The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

I didn't want to hijack the Dependency Class thread, but badger did bring up an interesting point, and the picture of that supermarket receipt he posted was disturbing on many levels.  As it stands right now, you can buy almost any kind of food with food stamps.  I think the only things you can't buy are hot foods that are ready to eat.  The debate is, should we regulate the food stamp program so that it only pays for basic foods and people don't abuse the system?  I think it sounds reasonable.  I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on what should and shouldn't be allowed to be bought with food stamps. 

Here is my proposed list of foods that should be bought with food stamps.

Meats- Ground beef, chicken (drumsticks, thighs, or whole chickens only), turkey (same as chicken), and inexpensive fish (cod, flounder, catfish, or canned tuna).  No expensive fish, steaks, lamb, veal, pork, or seafood.

Fruits and Vegetables- Pretty much anything here, including seeds that can produce more fruits and vegetables.  All fruits and vegetables may be fresh, frozen, or canned.

Bread/Starches- Rice (long grain white or brown), pasta, potatoes (white or sweet), and bread (packaged pre sliced).   No jasmine rice, bakery rolls, donuts, cake, or cookies.

Dairy- Milk and cheese (whole block cheese only, no pre-sliced, shredded or string cheese).  No ice cream or butter.

Peanut Butter- Must be all natural.  No Jif or Peter Pan spreads that are loaded with sugar.

Drinks- Juices that are 100% fruit juice.  No sugar sweetened juice drinks/mixes, bottled water, and especially no alcoholic beverages. 

Dealing with WIC at a checkout with their list of approved and non approved foods is a bitch enough. Let people decide what they want to eat, food stamps or no.

By your list, a family is on FS and little sally is having a birthday she can't have a cake? Seriously?

Those dirty poor people don't deserve cake.

Just because you get food stamps doesn't mean you can't buy other stuff with regular money.  You can have all the cake you want.  He just says "pay for it yourself"

However, is this an agenda to keep people healthy?  Or are you trying to be cheap?  It seems like its not the government's job to keep people healthy.  That's a personal lifestyle choice.

Exactly. Its a personal lifestyle choice to keep one healthy. The problem is expensive healthy food. And they're expensive because they are healthy.

So should people with food stamps never be allowed to enjoy any kind of high quality food EVER?

^^ I think his point is that he wants people to not be on it for a long time, and not be comfy on it, and wants them to want to get off it.  Also, again, you can buy other food and pay for it with money (instead of food stamps).

My physician mentioned this to me last time I saw him.  He said only in America can you find junk food cheaper than healthy food.  That might explain the correlations between obesity and food stamp usage.

Exactly! It is a 3 way correlation of education, obesity and income.

The lower the education, in general the lower the income. The lower the income the more likely to be on food stamps. Now you have an uneducated, low income person on the dole making poor health choices. Simple. lol 

That's exactly right.  Cheap food is unhealthy.  But to suggest that people are fat because they're on food stamps is moronic.

Love the post and the time and effort. The problem is regulating all those criterion. It would only be a matter of time before fights would break out between the cashier and the food stamp recipient. Do you expect the cashier to read all the labels and make sure the peanut butter is all natural? Just to hard to control.

How about this? Have a government distribution center as THE ONLY PLACE food stamps are accepted. It would be easy to control what was offered (the very things you suggest) and they could even promote "healthy living" through educational material and teachings.    

It could be controlled by SKU/UPC at the computer level.  I believe it already is now.  And people already bitch when cashiers do their job.  I've seen it myself. 

It is controlled at that level.  I was in Publix last week and witnessed an argument between the cashier and a food stamp customer because she couldn't buy a deli-rotisserie chicken with food stamps.  And your previous posts are exactly correct about my points of people not getting comfy on food stamps and not be on them for a long time.  The entire point is to provide people with basic food nutrition until they can get back on their feet. 


Not that people are overweight because they are on food stamps, but a lot of low income people are overweight because if you are low income, chances are you can only afford cheap, unhealthy, fattening food.

I have NO problem with taking certain items such as junk food, sugar cereals, kool aid, etc off the approved list items to be purchased with food stamps.  

Also keeping in mind that for signficant number of poor people 2/3 of their meal, 5 times a week occur in public schools, along with many other impressionable middle class young people who are in the process of devloping eating habits, I support strenghening the standards for public school meals and banning candy and soda machines from k-12 schools.  I wonder which of the canidates for President shares my views on that and which opposed it.   ;D

I would NOT ban expensive pieces of meat etc.  Because quite frankly the abuse is pretty rare so we are solving a problem that doesn't exist and it would not in fact save the gov't any money.  Folks are given $XXX per month, for most it doesn't go far enough and they aren't buying the expensive stuff anyway.  The very few are abusing it will shift their spending but will spend the entire amount.  

