I agree with you that this is not the government's job. But, if people going to insist on continuing this, I think the government should switch to direct food aid. This would be in the form of government cheese, rice, beans, canned vegetables, tofu, milk if their are children in the home, and other similar items. No actual meat. No candy, cake, or other sugary items. If they want things not provided by this program, they can get a job and buy them.
Considering that families on SNAP also get free school breakfast and lunch, I'm not even sure about the dairy for kids when school is in session.
Less red tape regulations. (On ALL fronts, in all industries and areas.)
Buy back/reverse the sales of arable farmland/ranch land and ACTUALLY FAR MORE in the U.S. so local food is cheap and plentiful.
#ArrestDC for gross incompetence and ban deficit spending.
And a variety of other methods that will bring down cost of living so that the people have enough money to spare to fund help efforts privately... which are FAR more efficient at getting help to people who need it in a cost effective way than government can ever be.
Also tofu is a horrible food. Meat is one of the healthiest foods in any diet, especially red meat, rice and grains are actually unhealthy, cheese is only plentiful because the government subsidized it to a ridiculous degree and then claimed it's a wonderfood/staple to create a racket.
Government can't solve this problem because government IS this problem.
I saw a post where the author suggested giving SNAP recipients MRE's instead of payment cards. A lot of people would be getting jobs. And I can't imagine selling them for drugs would be easy...
They have MREs for sale at our commissary, for either $15 or $18 each. So if they can find the local preppers, they probably can sell them for enough cash.
I will admit, with appropriate shame, to using the SNAP benefits. I KNOW that there's rampant fraud. You and I have both seen it, Ian. But I take pride in the fact that when I'm at the checkout lane at the HEB I'm getting FOOD. Well, it will become food, after I cook it.
Ingredients go much further than "food" don't they? I had a disabled friend (deceased now) who could fill his cart off of his card because he knew how to cook and he watched for the sales.
That was me, 30 years ago, as a single Mom. I had two small children to feed, worked part-time, college full-time (accounting, and took as many classes as I could self-study so I didn't have to rely on the State for paying the sitter on top of everything else). I got the whole megillah, but I dang well did my part to ensure I got off that teat ASAP. My caseworker absolutely loved me. I was always organized. Send me a list of what you need, it's there, in the order listed on the sheet, ready to go. In a manila envelope for neatness, no less. I told her once that I looked at this as a crutch to get me through to where I could support the kids myself. She said, "I wish more people thought like you. Let me see what other programs are out there that I can connect you with to help you with that goal. And, mind, honey, I don't do that for everyone, just the folks who WANT off welfare." Took me three long, hard years, but I made it off and haven't been back since.
This was way back in the days of paper food stamps, when the $1 ones were change and didn't need to be in the books. I tore all of those out and put them back every month for emergencies or after we were done. Told caseworker that, and she said good idea. You DO that. Help you feed yourself and the kids once you're off this merry go round. By the time I got done with it, I had enough "change" food stamps tucked back in packs of 50 to feed us for a whole year. Mainly because I didn't do the whole junk food thing as so many now do. I was a cook like it's the Great Depression grocery buyer (still am). Staples like flour, sugar, tea, coffee, spices and herbs, fresh fruits and veggies, GOOD meat (not the cheap nasty stuff that's mostly fat and low nutritional level). And I still managed to feed us good, without EVER eating ramen noodles. I'd like to see some of these welfare mamas today do what I did.
BINGO! Charity is a choice freely given. This is the government taking from me under the threat of violence, prison, financial ruin or some combination of all the above, for redistribution on their terms.
SNAP is not a charity. No government program can be called charity, because charity is motivated by love. A government can't love, and when the purpose of the "charitable" act is to bribe people to vote a certain way, that's certainly not love.
Ian, if I'd been talking with that social services dame and she pulled that arrogant "we don't starve children" line on me, I would have answered, "I don't, either, but their parents do".
We live in a time and place where parenthood is 100% optional. We have contraception, abortion, and penalty-free surrender of newborns at different places for adoption. If you can't feed a kid, don't have or keep that kid. You have no right to demand that the rest of society fund your choice.
