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delicately calloused
Picture of darthfuster
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Welfare should be run as storehouses. A recipient shows up with a voucher. there are certain safe and nutritious foods and sundries there for selection. The cart is checked upon leaving for inventory. An account has been made of what was received and how much. There are no addictive substances available. There are no frivolous foods like caviar and lobster. Staples, fresh vegetables, meats, milk etc. no junk food. The recipient is then required to work at something to compensate in effort for the public gift. Even if that something is sweeping the sidewalk or harvesting fruit somewhere. Much of the decay we see in the society comes from people having too much unaccountable time on their hands. Basic benefit and personal accountability. That would solve much of our welfare abuse.



You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier
 
Posts: 29607 | Location: Highland, Ut. | Registered: May 07, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
eh-TEE-oh-clez
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It would save money simply on the cost of the food consumed. Lowest bidder gov't peanut butter, versus commercially sold and marketed retail peanut butter should have a significant difference in price. $300 of retail groceries would probably only cost $120 if it was all purchased through bulk and institutional channels.

With some good data science and analytics behind it, you could optimize all the fresh fruit, vegetables, grains, and dairy for seasonality and region, and incorporate how the government farm subsidies affect farmers. Buy up and distribute all the surplus.

Food prices might go up for the rest of us though. The highest profit margin foods are all the crappy sodas and snacks that markets sell. Without an endless supply of free welfare dollars buying up all the crappy food, food manufacturers are going to have to find their profit elsewhere...
 
Posts: 13046 | Location: Orange County, California | Registered: May 19, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
eh-TEE-oh-clez
Picture of Aeteocles
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I've said it before: Welfare should not exist--it should all be called the Paid Civil Service. It should be incomprehensible that our streets and sidewalks are dirty, while at the same time able bodied people receive government assistance with nothing exchanged in return.
 
Posts: 13046 | Location: Orange County, California | Registered: May 19, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Fighting the good fight
Picture of RogueJSK
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Sounds like a great idea.

Heck, I'd settle for just running the SNAP program like they do with the WIC program. Like SNAP, WIC is another form of "food stamps", just specifically for pregnant women and those with young kids.

The big difference is that WIC funds can only be used for nutritional staples: formula, milk, bread, cheese, eggs, fruits, veggies, basic meats, peanut butter, certain healthier cereals, etc.

No steak or soda or Twinkies or chips, like you can buy with SNAP.

Simply paring down SNAP to just basic nutritious food, like they already do with WIC, would be a huge step in the right direction.

quote:
Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
About five years ago, I posted a thread about working in a convenience store and having to complete a sale to a skinny black guy with long dreads and dragon-lady fingernails using EBT to buy a 12 pack of Corona. They get cash benefits on the card that they can use for anything, just like a debit card.


Yes, but that's not SNAP/"food stamps". People aren't buying beer with their food stamps. Cash benefits are received through different welfare programs, although it's all accessed through the same EBT card.

However, as already mentioned in the thread, there's still plenty of other opportunities to fraudulently convert food bought with SNAP into cash for beer or whatever.

One notorious method is "bottle dumping". In states with a bottle deposit (usually 5 cents or so), people will use their SNAP cards to buy numerous cases of water/soda/etc., dump the liquid out, and return all the empty bottles to get the deposits. Literally spending $200+ in taxpayers' SNAP funds to get $50 cash back, a nickel at a time. Then go buy $50 worth of beer/drugs/cigarettes/etc.
 
Posts: 32421 | Location: Northwest Arkansas | Registered: January 06, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
delicately calloused
Picture of darthfuster
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Hey! we could give them all of the muffin stumps!



You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier
 
Posts: 29607 | Location: Highland, Ut. | Registered: May 07, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of Ironmike57
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When I lived in Atlanta, there was a hair salon next door to me that accepted food stamps on all of the salon's service. He was rather open about it too.

Do you think all the food stamp recipients actually need those stamps for food or do you think a percentage of them only get said stamps to use/trade for alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, hookers, etc?
 
Posts: 1972 | Location: Florida | Registered: July 26, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Chip away the stone
Picture of rusbro
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quote:
Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Heck, I'd settle for just running the SNAP program like they do with the WIC program. It's another form of "food stamps", specifically for pregnant women and those with young kids.

The difference is that WIC funds can only be used for nutritional staples: formula, milk, bread, cheese, eggs, fruits, veggies, basic meats, peanut butter, certain healthier cereals, etc.

No steak or soda or junk food, like you can buy with SNAP.

