The contradictory thought processes and incoherence of the Left seems to know no bounds.
#1. Food Deserts Poor people live in a "food desert" where there are no or very few places to buy food therefore people need food stamps. Stores just don't exist, according to the Dims. No Whole Foods !!! OMG. If stores don't exist then how much good are food stamps? Oh...wait. Less food stamps means less ability to turn the EBT into actual cash and be able to buy drugs, cigarettes and booze. Lost opportunity for the non food stores.
Actually the reason that there are not as many grocery stores in the ghettoized urban areas is that the business owners have figured out that being shoplifted to death is not a good business model. Personally, I live in a food desert. Rural area with one store within 35 miles and a couple of small convenience stores. To go real grocery shopping, we have to drive a 180 mile round trip. We haven't starved to death yet.
#2. Government controlling what people eat Seriously? As if the Government isn't already doing that by banning food and ingredients? Hammering us over the head with calories on menus? Telling us what we should eat with the ever changing food pyramid? So, by providing "some" people with a care package of basic ingredients (pasta, peanut butter, honey, bread, canned vegetables, cooking oil, shelf stable milk [like you can buy in any store in Mexico], canned meat) this is somehow starving the poor?
#3 This program is cruel and UNUSUAL Actually it isn't unusual. Back in the 1970's when inflation was through the roof and I was young and made some pretty bad life decisions, I was on public benefits for a while. Part of that program was COMMODITIES. You were able to pick up cans and bags of food. I LOVED it. Dried beans. Tomatoes in cans. Bricks of cheese. Canned milk. Peanut butter. Flour. Sugar. Honey. Crackers. Canned ham. and other staples. Who can't make a meal out of that with some supplemental ingredients like onions, garlic, celery?
#4 Poor people are to stooopid to know how to cook If you can't figure out how to boil up a package of Mac & Cheese or make a PB&J sandwich with a glass of shelf stable milk on the side, I suggest you have bigger problems than just being poor. You are probably too stooopid to vote and thus vote Democrat. A feature not a bug for the Dims.
If the Dims think that poor people really lack such basic life skills as knowing how to open a can and make something to eat, then I suggest a program to educate to poor on how to cook basic meals.
Actually, I am very serious on this idea of education, in that there are many people (not even poor) who are unable to figure out how to cook, how to budget, how to buy food in a strategic way and other basic life skills such as: clean the dryer lint screen once in a while so you don't burn down the house dummy!
Trump has a good plan. Here is mine to start. (Mine will never happen but a girl can dream)
- Commodities package based on family size, with a smaller food stamp supplement for perishable goods like eggs, fresh vegetables, fruits, meat. Each recipient also gets a start pack of spices and other cooking staples.
- No sodas and other junk food allowed. Poor people are FAT because they eat this stuff
- Criminal penalties for EBT fraud for both the user and the merchant who allow trades for booze and other non food items.
- Mandatory classes on basic Home Economics.
- Basic cooking classes and an easy cookbook
- Starter pack of cooking utensils, pans etc for those who truly are poor and have no kitchen equipment. A fry pan, sauce pan, stock pot, strainer, some knives, spatulas etc. A map to the nearest Goodwill or Salvation Army store where you can buy that shit for practically nothing.
Personally. If you aren't willing to try, I'm not willing to help.
Last night's Poor People Dinner that even the most unskilled can make. Not gourmet, but cheap, filling and nutritious.
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| Not MY soup, but looks like this....more or less :-) |
1. Chicken, corn, egg noodle soup. Broth made from the carcass and left overs of roasted chicken frozen in a zip lock baggie and frozen wilted vegetables. I make a bag of soup stock stuff (chicken, or pork, or beef) through the month and then make quarts of broth to freeze for later. One chicken breast poached in broth and diced. 2 stalks of celery,one diced onion, half a bag of egg noodles, some frozen corn niblets, one or two diced carrots, half of a red pepper diced and sauteed, chopped green onions, spices. Flour to thicken the broth. Soup is cheap and easy to make. It is really difficult to fuck up soup!
2. Corn bread with butter I make my own from scratch, but for the "handicapped" poor, a package mix is not too bad. Remember the Dims think you are too stooopid to manage a recipe so a package will do.
3. Apple Crisp Apples, sugar, flour, oatmeal, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt, butter. Come on! this is easy and cheap. If you want to really splurge on the EBT card. Buy some whipping cream and pour that over your warm apple crisp.
19 comments:
I used to live 6 miles from the nearest grocery store. Somehow we managed not to starve. Now I am only a mile or two from several stores and boy am I fat. Ha, kidding...
Blocks of government cheese - that's what should be handed out. Big hulking blocks of good old American cheese, made right in Wisconsin. Win/win!
Bag of potatoes, bag of rice...
I've noticed that most welfare mothers are extremely fat.
