just allow people to buy the food they want, and let them decide how to budget.
I understand, you paid for it, so you should get to decide how it’s spent. But it won’t be YOU deciding how it gets spent, it will be an army of bureacrats down at the welfare office. Why not decentralize the decision making process down to the individual making the purchase? Why do we need more regulations and more red tape? If you don’t want to give food to poor people, then fine. But if you’re going to give, it’s easier for everyone if the person getting the food decides what to buy.
i cannot believe that this is still an active thread.
it’s a terrible idea to get rid of food stamps/hand out food directly
it’s a terrible idea to put restrictions on food stamps based on nutritional value.
there’s no way around it.
MPB, if someone uses their food stamps to buy ultra luxury items and hawks it out of their trunk for booze/drug money then they will die. they will die, and let the families that use food stamps properly to continue buying hot dogs and wonder bread because it’s what stretches their dollar most effectively. if you cut out both hot dogs and caviar and force food stampers to buy salmon and artisan foccacia instead of hot dogs and wonder bread, then they’ll die of starvation because you can’t afford to feed your family that with food stamps alone. you increase the amount of food stamps to compensate the risen cost of “eating healthy” and you’ll see how fast the laffer curve will be in effect and have even more people “on the dole” because they want to eat salmon and artisan foccacia for free.
I practically got that treatment one time when I was using food stamps. The cashier sneered at me with such contempt and disgust, it might as well have been sputum. And it was just a crappy old 7-11 in Cleveland, what was he doing getting all high and mighty about it?
I do like the idea of that, but not every cashier would do it.
I was at the pizza buffet today and I noticed a lot of half eaten pieces of pizza…why someone would do that I don’t know…it’s stupidly wasteful.
Anyway, how about get all the restaurants in the area to donate all their food garbage (which would otherwise be thrown out) to the poor? They did it in “Angela’s Ashes”…it was good enough for the Irish, it should be good enough for us.
You could put it in a giant pot and give all the poor people as much as they want. Stuff their fat faces with slop.
Then again, forcing yourself to finish a slice of pizza when you aren’t hungry is one of the big factors in getting fat. Do you want to force people to eat when they aren’t hungry now? Why are you insistent on making things more difficult and more unpleasant than necessary?
They actually do do that in Chicago in a sense - the food bank network purchased a couple refrigerated trucks that allow them to pick up perishables from restaurants and take it to homeless shelters and soup kitchens. However, they can’t use “garbage”, the food has to be safe and fit for human consumption (if you have trouble with this concept - it’s because food borne illnesses cost money to treat and would further burden the taxpayer. Actually, from my viewpoint it’s a matter of human compassion but I don’t know if you have that or not so for you I’ll use the money argument, which is also valid). So… if a restaurant counted on serving a certain amount of a food, but the customers didn’t show up that night they can donate whatever hasn’t been served. Catering businesses also use this, so if, for example, someone cancels an order on short notice, after the food is prepared but before it is delivered, the food can be donated to by given to the disadvantaged, and the caterer can write off the expense of the food on taxes as a charitable donation and thereby recoup some of what would otherwise be a total loss. A win/win if you ask me.
Of course, this results in some odd things, like a catered dinner of filet mignon showing up at a homeless shelter, or lobster bisque at a soup kitchen, but since the food would be thrown out anyway I’m not sure what room there is to complain here. The steak and lobster is not being ordered for the poor folks, it’s just what’s available from the tables of the rich as, I guess, wealthy clients seldom order dinners of peanut butter and jelly or “protein mush”. Go figger.
So you bitch about fat people, but can’t seem to understand that someone desiring NOT to be fat might eat only half a slice of pizza? 
If only there was an express bus to Aldi’s twice a day, the poor would be all set…
A lot of the food from here would probably work. Especially potted meat food product.
Of course, it’s not exactly nutritious, but it IS hideous enough to punish people.
You should cull the steak and lobster out of the food waste. Poor people do not deserve to eat that kind of food. Perhaps it could be ground into hamburger so they are not able to properly gauge what a low undeserving lot they are. What is they accidentally eat something above their caste? Could we pass laws against it? We should have all poor people wear the same color clothes. That would help direct our disgust much more accurately.
Well one plate I walked by had about 4 half eaten pieces. Apparently they don’t like pizza that is within 2 inches of the crust.
At least feed the pizza to pigs or something if not poor people.