I understand that bad stuff happens, and sometimes people need a hand up. I have both received a hand up and given a hand up at different times. But there is a big difference between a hand up and a handout.
I’ve seen both people who desperately needed the assistance and absolutely fed their family using it, and people who completely abused the system. The latter is far more common in my experience than the former.
Colorado is marginally better on the fraud front, I have seen people lose benefits for fraud. One of those people promptly encouraged her 12yo daughter to become pregnant (confirmed by statements she made on a recorded line) so that the daughter could receive benefits, during the period that the mother was barred from applying.
The meme about fat people driving motorized carts of lobster, strip steak, prime rib, crab legs, shrimp, and other luxury foods then paying for it with hundreds of dollars in food stamps is real.
I saw far more of that as a cashier than I saw people buying efficient low-cost foods to feed themselves and their family.
perfect article to go along with what I witnessed in a McDonald's in the very small WV town I live in. I'd stopped to use the rest room and get a drink, and I'm listening to a conversation between the two ladies in front of me. They are talking about the SNAP money going away and how much they feel for the kids in the community and how many of them are not going to have food at home.
One woman mentioned that yea, she knows a lot of people who are going out looking for jobs since they won't have their SNAP benefits.
That had me pause and then start boiling.
So basically, those "parents" are capable of working and keeping a job, but have never even bothered to attempt to get one before because hey, they have SNAP benefits so why should they?
And the icing on the cake? We were all waiting for extremely long periods at that restaurant because only 3 people had showed up for work that day including the manager all because several people had "called off" or wouldn't answer the phone when they saw the manager's number. I heard the manager say that he heard one person pick up, hear his voice, and hang up!
Welfare culture at its finest, folks, and I don't know if its more exemplified than in WV, where Welfare has destroyed 4 generations now of West Virginians. So many people of various ages in this state who live on the government dole.
Meanwhile, I look at my salary and watch over 40% get taken right off the top every single payday, and then by the time I pay for our piss-poor insurance and try to put something back for retirement, I find I'm living on about 45% of what I actually make. And yet I'm told I'm not paying my fair share?!!!!!!
It's funny: I can still remember my first exposure to food stamps (and they were indeed still coupons back in the day). I was probably about 8 or 9 years old (which would have put Jimmy C. in office), and we were at the grocery store preparing to go through the checkout line. The woman in front of us pulled out a booklet of food stamps to pay for her groceries. Everyone within eyeshot found something very interesting to look at either on the ceiling, out the window, or back in the store as the woman (very embarrassedly and quickly) counted off the coupons to pay for her food.
It was almost a taboo back then: you didn't apply for the program unless you and your kids were about at the point of boiling your leather for dinner. If you were forced onto the food stamp program, you were morbidly embarrassed to have anyone know, which went double if you found yourself in the checkout line actually next to someone you knew. And the rest of society was embarrassed for you. Now it almost seems a source of pride.
I agree with @Ian that neither the Feds nor the several states should be doing this. But, if it absolutely HAS to be done by a government entity, take the debit cards away. I know that the issue (and use) of a debit card is more efficient than mailing coupons to someone, but as it stands now, it lets everyone maintain the polite fiction that the SNAP beneficiary is paying with their own money.
I remember getting laid off from a job, with barely any savings (I'd had to buy a car a few months earlier) I looked at my final stub and had seen that I'd paid over $5000 in taxes so far that year. So I decided to see what my tax money had bought me. Because I was a single white male. Nothing. I was even told my car was worth too much (even though I was underwater, my liabilities were NOT counted against my assets). The counselor suggested I could sell my car, but then a) I'd still have several thousand in debt, b) I wouldn't be able to get a job because I couldn't drive to it, and c) they'd still count whatever I sold the car for as an asset and I still wouldn't qualify.
