# Trump wants to replace food stamps with a box of processed food, everyone gets the same thing **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 13, 2018, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789 "2018-02-13T20:50:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789/161 "2019-03-19T11:07:19Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I have also confronted people who were “tasting” things off the buffet or out of bulk containers. It doesn’t go over well, but they too are STEALING. Yes. If you want a SAMPLE ask for one - we’ll give you a bit of that fruit or a slice of a deli meat or whatever if you want to check for flavor or whatever AND we’ll get that bit in a hygienic manner but if you want _lunch_ then buy it. > [@](#): > > The grocery store up the street from me is great for marking down perishables and short-dated non-perishables. I always check out those areas when I’m in there, and have gotten some great bargains. We do that, too - some of the elderly and poor know when we normally do that, the stuff moves amazingly fast. We staff can’t buy the stuff when we’re on the clock but once we’re done for the day we’ll snatch that stuff up, too. If there is “fresh” fruit, vegetables, or meat in our dumpster it’s because there’s something seriously wrong about it and you really, really don’t want to be eating it. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789/162 "2019-03-19T17:48:46Z")
Jeez, poor people have such little joys in life. One of them is being able to buy what you want to eat. Are you going to take that away from them? I once bought cake . The person behind me in line noticed I was using an EBT card and loudly stated “I wish I could buy junk food on an EBT card.” I pointed out it was a half-price cake and the next day was my birthday. The place I got my food basket had “the blue bin” where you could put the items you didn’t want and take any item in it. Even then, it was nice to be able to pick and choose what you wanted, and feel you were helping someone with your discards. ---
**Author:** ![Celidin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Celidin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celidin)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789/163 "2019-03-19T19:02:05Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > in practice I expect it’s kinda rare for homeless people to own an iPhone… Believe it or not, a cell phone (maybe not an _iphone_, but generally a smart phone) is one of the few necessities poor/homeless people feel they must have. Why? Its hard to do things like interview for a job without some way for the job place to contact you, and cell phones have made that much easier to do. In fact there are a number of charities out there that will take your old, discarded cell phones, refurb them and distribute to the less fortunate for exactly these purposes. And if someone doesn’t get from a charity, they’ll often have at least some form of smart phone, even if its an older, cheaper model. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789/164 "2019-03-19T19:16:23Z")
> [@Celidin](#): > > Believe it or not, a cell phone (maybe not an _iphone_, but generally a smart phone) is one of the few necessities poor/homeless people feel they must have. It’s not that I don’t believe it, and I certainly agree that a cell phone (and access to the internet) is a first necessity today, but how does one subscribe to a phone service without a billing address and/or a bank account (which also seems like it would require a fixed address) ? ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789/165 "2019-03-19T19:35:47Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > It’s not that I don’t believe it, and I certainly agree that a cell phone (and access to the internet) is a first necessity today, but how does one subscribe to a phone service without a billing address and/or a bank account (which also seems like it would require a fixed address) ? You don’t have to get a plan. I have pre-paid. They don’t have my address. I just have to make sure I pay every month. I can pay with my debit card or pay cash to load a card. You can have a bank account and still be homeless though. I mean I had a bank account and credit cards when I was homeless. I didn’t start OUT homeless and thankfully wasn’t homeless more than a few months. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789/166 "2019-03-19T19:39:24Z")
We also have a smart phone “Obamaphone”. I was given the old style block phone when I signed up for the program but they have a program where you can buy a smart phone and you get a little data plus phone and text time. Because I work from home I don’t really need the data (and you can pay for more data if you need it by purchasing a card at Walmart) but I do pre-pay for my daughter’s smart phone. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789/167 "2019-03-19T20:16:41Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > heh i have a relative that thinks we need to make a “people chow” just like we do for the dogs for people "on the govermeant tit " … All I know is… > [@Charleton Heston](#): > > Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!! ---