Simply paring down SNAP to just basic nutritious food, like they already do with WIC, would be a huge step in the right direction.



This has more appeal to me than the idea of some sort of system of government warehouses all across the country (if that's even part of the plan). Grocery stores are already most everywhere there are people, at least people on SNAP. If the foods on WIC are good enough for babies and kids, they ought to be good enough for anyone.
 
Posts: 11597 | Registered: August 22, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Don't Panic
Picture of joel9507
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Great idea, the boxes.

Need to come up with "L-Rations" - L for Loafer.

To be sure they're healthy, I'd propose L-Rations include lots of kale. Big Grin
 
Posts: 15001 | Location: North Carolina | Registered: October 15, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
delicately calloused
Picture of darthfuster
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quote:
Originally posted by Ironmike57:
When I lived in Atlanta, there was a hair salon next door to me that accepted food stamps on all of the salon's service. He was rather open about it too.

Do you think all the food stamp recipients actually need those stamps for food or do you think a percentage of them only get said stamps to use/trade for alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, hookers, etc?


Many reasons why a person takes welfare handouts. Some actually need it to survive. Some take it because hey, free money. Others take it because the believe they are owed it. The proportions of those people can be argued but the one I believe is growing faster than the others is that welfare is owed for social justice reasons. That is a lie based on false principle; a double whammy.

Welfare for nothing is the false principle. The damage done by that principle is compounded by compulsory donations and unaccountability of the recipient and the collector/distributor. The lie is that it is owed for social justice reasons. These two destructive forces have coalesced to leverage an almost unbearable burden on the producers and the incalculable stunting of the refinement and progression of all who receive welfare. Their struggle against the natural resistance of providing for oneself has been relieved. So the individual becomes dependent and weak while having free unaccountable time to become involved in other destructive behaviors. It all spirals to social decay from which we all suffer eventually and to some degree.

The food boxes might save money, but more importantly that program could begin the move to remedy the basic flaws in the false principle that one citizen may lay claim to what another produces and use a gov't bully to do it. As long as that is the case, no one is free and no one is equal.



You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier
 
Posts: 29607 | Location: Highland, Ut. | Registered: May 07, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Raptorman
Picture of Mars_Attacks
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You know Tabitha is disabled with a brain injury and can't work, right?

Does that make her a loafer because they give her a few dollars a month for food?

She would GLADLY trade places with ANY one of you able bodied people to have the use of her arm, speech and cognitive abilities back so she could go to back work.


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Here, poke at it with this stick.
 
Posts: 34081 | Location: North, GA | Registered: October 09, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
No double standards
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quote:
Originally posted by darthfuster:
Welfare should be run as storehouses. A recipient shows up with a voucher. there are certain safe and nutritious foods and sundries there for selection. The cart is checked upon leaving for inventory. An account has been made of what was received and how much. There are no addictive substances available. There are no frivolous foods like caviar and lobster. Staples, fresh vegetables, meats, milk etc. no junk food. The recipient is then required to work at something to compensate in effort for the public gift. Even if that something is sweeping the sidewalk or harvesting fruit somewhere. Much of the decay we see in the society comes from people having too much unaccountable time on their hands. Basic benefit and personal accountability. That would solve much of our welfare abuse.


Where did you get that kind of thinking? (You wouldn't make a good democrat.) Wink




"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it....While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it"
- Judge Learned Hand, May 1944
 
Posts: 30668 | Location: UT | Registered: November 11, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
No double standards
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quote:
Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
You know Tabitha is disabled with a brain injury and can't work, right?

Does that make her a loafer because they give her a few dollars a month for food?

She would GLADLY trade places with ANY one of you able bodied people to have the use of her arm, speech and cognitive abilities back so she could go to back work.


So is Tabitha the norm of those on assiatance; or is Tabatha a quite rare exception? I don't think anyone here would deny assistance to her.




"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it....While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it"
- Judge Learned Hand, May 1944
 
Posts: 30668 | Location: UT | Registered: November 11, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
delicately calloused
Picture of darthfuster
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
You know Tabitha is disabled with a brain injury and can't work, right?

Does that make her a loafer because they give her a few dollars a month for food?

She would GLADLY trade places with ANY one of you able bodied people to have the use of her arm, speech and cognitive abilities back so she could go to back work.


I don't believe anyone thinks someone is Tabitha's position is a problem recipient. Sadly I think people like her are the exception to the norm of welfare frauds and illegitimate recipients. Were people like Tabitha the only ones who received public support, I think there would be so few that donations would come voluntarily, in person and with loving service as the motivation. That is the true and edifying nature of charitable giving.