Back when I was working in a Stop-n-Rob in Burleson County, we'd have kids come in right after shift change with a five dollar food stamp - this was back when they were still paper bills - for a single candy bar. The idea was since we'd swapped the cash drawer for the new shift, there wouldn't be any single food stamps in there, and we'd have to give $4 in Washingtons, not food stamps.
I started leaving 10 worth of single food stamps in the drawer. Got my ass chewed out more than once by a good citizen who 'needed cash for gas money!'
My Uncle retired from the Navy in late 1960s. He was a Chief Gunners Mate and former bootcamp Company Commander. He got a job back in his hometown in Central Missouri as the guy in charge of the County commodities exchange. That was before EBT Cards and Food Stamps. You were eligible for food staples like 5 lbs blocks of cheese, sacks of rice, beans, flour & cornmeal, coffee grounds, Spam, canned goods, etc. Uncle John made 'em line up "nuts to butts, no smoking in ranks, cage yer eyes, no talking, have yer ID ready". Back then, the program was to feed hungry people, not to enable a slacker lifestyle.
Back when I was an Enlisted man I never desired to be on welfare, nor was I even eligible after I married and had kids. Spent 7 years in Hawaii and bought my groceries at civilian stores, not the commissary (because they were crowded, chaotic and the service was poor). The huge majority of fellow shoppers (civilians) ate better than I did and did it with paper food stamps.
Hunger can be a great motivator to get a job. Call me callous and uncaring. Or call me a taxpayer.
In law school I had a Prof who was proud of her service as an attorney for the NYC Legal Services Corp branch, and involved in the litigation that redefined public benefits from charity (which is dependent on available / budgeted money), to entitlements, which must be supplied to all who are seen to qualify, regardless of available funds.
We did not get along at all, but I still escaped that class with a "B".
It is the "Seen to be qualified" where the judgment of the goblins of the Left can put the unqualified on public benefits, requiring extensive court proof to remove them, resisted at every stage by the other law goblins.
Like you, I saw plenty of multi-generational welfare families in my career. 16 year old mothers, 32 year old grandmothers, 48 year old great grandmothers, and 62 year old great great grandmothers. None of whom had ever worked a taxable job (but some off the books), all in government subsidized housing (often in the same complex). All on welfare, SNAP, and every other imaginable benefit; and none ever finished high school. None ever married since that’d make them ineligible for benefits, but often living with their baby daddy/common law husband (who has to move out when the inspectors come by, and they’re given a 3 day window when that’ll be). Let’s not forget the free healthcare. And back then, the more kids, the more in benefits. Interestingly, it had all started in the mid 60s with the advent of the “Great Society” initiative of LBJ. You’d think with all that time on their hands, the women would be fantastic Moms, but in my experience, the kids largely raised themselves and by their early teens were running the streets at all hours.
The first cellular telephone I ever saw was in a housing project.
Sadly, I’ve come to realize it is nearly impossible to reduce, restrain, or end a government program; even “temporary” ones.
If you want reform, here is what will happen. The government will un-fund SNAP and give that money to NGO's to feed the poor. How did that work out in helping undocumented immigrants? The Lefties won't give up any leverages that garner votes. But can see they are willing to let some people go hungry in order to retain leverage on a more reliable potential voting bloc: illegal aliens. In a real Democracy, there can be no reform if 51% of the people are saying "Gimme". This won't end well, but then no one ever said the end state of a nation would be pretty. *sigh*
The government not running charities should also include the government not funding charities. If it's not in the Constitution for them to do, it isn't in the Constitution for them to fund.
The problem with charity is that there will ALWAYS be fraud. Private charities can combat it on suspicion, especially when they are small enough to actually keep track. Larger charities run into a signal vs noise problem. GOVERNMENT charity has that, plus the certain knowledge that they will have to justify every decision, plus the effects of Parkinson’s Law and the Peter Principle on any bureaucracy.
Charity, to be effective and as un-wasteful as possible, requires subtlety, nuance, and tact. Three qualities government is terrible at.