I would also remove from the approved list all imported food stuffs.  This has nothing to do with improving the foodstamp program healthwise and everything to do with helping american farmers, already the biggest benificary of the program.  Getting rid of foodstamps would hurt american agribusiness as much it would hurt the poor.

The political challenge with getting rules passed that would take Lucky Charms off the list of items to be purchased with food stamps forcing kids to eat Cherrios, does not come from liberal dems and advocates for the poor, but from repubs and the lobbiest of the megafood giants.  

If I had unfetted access to revise the food stamp program I would even discount fresh fruits and vegitables and other very health stuff (dried beans, whole wheat etc) by 25%.  Let say a person is given $200 per month in food stamps.  They could spend the $200 on anything approved.  But for every dollar they spend on fresh fruits and vegitable it only cost them 75 cents.  So they could by $100 worth of regular food and $133 worth of fresh produce.   

I certainly understand the sentiment here and respect this debate, but I think that trying to legislate the foods is probably not very effective to solving the problem.  I think it may end up causing you more trouble, more red tape, etc.

What do you do with vegetarians, kosher people, vegans, those that only believe in free range chicken, medical diets that only allow for gluten free, kids that are picky eaters.  Do you allow for only certain brand names?  If so, how does the government justify supporting one company over the other?  It's a tangled web of 1000 issues.

It just opens so many doors of problems to solve a problem that I'm not completely convinced exists, at least to the level that it's being reported.

I think if you're really truly interested in stopping the so-called "dependency culture", you'd be better off to monitor it at the human level.  Have the equivalent of parole officers, like a social worker you have to check in with and report job-progress in order to be eligible.  Even that, while it might make us feel better about not getting scammed, will probably be more expensive for the taxpayer.

Here's what happens when a WIC customer has a wrong items (happens ALL the time)

We get a message - Said item is not on the approved list. Tell customer it's not on the approved list, have line build up while he or she goes and gets the correct item.

THEN when they don't like that they're slated for 1% or Fat Free milk, they return them and get a credit which then is used to get the whole milk they really wanted.

You can attempt to limit what people buy but there is no way to stop returns (Publix does not require a receipt, I can't speak for other stores) and then they can get whatever other food they want.

I can tell you it is much cheaper to buy less healthy, pre-packaged junk than it is to buy fresh produce. Heck a bag of frozen veggies was over $2.

Not withstanding what Sportschick says, I think WIC does that and it works pretty good (not perfect, but I think it is a better program than foodstamps)


As landshark propose it that could be a problem.  As I propose it, there wouldn't be problem unless you have a medical condition requiring you to eat marshellows for breakfast and to my knowldge no such condition exists, dispite the claims to the contrary by one of my neices.

not by brand name but by nutritional value.  Generic Frosted flakes is banned along with Kellogs, but we allow both generic and name brand rice crispies. 


Agree the changes should not be made to punish those on foodstamps but to drive healthy behavior. 

Interesting concept from a guy that has many times objected to the size of government. I don't want to take the time to look back but didn't you also call Obama a socialist?

This is a good topic and makes great debate. Not sure there is a right answer, but here is a thought.

The amount of food stamps a person get is set (finite). Let's say it is 200 dollars a month. When it's gone, it's gone. Let them buy anything they want... even dog food and hot chicken.  This is based on the theory that most people will make purchase decisions based on value. Do I buy a cooked rotisserie chicken for 6 dollars or buy 2 uncooked chickens for the same amount?

Here is a true story. It will show my age, but what to heck!

Some years ago when our son was about 13 or 14 it was time to go back to school shopping. The Michael Jordan "Air" sneakers were all the rage. They also went for about 125.00, even back then.

The wife and I decided this was a good time for junior to learn how to budget. We gave him a set amount (around 300 dollars I think) and said "you can buy anything you want. Want the Jordan's, then you will have less to spend on stuff like pants, shirts, socks and underwear. You like clean underwear don't ya?" lol

It really got him thinking. He ended up passing on the Jordan's and made good decisions. I would like to think the food stamp people could do the same.

To Hoodie:

I don't have a great objection to the concept, and I understand that it could be done on the cashier level.  But when I say more red tape, I mean who decides what foods we allow?  Does the government have to specifically allow/disallow every new product in existence?  Do we have lobbyists pushing for their foods?  Is big sugar then pouring a ton of cash to get sugary foods allowed?  Are they greasing the pockets of politicians?  Is soda allowed?  What about diet?  It's just a lot of questions and we would need some kind of legislation for all of the answers.