But who will pay for my cheetos and mountain dew?
While I agree that the reactions to this -- as always with anything President Trump does -- are hilarious, I'm not seeing the merit in this proposal.
Why does the government need to create it's own distribution system? There are already excellent means to distribute food. We all rely on them.
If the government is going to provide food help, distributing credit electronically -- which is what the EBT (i.e., "food stamps" in their current form) card does -- would seem to be the least cumbersome and costly way to do it. How is shipping food going to be cheaper?
I'm all for people cooking and learning to cook. I know seminarians and fellow priests who are lost at sea in the kitchen -- they don't even know how to make coffee. When seminarians stay with me for a summer, I teach them some things.
But still: if what you want is to encourage, or even require, people on the dole to learn home economics, I can think of better ways to do that.
Even if what you want to do is to distribute food surplus, there are still better ways to do it.
What am I missing about the practicality of this idea?
Ooh, is that meanie Trump going to limit the free choice of food stampers by forcing a carton of food on them? Ever hear the expression Beggars Can't Be Choosers?!
So a corrupt government system that takes money from those who work and gives it to those who refuse to work is preferable to giving those lay-abouts what they need, rather than what they desire, which is money that they can spend to further degrade their lives and the lives of those in their community. Got it.
What am I missing about the practicality of this idea?
There is no doubt that some people are in need of help...however.....
I believe the issue is that much of the benefit of food stamps as a way to provide good and nutritious foods is squandered by waste, fraud and the inability of many people to intelligently manage their households. Some education can fix the last issue. I may have gone too far by asking that it be mandatory. Maybe. The first two issues can be curtailed by restricting the items allowed to be purchased and by still providing a core of basic foods to those who need it.
While we already have food banks and charitable food pantries available in many locations, those are not (generally) eligible for the food stamp program for food redemption. Even in our small and rural area there are at least 5 different agencies both private and officially charitable to provide food and supplies. You can't believe how often the people who are going in to get FREE food complain about what is being offered. Ingrates!
Why shouldn't the government program be able to combine with these to provide a basic package of food and allow some food banks to be EBT eligible. The food doesn't need to be "surplus" but could be purchased by the government at a bulk discount and then distributed to use and expand on the already existing structure of food banks.
The main thrust of Trump's basic idea is to reduce the cost to the public, provide a core of basic nutritious foods instead of Mountain Dew and Cheetos, and to reduce the waste, fraud and abuse.
It isn't about distributing food surplus. It is about weaning people off of the misused and abused existing EBT system.
And....as ricpic stated. Beggars can't be choosers.
Looking at the issue from the perspective of a person who has often, in the past, had to make a choice between milk and bread or gasoline in my car to get to work and who was not quite qualified for the FREE benefits AND who also was too proud to take welfare, I don't have much sympathy for those who complain about getting FREE to them benefits because it isn't JUST to their liking.
I have to buy, grow, hunt or harvest every bit of food that we use. Our taxes go to provide for others.
A bit of gratitude would be nice.
Right off the top all this garbaje about Hunger In America is a crock. Food banks, government cheese, nobody goes hungry in this country.
Second, the food stamp program was started as a farm subsidy. I'll bet ADM could survive without it.
#1. Food Deserts
Any place without a high end grocery store. I mean, didn't Barack have to send all the way to Dai Nippon for his Waygu streak?
#2. Government controlling what people eat
Eliminate the junk food, the booze (incl beer and wine), smokes, lottery tix.
#3 This program is cruel and UNUSUAL
Blue Apron has ads on TV all the time.
#4 Poor people are to stooopid to know how to cook
Time to disband the teacher unions and teach people how to read and do arithmetic. A quick primer in Home Ec 101 wouldn't hurt, either.
That, or required viewing of the Galloping Gourmet and the French Chef.
(am I old or what?)
PS Padre, the issue is fraud. In the ghetto, they used to be known as money stamps because they were traded for drugs, guns, etc.
As for shipping the food, let it come out of their EIC credit.
The fact that Cheetos and soda is covered under SNAP should tell you who this program is largely designed to cover. Around here the county instituted a penny per ounce soda tax. They wanted to levy it at the point of distribution, but surprise, surprise the feds told them you can't pass the tax on to SNAP recipents.That took a lot of people by surprise because they never thought you could buy junk food with food stamps. Outrage ensued and the tax was repealed last December.
There was also, a few years back, a scheme to cover fast food joints under SNAP. I'm surprised it wasn't passed, I guess the Congressswine figured the risk(blowback) outweighed the reward(bribes).
Dust Bunny Queen said:
The main thrust of Trump's basic idea is to reduce the cost to the public, provide a core of basic nutritious foods instead of Mountain Dew and Cheetos, and to reduce the waste, fraud and abuse.