**Author:** ![Anny\_Middon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc79bd/32.png) [@Anny\_Middon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anny_Middon)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789/168 "2019-03-19T21:09:31Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Just say you’re looking for boxes. Around here no body cares if you look in a dumpster. Some places do though. > If there was a way to get to that food before it was trashed and before is was passed the sell by date. Get it cooked up and vac-packed and frozen. Then feed to homeless and women’s shelters. Why can’t this be done? If a big company, say Wal-Mart, Costco or someone would do it they would gain so much in public relations and good will. It would be amazing. Many foodbanks accept nonperishable foods that are at or a bit after the “sell by” date. I recently heard a representative of the Northern Illinois Foodbank speak, and one thing they do is send a truck to participating grocers to collect this food. They also collect produce and other perishables that are still good. One of their problems is convincing their customers that when a box of cereal says “Sell by (a date last week)” the food is still in good condition. For peak quality, you may not want it in your cupboard for a couple of months before consuming, but manufacturers know that most people don’t eat the food they buy in the next day or two so the sell-by date is often not close to the “quality has deteriorated” date. This is true of other products, such as meats. I bought a steak on Friday with a sell-by date of that day. We had it for dinner last night; it was delicious. BTW, the store where I bought the steak had a sign near the door informing customers that one way they serve the community is to donate food they aren’t going to sell to the Northern Illinois Foodbank. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789/169 "2019-03-19T21:32:24Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Jeez, poor people have such little joys in life. One of them is being able to buy what you want to eat. Are you going to take that away from them? > > \*\*I once bought cake . The person behind me in line noticed I was using an EBT card and loudly stated “I wish I could buy junk food on an EBT card.” I pointed out it was a half-price cake and the next day was my birthday. > \*\* > The place I got my food basket had “the blue bin” where you could put the items you didn’t want and take any item in it. Even then, it was nice to be able to pick and choose what you wanted, and feel you were helping someone with your discards. Good on you for sticking up for yourself. You did kinda validate his shitty opinion, though, by justifying the purchase. A more subtle and cutting response might have been, _“Come to think of it, so do I.”_ (you know, because if that wish came true, he’d have an EBT card, with all of the attendant inconveniences and low-level miseries that implies. Educational for him.) ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789/170 "2019-03-19T21:57:32Z")
nm Double Post ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789/171 "2019-03-19T23:14:18Z")
> [@Rushgeekgirl](#): > > You don’t have to get a plan. I have pre-paid. They don’t have my address. I just have to make sure I pay every month. I can pay with my debit card or pay cash to load a card. You can have a bank account and still be homeless though. I mean I had a bank account and credit cards when I was homeless. I didn’t start OUT homeless and thankfully wasn’t homeless more than a few months. Oh, right, forgot about that. And that bar did have open wifi, so no need for an internet phone plan. Thanks ! I guess this time I was a bit too jaded and cynical for my own good :o ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2019, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789/172 "2019-03-20T01:10:05Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > It’s not that I don’t believe it, and I certainly agree that a cell phone (and access to the internet) is a first necessity today, but how does one subscribe to a phone service without a billing address and/or a bank account (which also seems like it would require a fixed address) ? First, not everyone on food stamps is homeless. Also, there are phone available where you pre-pay and that do not require a billing address/bank account. The not-so-dysfunctional homeless can sometimes use a friend’s/relatives address as a billing address. Those folks tend not to be homeless long term, they aren’t the folks sleeping in cardboard boxes on the sidewalk. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2019, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789/173 "2019-03-20T02:19:16Z")
I am always skeptical of people who say they saw someone buying lobster and sirloin with “food stamps” since they started using EBT cards. In all of the time I have been grocery shopping I have never noticed what type of card a person was swiping at the register. So it makes suspicious when people say that. That being said what Trump proposed seems similar to the Commodity Supplemental Food Program(CSFP)which provides boxes of food to low-income people over 60 years of age. My mother was getting it and I was picking up the boxes for her. