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Food Stamps Restriction

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Replies

  • stillnot2late
    stillnot2late Posts: 385 Member
    Government,s money and their rules. Me, i dont give a crap what a stranger buys at the grocery store so i would not judge a person cause they dont eat like i do.
  • LJGettinSexy
    LJGettinSexy Posts: 223 Member
    Treece68 wrote: »
    So if someone on food stamps buys a steak people get all up in arms and if they buy pop that is unacceptable too?
    So buy good nutritious food but not something that is considered fancy no steak or shrimp just bagged chicken and carrots?
    When I was on SNAP I would buy steaks and 2 8oz steaks would feed us for 4 days.

    I don't know what you were doing with the steaks for them to last so long but it's a choice you should have.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    sheldonz42 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    I'm in favor of what someone else suggested a few pages ago by making SNAP work more like WIC. Nutritious items like fruits, vegetables, meats, while grains, and dairy items would be approved for purchase by the program, and items that didn't have approval (like cookies, crackers, soda, etc.) Would be paid for by the buyer's money. SNAP is meant to help people afford to buy enough food to eat. It's not meant to cover 100% of a person's food budget. If someone in SNAP wants to buy soda, that's fine, but they should use their own money to pay for that and use their SNAP benefits to buy actual food.

    If my food budget is $20 and $10 of that is from SNAP, why does it matter I'm actually purchasing the soda with? If I use my SNAP to buy $2 worth of beans and then use my $2 that I didn't spend on beans to buy soda or vice versa, it's the exact same result.

    It's one thing to need help feeding your family and another to ask for help feeding your family and then use that help for luxuries.

    It's being used for "luxuries" (if soda can be considered such) anyway. Whether it is directly paying for them or people are using the money that is freed up to buy soda doesn't seem relevant to me.

    It's one thing to use your own money for luxuries, another to use other people's tax dollars.

    So you see a relevant difference between directly using the benefits to buy soda and using the money that has been freed up because SNAP covered pasta or beans or whatever to buy soda?

    I do see a difference, yes.

    Would you care to explain exactly what it is? I'm not not trying to be difficult, I'm just not seeing the relevance.

    The source of the money. Do you really not see a difference in money from charity and money that you earned yourself?

    If I give someone $5 for food, as a supplement to their grocery budget, and their total budget is $10, I don't consider it relevant whether or not they spend "my" $5 on soda or beans.

    It's not that if I don't see a difference in money from charity (or in this particular case, the government) and money that I have earned myself. I'm saying that if food stamps form a portion of someone's grocery budget and they're going to be buying soda anyway, I don't consider it relevant whether they're using money from one source available to them as opposed to another.

    I can see the logic in that but I don't see why it would affect the decision whether to exclude soda from being purchased with assistance money.

    So... now Mary buys $5 of soda and $5 of Twinkies with SNAP and pays $10 of her own money for veggies. This is bad.

    But after, Mary buys $10 of veggies with SNAP and $5 of soda and $5 of Twinkies with her own money, and this is good?

    The difference is that Mary had to actually earn the extra money to burn on soda and twinkies...

    She's earning the money either way -- in both examples she is spending $10 of her own money.

    Mary isn't the only recipient. We're talking general rules and regulations.

    I don't see what in my post made you conclude that I thought Mary was the only recipient.

    You keep giving individual examples as if general rules and regulations should be set for these specific examples. The rules re: food stamps should be set at a higher level and should consider only the money provided by food stamps.

    That was actually someone else's example.

    But I don't see a problem with using individual examples to illustrate how a larger policy will impact people.

    The rules, of course, will be set at a higher level. The impact will be felt by individuals and using examples can help us explore how a policy would actually work when it was implemented.

    So lets turn this around. Why does it matter if soda is excluded if recipients can still get soda with their own money? They don't need assistance to get the soda, right?

    If you're agreeing that it doesn't matter, then I consider the burden to be on those who want to change the current system to explain why they want it changed.

    Obviously I'm not.
  • Dnarules
    Dnarules Posts: 2,081 Member
    No one has mentioned that many Fast Food places take benefits. You can get your quarter pounder, biggie fries, and a shamrock shake on benefits.
    Taco Bell, Arby's, McDonalds, Churches, Dairy Queen, Dominoes, Wendy's, etc, etc.

    I have never been to one that does this.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    Also I know a few family member close friends who are not married but the woman is stay at home mom and gets food stamps based on her income not claiming the husbands at all...

    Honestly, your family members and friends sound like not-so-great people (at least in this component of their lives). This is probably what is coloring your perception of the system, that you, your family, and friends are all abusing it or have abused it in the past.

    Let me assure you that there are people in legitimate need out there, despite what life has shown you so far.

    Yet no one seems to be reporting the abuse....if they aren't entitled to it then you should be reporting them to authorities instead of watching it happen. You pay your taxes so don't let those that don't need it spend it.

    The authorities have neither the will nor the capacity to investigate 1% of the reported fraud.
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