Great; but I don't see how it reduces cost, unless what it does is provide a lot less food. Merits aside, that isn't very likely to happen.
So if you provide about the same quantity of food, how can it be cheaper? I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying, please show me -- it's not obvious at all. The government is going to create a cheaper food distribution system than Wal-Mart? I don't believe it. And why would it be cheaper to ship food than to have people go get it on their own?
As far as fraud and abuse, I am all for eliminating it, but what makes you think this will do it? Boxes of food can be sold too. And if the recipient gets food s/he doesn't want, it will likely end up thrown out. And what do you think will happen when a recipient calls 1-800-HELP ME! to report, "my food box didn't arrive?" "We'll send another right away!"
I don't see how it reduces cost, unless what it does is provide a lot less food
Actually, a box of 'commodities' will provide MORE food at less cost. More actual food in the form of ingredients. Compare a can of premade meat and bean chili at 3.99 (the cost in my store) which is enough for one or two at the most people. If you have a family of 4 or more you are over 10$ for some high salt, high fat chili. Compare to making chili with ingredients that cost a fraction of the cost of the canned goods. Compare a package of Kraft Mac n Cheese to making Macaroni and Cheese with real ingredients. Not only do you have MORE food, food with less preservatives, fat and sugar...... you have leftovers to eat later and ingredients for future meals.
More food. Real ingredients compared to pre processed, packaged food which is less in quantity and less in quality.
Anyone who cooks knows this. The old saying stretch a chicken five ways to Sunday doesn't exist for no reason.
That the people may not like all the ingredients is immaterial. The point of the program is to provide food. Not food you prefer, but food that is nutritious and able to sustain life. If the recipients don't like it....there is a remedy and it is called work.
It isn't as if the basic box is the ONLY SNAP benefit. The proposal is that it will be a portion.
I never said that this proposed change would eliminate waste and fraud. That is actually impossible. It will, hopefully, reduce the waste and fraud. Seriously, no one is going t black market government cheese. The EBT program is rife with fraud in the merchant takes EBT payments for contraband and does so at a premium. For instance a 6 pack of beer that would retail for 9$ is exchanged for $20 in EBT payments, which then are converted to CASH for the merchant who just made an $8.00 profit at the taxpayer's expense.
A solution to the pickiness of the people on welfare would be to have a selection from which they could choose to include in the box. Like checking off the ingredients you would like on your Deli sandwich. If you are allergic to peanut butter, there can be another option. All full up on beans. Choose something else. Hint. There will not be lobster or Wagu steaks on the list.
I have to agree with Father Fox.
Poor people should be able to choose their own food.
If they abuse the program then take away the benefits.
But don't force them to eat what some bureaucracy determines is what they should get.
They might want rice and beans but Michelle Obama will give them Kale.
Trump will not be President forever.
Yes, but, I don't think that such items as cauliflower, rice, beans, potatoes, broccoli, have that resale thing on the street.
Dust Bunny Queen:
Actually, a box of 'commodities' will provide MORE food at less cost.
Ah, I see what you mean. See? If you just explain it to me six or nine times, I'll get it right away!
You are correct that it is far cheaper to buy staples, like beans, rice, flour, etc., and make your own meals, versus prepared food. No question. I wasn't comparing like to like. It would still be cheaper to obtain those commodities at stores, rather than ship them, but that isn't happening, or isn't happening enough.
My comment about fraud and abuse was directed to others on the thread, sorry about that. But my point remains: if the government sends out food which the recipients don't want, it will be wasted.
But on balance...hmmm...
Victor Davis Hanson once observed we have the most comfortable poverty in history (actually, it's not poverty at all). Ditto for hunger.
The Lefties just want to keep the Great Unwashed placated.
In Brazil, in the days of slavery, the plantation houses had a similar layout. Every wall without a window had a mirror. They wanted to see them coming while something could be done about it.
This is the Lefties' mirror.
I think Trump is using the same tactic he likes to use. Go for the big idea, settle for something else. Drive the leftwingers nuts in the process.
Here's a solution: Free food aisle. Everyone can go there and pick up whatever they want for "free". The taxpayers have already purchased the items, as they have done with EBT, and the 48% can get their choice of nutrition without fraud, waste, and abuse.
How about special bar codes only applied to the foods that are approved under the program?
ie:
Yes barcode on Campbell's soup. No barcode on to cheetos.
No to alcohol and cigarettes.
Of course all fruits and vegetables are fine.
This is very nanny state idea, but the program is already very nanny state.
It's a dumb idea but there ya go.
It's already done that way:
Households CANNOT use SNAP benefits to buy:
Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes or tobacco.
Any nonfood items, such as:
pet foods.
soaps, paper products.
household supplies.
Vitamins and medicines.
Food that will be eaten in the store.
Hot foods.
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