I agree with you that this is not the government's job. But, if people going to insist on continuing this, I think the government should switch to direct food aid. This would be in the form of government cheese, rice, beans, canned vegetables, tofu, milk if their are children in the home, and other similar items. No actual meat. No candy, cake, or other sugary items. If they want things not provided by this program, they can get a job and buy them.
Considering that families on SNAP also get free school breakfast and lunch, I'm not even sure about the dairy for kids when school is in session.
They'll sell it on the black market.
MAHA is actually trying to outlaw the use for junk food. The issue is in doubt.
The better solution is:
Lower taxes.
More energy production.
Less red tape regulations. (On ALL fronts, in all industries and areas.)
Buy back/reverse the sales of arable farmland/ranch land and ACTUALLY FAR MORE in the U.S. so local food is cheap and plentiful.
#ArrestDC for gross incompetence and ban deficit spending.
And a variety of other methods that will bring down cost of living so that the people have enough money to spare to fund help efforts privately... which are FAR more efficient at getting help to people who need it in a cost effective way than government can ever be.
Also tofu is a horrible food. Meat is one of the healthiest foods in any diet, especially red meat, rice and grains are actually unhealthy, cheese is only plentiful because the government subsidized it to a ridiculous degree and then claimed it's a wonderfood/staple to create a racket.
Government can't solve this problem because government IS this problem.
I saw a post where the author suggested giving SNAP recipients MRE's instead of payment cards. A lot of people would be getting jobs. And I can't imagine selling them for drugs would be easy...
They have MREs for sale at our commissary, for either $15 or $18 each. So if they can find the local preppers, they probably can sell them for enough cash.
When the market gets saturated, the value drops.
I will admit, with appropriate shame, to using the SNAP benefits. I KNOW that there's rampant fraud. You and I have both seen it, Ian. But I take pride in the fact that when I'm at the checkout lane at the HEB I'm getting FOOD. Well, it will become food, after I cook it.
And you're not the issue I'm addressing here.
Ingredients go much further than "food" don't they? I had a disabled friend (deceased now) who could fill his cart off of his card because he knew how to cook and he watched for the sales.
That was me, 30 years ago, as a single Mom. I had two small children to feed, worked part-time, college full-time (accounting, and took as many classes as I could self-study so I didn't have to rely on the State for paying the sitter on top of everything else). I got the whole megillah, but I dang well did my part to ensure I got off that teat ASAP. My caseworker absolutely loved me. I was always organized. Send me a list of what you need, it's there, in the order listed on the sheet, ready to go. In a manila envelope for neatness, no less. I told her once that I looked at this as a crutch to get me through to where I could support the kids myself. She said, "I wish more people thought like you. Let me see what other programs are out there that I can connect you with to help you with that goal. And, mind, honey, I don't do that for everyone, just the folks who WANT off welfare." Took me three long, hard years, but I made it off and haven't been back since.
This was way back in the days of paper food stamps, when the $1 ones were change and didn't need to be in the books. I tore all of those out and put them back every month for emergencies or after we were done. Told caseworker that, and she said good idea. You DO that. Help you feed yourself and the kids once you're off this merry go round. By the time I got done with it, I had enough "change" food stamps tucked back in packs of 50 to feed us for a whole year. Mainly because I didn't do the whole junk food thing as so many now do. I was a cook like it's the Great Depression grocery buyer (still am). Staples like flour, sugar, tea, coffee, spices and herbs, fresh fruits and veggies, GOOD meat (not the cheap nasty stuff that's mostly fat and low nutritional level). And I still managed to feed us good, without EVER eating ramen noodles. I'd like to see some of these welfare mamas today do what I did.
it's not chartiy.
It's theft from me and the rest of working citizens to buy votes and I'm damn tired of paying for leeches.
BINGO! Charity is a choice freely given. This is the government taking from me under the threat of violence, prison, financial ruin or some combination of all the above, for redistribution on their terms.
SNAP is not a charity. No government program can be called charity, because charity is motivated by love. A government can't love, and when the purpose of the "charitable" act is to bribe people to vote a certain way, that's certainly not love.