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity\_Supplemental\_Food\_Program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Supplemental_Food_Program) [https://www.fns.usda.gov/csfp/commodity-supplemental-food-program-csfp](https://www.fns.usda.gov/csfp/commodity-supplemental-food-program-csfp) Here’s a direct link what typical CSFP monthly allotment look likes(caution PDF file): [https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/csfp/csfp-comparison.pdf](https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/csfp/csfp-comparison.pdf) It does give a box of the infamous “government cheese” ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2019, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789/174 "2019-03-20T02:49:01Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > in practice I expect it’s kinda rare for homeless people to own an iPhone… As others have said, a smart phone in particular can be tremendously useful to a homeless person. I mean, I have access to lots of other internet connected devices at home and work, and I find a smart phone useful. We occasionally get homeless using the outlets outside our building to charge their phones. It’s not my decision, but the sense I get from the leadership is that as long as they’re not pissing on the walls or harassing people, we don’t care if they charge. There’s also free wifi leaking out that they can use. > [@Kobal2](#): > > The \*real \*reason is probably that they’re afraid people might then game the system : “why should I buy a steak if I can just wait until they toss it then get it for free ?”. So then it would become up to the store to make sure only the “deserving” get to have free food, which is a layer of costs and effort they don’t want to deal with. Back when I worked at a grocery store in the 80s, at 10pm when the bakery closed, they would put out all of the pastries and stuff at $0.10 a dozen, or a $1 for whatever we can fit in this bag, etc. I’d almost always take home a box of extra cheap donuts or something when I closed. After a while I guess word got around, and at 10pm there’d be a mini rush of guys (always guys) lined up to buy cheap donuts, and they’d clear us out by 10:15 or so. After that happened for some time, they switched to just throwing everything out, and not doing marked down baked goods. Maybe there were people who would buy donuts no matter what, so the store lost money, but my guess is it was just people like me, who couldn’t pass up $0.10/dozen donuts, but weren’t really interested in full price ones. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2019, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789/175 "2019-03-20T04:39:35Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > The place I got my food basket had “the blue bin” where you could put the items you didn’t want and take any item in it. Even then, it was nice to be able to pick and choose what you wanted, and feel you were helping someone with your discards. The food pantry I volunteered at when I was in college had a table for things that for whatever reason didn’t really belong in a pre-made donation, and people could just take whatever they wanted off that table. With all the foreign students who had moved away, we got a lot of items with labels that were not printed in English, as well as things like toupee cleaner, a #10 can of jalapeno peppers, and a gallon jug of ketchup with a squirt thing on top of it. All of those were taken by one client or another. We did have a closet for more conventional cosmetic, hygiene, or housecleaning items, like shampoo, Kotex, laundry detergent, deodorant, diapers, etc. which we would provide if people asked for them. If we got OTC meds, we donated those to the local free clinic because we were not authorized to give those out. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2019, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789/176 "2019-03-20T04:48:32Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > It’s not that I don’t believe it, and I certainly agree that a cell phone (and access to the internet) is a first necessity today, but how does one subscribe to a phone service without a billing address and/or a bank account (which also seems like it would require a fixed address) ? You don’t. You pay for minutes/data access in advance. I had to do that in Sweden and that was my highest-paying project; I was as much in the opposite end from needing food stamps as I’ve ever been. Next time you go to the supermarket, look at the ads on the checkout: Leclerc, Carrefour, U, Intermarché… all offer refills on your prepaid cards and some even their own card, so while not every checkout will have an ad for them, many of them do. Several of my local charities ask for your old phones: the same one I use as a music box is actually a perfectly fine smartphone, I just happened to get a new one the last time I switched carriers. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2019, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789/177 "2019-03-20T05:03:34Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > First, not everyone on food stamps is homeless. Oh no I know, but the poster I was talking about was quite clearly about helping the homeless - all that stuff about safe places to get a shower or take a piss without getting run out or having to buy something, and so on. > [@](#): > > Also, there are phone available where you pre-pay and that do not require a billing address/bank account. Yeah, I’ve been sitting corrected a few times on that one 🙂 Thanks all. Total brain fart on my part there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-wants-to-replace-food-stamps-with-a-box-of-processed-food-everyone-gets-the-same-thing/808789.md?page=8)