You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier
 
Posts: 29607 | Location: Highland, Ut. | Registered: May 07, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Page late and a dollar short
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I've mentioned the story before maybe four or five years ago. Couple, probably late 30's or so in Meijer's day before a Super Bowl. Cart full of meat, fruit and cheese trays. Several bags of chips, salsa, party stuff. They put it all on the belt, and how did they pay for it? Yep, Michigan Bridge Card. My tax dollars at work.

My first introduction to the welfare world came when we lived in NM during the 1980's. I asked the clerk at Safeway why she took food coupons for pop and chips that the teens ahead of me in line tendered as payment. We were kind of friends, her husband was one of my patients during my EMT days.

She explained to me as long as it was consumable and not certain classes of carryout foods it was fair game. No ID necessary, no age limits. Just pay and go.But no soap,toothpaste,shampoo, toilet paper.

There were subsidized housing programs to allow low income persons the ability to own their own home, payments based upon income, so it was in their benefit to work for low money "on the books" and work under the table at a second job. Together with health care for them, food programs, utility assistance a pretty good life. I would see steaks and shrimp in their shopping carts when I had hamburger in mine.

The ones that say there is no fraud in the food stamp/EBT program is dreaming or sticking their head in the sand. I do not avow making those on public assistance grovel and beg for their food, let them have some dignity. But they also must understand that there are limits to what they get. If there is a medical reason for specific dietary needs, so be it, let them have those items.

And no damn party trays from Meijer's Deli either...........


-------------------------------------——————
————————--Ignorance is a powerful tool if applied at the right time, even, usually, surpassing knowledge(E.J.Potter, A.K.A. The Michigan Madman)
 
Posts: 8066 | Location: Livingston County Michigan USA | Registered: August 11, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Not really from Vienna
Picture of arfmel
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quote:
You know Tabitha is disabled with a brain injury and can't work, right?

Does that make her a loafer because they give her a few dollars a month for food?



If she's disabled and can't work, of course she isn't a loafer.
 
Posts: 26852 | Location: Jerkwater, Texas | Registered: January 30, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Objectively Reasonable
Picture of DennisM
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Half of the fraud problem with SNAP is vendors (the stores or quasi-stores that are approved by USDA-- more usually, through the state administering for USDA-- to accept SNAP transactions.) To abuse the card the way the biggest bucks are getting stolen, you need a complicit vendor who'll ring the card for, say, $50 but give $25 cash to the crackhead and the store pockets the other $25 for paying... nothing.

Centralizing distribution of HALF of the benefits (converting it to a physical "care package") certainly will have an administrative cost, but nowhere near, I suspect, what we're paying now in fraud and multi-generational dependency.

As part of the vast civil service bureaucracy, I actually suggest that the fed.gov has no business in this to begin with (Want a food assistance program? States and local communities, do your thing.) But I accept that like Section 8 housing and SS Disability, it's so enmeshed that we'd need to wean entire generations off it, like detoxing...
 
Posts: 2452 | Registered: January 01, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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That's gonna hurt the Liquor stores and Tittle bars!


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Posts: 8318 | Location: 18 miles long, 6 Miles at Sea | Registered: January 22, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I'm all for this. Many years ago in a former civilian life I worked in the grocery business. I watched many a shopper go through the line with steak, lobster, ice cream, soda, candy and any other unhealthy and expensive thing their little hearts desired. They paid with stamps (before they switched to debit type cards) and clearly had no shame in what they were doing.
 
Posts: 2014 | Registered: April 09, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Peace through
superior firepower
Picture of parabellum
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quote:
Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
You know Tabitha is disabled with a brain injury and can't work, right?
You're posing this question to whom? Everyone in this thread? Someone in particular?
quote:
Does that make her a loafer because they give her a few dollars a month for food?
I don't even know where to begin with this. You think that because some people in this forum raise objections to some people abusing the welfare system, that this means we're all a bunch of Simon LeGrees who wish to deny assistance to the people for whom the system was created?

Why did you feel the need to interject yourself in such a personal way?

It's been a long time but I've seen you do this before and I don't like it any better now than I did back then. If you wish to discuss the subject, do so, but stop making this personal.
 
Posts: 107254 | Registered: January 20, 2000Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Political Cynic
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agreed

good idea - no booze, cigarettes, Play stations, lottery tickets...

you get food.



[B] Against ALL enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC


 
Posts: 53085 | Location: Tucson Arizona | Registered: January 16, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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