This is an amazing idea. I love it.

It’s the same mentality as not giving homeless people/beggars/bums money because they may use it to buy booze and/or drugs. If you want to help them, bring them a cheeseburger from McDonald’s.

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"You wanna feed the underprivileged or be poverty pimps buying votes?" kinda thing.

Makes it tougher for the left to play Santa Claus. I love it!

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Originally posted by aparoche:
This is an amazing idea. I love it.

It’s the same mentality as not giving homeless people/beggars/bums money because they may use it to buy booze and/or drugs. If you want to help them, bring them a cheeseburger from McDonald’s.

Or maybe even something with nutritional value.

If it means food is going directly to kids and not being traded for cigarettes and alcohol at some crap hole corner store, I'm all for it.

Years ago I worked part time at a major grocery chain while going to college. I noticed a couple of common patterns re those with food stamps. First, most often they bought alcohol/tobacco, etc with cash after the food stamp purchase. Second, most often I took the groceries out to their car, which was a more expensive car than we ever had growing up.

I like Trumps idea, cut down on significant fraud. I have done volunteer work at a "freebie" grocery store, when stocking cans of infant formula, we have to use a magic marker to black out the bar code, as there was a common pattern of people getting the infant formula for free, then taking it to a grocery store for a refund/store credit.

Curious the dems complain about increased bureaucracy (ie, only dems are allowed to build bureaucracy?); curious they compalin this will limit personal choice and responsibility. In reality, the dems are all about gaining their own money and power, Trumps actions are getting in the way.

That's not empowering the downtrodden to feel like they really have an entitlement to "other peoples money".

Last fall I took a couple vacation days and did some work at our church. While I was there, the flow of people (almost all hispanic) into the church's food pantry was never ending. It was however eye opening to see that most of them were driving newer more expensive cars than my wife and I do, and no one spoke English. No telling how much of that food got traded or sold for other things.

There are an abundance of people gaming the system, so 'anything' we can do to mitigate it, I say, have at it.

Excellent idea. Good healthy food. A hungry person would appreciate this / a welfare mooch won't.

Give the loafers of the Free Shit Army all the rolled oats they can handle. It's cheap in 50lb sacks at the feed store, and Wilford Brimley said oats are good for you. And, after about 3 days of nothing but oatmeal, the loafers will be looking for a job so they can buy food.

What. No one recalls "donated commodities?"

Three or four years ago, I saw some posts on another forum from a woman in Logan, UT in her 50's who stated her family was on food stamps. She said she used them to buy seeds and fruit trees. I have no proof, but suspect, garden seeds/fruit trees are an underused part of the program. I'd be interested to read how much of the overall cost of the program is spent on those things each year.

I support helping those who are hungry and are willing to go to the effort to grow some of their own food. This, to me, is a much better use of tax dollars than spending money on candy bars and soda.

Unfortunately, there is probably no one to lobby for gardening as compared with the lobbying done for snacks and soda to be kept on the list.

I hate getting behind someone at the grocery store who is on government assistance. Their cart looks better than mine, and the stuff that is excluded (e.g. dog food) they put off the the side and pull out a wad of cash and buy themselves EVERY time.

Also, many convenience stores accept their EBTs so they can go buy overpriced processed sugar.

This is a much needed reform. Give them big ole sacks of rice, beans, flour, oats, etc.

It's not new, but it is due. We shouldn't be handing the equivalent of cash over to those who abuse it.

I grew up very poor (early sixties) & we got "government surplus" food for assistance. I still remember hauling my wagon down to the armory to stand in line to receive canned meats, powdered milk and eggs, cheese, peanut butter, corn meal & flour, and all sorts of things that kept my sisters & me fed. We were glad to have it even in spite of the stigma I felt. I'm sure it's part of the motivation I had to work myself out of that situation. That program served me well, & to this day I'm thankful for it.

YES, YES, glorious MOTHERFUCKING YES!!

Send these leeches a box of collard greens, sweet potatoes, a few cans of spam, 2 lbs of rice, and 2 lbs of beans, 5 pounds of peanut butter and a small pictogram cookbook to teach people how to cook it. If your hungry, you have nutritious food that will keep you alive until you get a job. If you are a leech looking for money to trade, fuck off.

Buying soda, snacks, and chips, lobster, and filet (and worse) with gov benefits has to stop.

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Is it about feeding the poor, or transfer of wealth?

he asks rhetorically.....

I'm torn on this. I know people who have received assistance, and none of them is doing the sort of thing one so often associates with this sort of abuse. If anything, I would restrict that things purchased with such assistance be scratch ingredients. When I go into Wawa to grab coffee or something, there are signs on the made-to-order food kiosks that anything heated/toasted or made from a warm ingredient (meatballs, mac and cheese, etc) is not eligible for payment via EBT.

Its just Trump being Trump, challenging the status quo of food stamps/snap/ebt because it needs to be revised. We all know this needs to be done. So start a conversation... Good for him, he has no plans to send out boxes of food to people.

as to how it would reduce fraud, for one thing, unscrupulous merchants won't be able to buy EBT/SNAP cards for pennies on the dollar and sell them if it's a box lunch, they can't take it to Wal-Mart and buy supplies for their stores at 50% off. So it would cut down on some fraud from that aspect.

Several years ago I was in Wally World at the grocery store area. I seldom shop at WW as I go to the nearby AFB and shop the Commissary. But I forgot something so stopped there to pick it up.

I get in line and a guy ahead of me has a small cart, brimming with various fresh steaks. I didn't see the total but did see him use a snaps/ebt card to pay.

I pay and I am 25 secs behind him. He goes out the door, meets a guy who gives him a fifty dollar bill and takes the cart! I WITNESSED the $50 and the transfer.

Then followed the original guy to his car...along the way he throws away the receipt. It was for over $100. wish I would have kept it.

I walked to my car, then easily followed the guy a few blocks out the parking lot to the Convenience store. I parked in front and guess what he comes out with? Four 24 packs of beer and a bag with who knows what in it.

Agreed! Time for a change!

Any of us who worked the cop job can tell stories of generation after generation of folks, we see them throughout our careers...Always on some Program. Never working. Always a drain on the system.

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Originally posted by FN in MT:... I get in line and a guy ahead of me has a small cart, brimming with various fresh steaks. I didn't see the total but did see him use a snaps/ebt card to pay....

Minor drift not re food stamps. When I was working at the grocery store the store mgr caught a person stealing a large double bag of the finest cuts of meat. When asked why she said she couldn't afford to feed her family. When asked why T-bone and prime rib her response "if I am going to steal, I might as well steal the best".

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Originally posted by hile:
I'm torn on this. I know people who have received assistance, and none of them is doing the sort of thing one so often associates with this sort of abuse....

It may well be the number of beneficiaries who abuse the system are fewer than those who play fair. Nevertheless, the abuse amounts to $Billions every year. And it seems to me those who play fair are less likely to complain about the proposed changes.

And as has been said, how do you prevent a safety net from becoming a hammock.