And to solve what problem?

Agree, it just gets government more involved and makes things more complicated. Should the government have any say on how they spend their money / food stamps? I don't think so. The only restriction I would be adamant about is alcohol.

In response to this discussion it is a good point.  If a food stamp customer wants to spend their entire allotment on filet mignon and lobster, so be it.  Then they will have great dinners for 4 nights and starve for the next 26 until they get the next month's food stamps?
 
Or will they supplement with their own money?

If they supplement, one could argue that they don't need the food stamps to begin with.

One could argue it but I don't think it is an effective argument. The use of food stamps does not mean you cannot buy food at all. It means you need assistance.

Fair enough - but if you can afford to buy nearly a month's worth of food on your own and use the "assistance" to buy some luxury items you never would have bought otherwise, do you really need "assistance?"

Fair argument and I can agree but I also can see the flip. Maybe it is a special occasion month like a birthday or anniversary and the rest of the month consists of Ramen noodles and sandwiches.

^^ right, maybe it does.  Point is, we don't know and taking one single receipt out of context doesn't constitute a broken system.

Obesity, unhealthy eating, cavities, etc.  Keep in mind the same folks who are on food stamps are also on gov't assistance for health care and dental care.

^ I see.

I understand where you're coming from.  It sounds like you're OK with the concept of food stamps and want them limited, not to stop the poor from living large, but to stop them from being unhealthy.

I didn't realize that was your angle.

Damn, just saw this thread. Anyhow, I would think that it would work better if it was set up like the WIC centers they have here. They only stock certain things and you can only get a certain amount of the items based on their criteria. Like has been said, this is to supplement. You don't want or like the free food don't eat. Beggars can't be choosers.




If you believe that it's not the government's job to keep people healthy them in my view, by default you shouldn't support mandatory seat belt laws, mandatory motorcycle helmet laws, drugs laws, or Obamacare.

Wrong.  there's a difference between eating captain crunch and smoking crack.  The fact that I have to state that is irritating at the least.

It might not be the job of the country to keep people healthy, but it's in the interest of the country, and it saves money.  Healthier people are more productive and a much smaller strain on things like the healthcare industry.

So if I'm on food stamps, should I be permitted to buy ramen for the first three weeks of the month so I can afford to buy steak for my wedding anniversary at the end of the month?  Or should that be disallowed?

If we are giving people $x in food stamp benefits today, and we turn around and prohibit all the cheapest food, are we going to increase the food stamp benefit levels to make up for this new Healthy Food Stamps initiative?  Or is this program also designed to combat obesity by making sure that people go hungry a little more often?

Also: what percentage of objectors to these food stamp programs are sincerely doing so out of concern for the healthiness of the diets of food stamp recipients?  Because from where I'm sitting, it seems like arguing that food stamps encourage unhealthy eating at the same time you argue for reducing the cost of the food stamp program (even though healthy food costs significantly more) displays a complete lack of intellectual honesty.

Or foodstamps.  Isn't the underlying principle of foodstamps is we don't want people to go hungry/suffer malnutirian.

I oppose Republican NYC Mayor Bloomberg's ban on large soda as an unreasonable limitation of personal freedom.

But I have no problem with the goverment saying you can't use foodstamps to buy soda. 

If WE (as society at large via taxes) are going to pay for your food we (as in appointed members of the dept of agr) can dictate what foods you can use the money for.

I would say it is similar to my stance on student loans.  I would oppose a law banning all wine tasting schools.  But I don't think students should be attending wine tastings on federal grants. 

I think the argument that upsets people is this:

Why should I have to work hard to afford hamburger meat, when you do nothing and get to have lobster?

It's not a very good argument when you dig down, but it's an emotional one that plays to people's concepts of fairness.  That's what it's all about.

You are correct, but now you're picking and choosing how the government should protect us stupid citizens from ourselves. How about prostitution or suicide ?

Why is it not a good argument. Hell, I'm paying for hamburger for me and lobster for someone else. Shows how crazy this whole thing is....

I find this position consistent with reality.  Well done.

You are doing the same exact thing with those billions in subsidies to rich corporations and businesses that allows them to profit....and to eat more expensive food than you.
This whole debate is nothing more than a poorly disguised attack against those who cannot hire people to make them look better. Our economy is not in the crapper because of poor people on food stamps. The unemployment rolls and food stamp recipient numbers did not increase so much the last four years because they want to be on the government dole. There is a very real issue as to why the numbers are so high and what is actually hurting our economy.
Social Security, Medicare and Defense alone massively crush the amount of spending by all the social programs combined.
This issue and the other thread are nothing but divisive political smoke screens.