Ian, if I'd been talking with that social services dame and she pulled that arrogant "we don't starve children" line on me, I would have answered, "I don't, either, but their parents do".
We live in a time and place where parenthood is 100% optional. We have contraception, abortion, and penalty-free surrender of newborns at different places for adoption. If you can't feed a kid, don't have or keep that kid. You have no right to demand that the rest of society fund your choice.
I understand that bad stuff happens, and sometimes people need a hand up. I have both received a hand up and given a hand up at different times. But there is a big difference between a hand up and a handout.
I’ve seen both people who desperately needed the assistance and absolutely fed their family using it, and people who completely abused the system. The latter is far more common in my experience than the former.
Colorado is marginally better on the fraud front, I have seen people lose benefits for fraud. One of those people promptly encouraged her 12yo daughter to become pregnant (confirmed by statements she made on a recorded line) so that the daughter could receive benefits, during the period that the mother was barred from applying.
The meme about fat people driving motorized carts of lobster, strip steak, prime rib, crab legs, shrimp, and other luxury foods then paying for it with hundreds of dollars in food stamps is real.
I saw far more of that as a cashier than I saw people buying efficient low-cost foods to feed themselves and their family.
Sounds like child prostitution (morally if not per legis) to me. What a tender loving mamma SHE is!
After witnessing some of the behavior of EBT card users in person and on social media, I can believe this. Their amoral antics would make Satan puke.
perfect article to go along with what I witnessed in a McDonald's in the very small WV town I live in. I'd stopped to use the rest room and get a drink, and I'm listening to a conversation between the two ladies in front of me. They are talking about the SNAP money going away and how much they feel for the kids in the community and how many of them are not going to have food at home.
One woman mentioned that yea, she knows a lot of people who are going out looking for jobs since they won't have their SNAP benefits.
That had me pause and then start boiling.
So basically, those "parents" are capable of working and keeping a job, but have never even bothered to attempt to get one before because hey, they have SNAP benefits so why should they?
And the icing on the cake? We were all waiting for extremely long periods at that restaurant because only 3 people had showed up for work that day including the manager all because several people had "called off" or wouldn't answer the phone when they saw the manager's number. I heard the manager say that he heard one person pick up, hear his voice, and hang up!
Welfare culture at its finest, folks, and I don't know if its more exemplified than in WV, where Welfare has destroyed 4 generations now of West Virginians. So many people of various ages in this state who live on the government dole.
Meanwhile, I look at my salary and watch over 40% get taken right off the top every single payday, and then by the time I pay for our piss-poor insurance and try to put something back for retirement, I find I'm living on about 45% of what I actually make. And yet I'm told I'm not paying my fair share?!!!!!!
If Jesus is fine with 10%, so should Uncle Sam!
It's funny: I can still remember my first exposure to food stamps (and they were indeed still coupons back in the day). I was probably about 8 or 9 years old (which would have put Jimmy C. in office), and we were at the grocery store preparing to go through the checkout line. The woman in front of us pulled out a booklet of food stamps to pay for her groceries. Everyone within eyeshot found something very interesting to look at either on the ceiling, out the window, or back in the store as the woman (very embarrassedly and quickly) counted off the coupons to pay for her food.
It was almost a taboo back then: you didn't apply for the program unless you and your kids were about at the point of boiling your leather for dinner. If you were forced onto the food stamp program, you were morbidly embarrassed to have anyone know, which went double if you found yourself in the checkout line actually next to someone you knew. And the rest of society was embarrassed for you. Now it almost seems a source of pride.
I agree with @Ian that neither the Feds nor the several states should be doing this. But, if it absolutely HAS to be done by a government entity, take the debit cards away. I know that the issue (and use) of a debit card is more efficient than mailing coupons to someone, but as it stands now, it lets everyone maintain the polite fiction that the SNAP beneficiary is paying with their own money.
Make it embarassing again.
The Left has actively fought to destigmatize it.