Nah, that is just one example of millions. Seen it. Hard to believe (roll of eyes) but many people hide assets and use the FS for purchases they would not normally make. To see someone buy expensive food with stamps and then give a roll of hundred dollar bills for dog food and such is not unusual.
 

I'm discussing the topic of the thread which I didn't start. Want to discuss subsidies, start a thread and I may join you !!!

I disagree with you, as I'm sure half the country does.


Kinda like the stimulus and bailouts, huh ?

So the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression, and the loss of millions of jobs, had nothing to do with increased people getting food stamps in the last four years?

This might completely turn this entire thread upside down, but:

When I was 15, I was a cashier at Albertsons.  We could only accept food stamps for certain foods.  Generally only allowing for healthy foods, and not allowing "sugary" or "luxury" food.  So, the picture above, is a fraudlent use of food stamps and proves Hoodie's point all along.  Of course, it has been 19 years since I have had to cashier, so I don't know if the rules have changed.  Has anyone actually researched what you are and are not allowed to buy with food stamps prior to these arguments?

Ok, so I did some more research for you all.

There ARE restrictions.  See: http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/retailers/eligible.htm

But apparently, in 2007, the government basically got lazy in adding items to the banned "luxury" list because it was "too burdensome" to determine what is considered nutrious for each food item.  Now the government merely classifies items based on edible and unedible.  (See http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/menu/Published/snap/FILES/ProgramOperations/FSPFoodRestrictions.pdf)

So, you may now proceed to bash each other in a more educated fashion :-)

And as a last note, I find it very odd that one of the "inelliglbe" items is "Vitamins and medicines" .... why on Earth would those be inelligble?

But, you can buy cakes, ice cream, lobster, filet mignon, and even energy drinks...

How long will it be before the government steps in and outlaws McDonald's then?  One of the most notoriously unhealthy food chains serves billions of people every month in this country.  Ever think maybe that dollar menu is making people fat?  Why is it OK to regulate what you buy at the grocery store, but this company is allowed to serve 1000-calorie sandwiches with no repercussions?

The government needs less regulation, not more. Where will it ever end??? Like I said before, let people buy whatever food they want with food stamps. When it is gone, it's gone. Apparently the govt. believes they need to make decisions for us and we are too stupid to make decisions on our own.

As far as Mickey D's....I applaud them for being one of the first to display nutritional info on their products. Let people get the information and decide for themselves. 

This has nothing to do with the topic. I have no problems with people getting food stamps that need them. I have a problem with those people eating better than working Americans. And I also have a problem with them eating a bunch of unhealthy bullshit that is only going to add more cost on the health care system. It's a catch 22 on both ends of the spectrum. Give them the very basic nutrition and let them decide if they want to better themselves.


Well, I do find it kind of odd that food stamp recipients can buy whatever they want. But they limit people on the WIC program. Obama's wife is regulating what kids can eat in school, even if you pay for it. SHIT, even in some instances, if you bring your lunch they are trying to regulate it. Not to mention the government trying to regulate the serving size of soda for adults that pay for it. But recipients of taxpayer subsidized food stamps get free reign. How fucked up is this country ?

There are more restrictions than just edible and non-edible.

For example, you can get a turkey sub at publix on food stamps but you cannot gt a chicken tender or philly cheese steak sub. You cannot get a hot chicken from the deli but you can get one that was cooked then chilled.

That is consistent with the laws on taxable food in California; anything that is sold hot has sales tax applied, while foods that are sold unheated (even if cooked previously) are not taxed.  (Additionally, any food to be eaten on premises is taxed.)

Given that, it makes sense that taxable food (i.e. prepared for immediate consumption) would not be eligible for food stamps.

Of course it does. The reason the rolls have swollen is the recession. You are painting every single recipient off of one receipt....one!! That is hardly enough evidence to draw a valid conclusion or hypothesis. You also act as if people can just decide one day that they will get a job today and their problems will be solved quickly.
You have brought little to none evidence or logic to substantiate your claims or stance. You are just pissed because you happen to have a job and have bought the lie that everyone on public aid is doing so because they do not want to improve themselves. Which is far from the case. It is the same mentality you have displayed here that has led states to enact drug testing for welfare, and guess what, they found few people are sitting at home getting high. But it has wasted a lot of money for thousands of drug tests.
I would buy some of your claims if you can produce some actual evidence that the majority of food stamp recipients are living high on the hog and eating better than most working Americans.

Not the case in FL - a sub is taxed no matter if it's a hot one or cold one. If it's purchased on FS, the tax is forgiven