I remember getting laid off from a job, with barely any savings (I'd had to buy a car a few months earlier) I looked at my final stub and had seen that I'd paid over $5000 in taxes so far that year. So I decided to see what my tax money had bought me. Because I was a single white male. Nothing. I was even told my car was worth too much (even though I was underwater, my liabilities were NOT counted against my assets). The counselor suggested I could sell my car, but then a) I'd still have several thousand in debt, b) I wouldn't be able to get a job because I couldn't drive to it, and c) they'd still count whatever I sold the car for as an asset and I still wouldn't qualify.
Back when I was working in a Stop-n-Rob in Burleson County, we'd have kids come in right after shift change with a five dollar food stamp - this was back when they were still paper bills - for a single candy bar. The idea was since we'd swapped the cash drawer for the new shift, there wouldn't be any single food stamps in there, and we'd have to give $4 in Washingtons, not food stamps.
I started leaving 10 worth of single food stamps in the drawer. Got my ass chewed out more than once by a good citizen who 'needed cash for gas money!'
LOL, LLOY...doin' the LORD'S work.
I said this elsewhere.
My Uncle retired from the Navy in late 1960s. He was a Chief Gunners Mate and former bootcamp Company Commander. He got a job back in his hometown in Central Missouri as the guy in charge of the County commodities exchange. That was before EBT Cards and Food Stamps. You were eligible for food staples like 5 lbs blocks of cheese, sacks of rice, beans, flour & cornmeal, coffee grounds, Spam, canned goods, etc. Uncle John made 'em line up "nuts to butts, no smoking in ranks, cage yer eyes, no talking, have yer ID ready". Back then, the program was to feed hungry people, not to enable a slacker lifestyle.
Back when I was an Enlisted man I never desired to be on welfare, nor was I even eligible after I married and had kids. Spent 7 years in Hawaii and bought my groceries at civilian stores, not the commissary (because they were crowded, chaotic and the service was poor). The huge majority of fellow shoppers (civilians) ate better than I did and did it with paper food stamps.
Hunger can be a great motivator to get a job. Call me callous and uncaring. Or call me a taxpayer.
In law school I had a Prof who was proud of her service as an attorney for the NYC Legal Services Corp branch, and involved in the litigation that redefined public benefits from charity (which is dependent on available / budgeted money), to entitlements, which must be supplied to all who are seen to qualify, regardless of available funds.
We did not get along at all, but I still escaped that class with a "B".
It is the "Seen to be qualified" where the judgment of the goblins of the Left can put the unqualified on public benefits, requiring extensive court proof to remove them, resisted at every stage by the other law goblins.
John in Indy
Like you, I saw plenty of multi-generational welfare families in my career. 16 year old mothers, 32 year old grandmothers, 48 year old great grandmothers, and 62 year old great great grandmothers. None of whom had ever worked a taxable job (but some off the books), all in government subsidized housing (often in the same complex). All on welfare, SNAP, and every other imaginable benefit; and none ever finished high school. None ever married since that’d make them ineligible for benefits, but often living with their baby daddy/common law husband (who has to move out when the inspectors come by, and they’re given a 3 day window when that’ll be). Let’s not forget the free healthcare. And back then, the more kids, the more in benefits. Interestingly, it had all started in the mid 60s with the advent of the “Great Society” initiative of LBJ. You’d think with all that time on their hands, the women would be fantastic Moms, but in my experience, the kids largely raised themselves and by their early teens were running the streets at all hours.
The first cellular telephone I ever saw was in a housing project.
Sadly, I’ve come to realize it is nearly impossible to reduce, restrain, or end a government program; even “temporary” ones.
If you want reform, here is what will happen. The government will un-fund SNAP and give that money to NGO's to feed the poor. How did that work out in helping undocumented immigrants? The Lefties won't give up any leverages that garner votes. But can see they are willing to let some people go hungry in order to retain leverage on a more reliable potential voting bloc: illegal aliens. In a real Democracy, there can be no reform if 51% of the people are saying "Gimme". This won't end well, but then no one ever said the end state of a nation would be pretty. *sigh*
The government not running charities should also include the government not funding charities. If it's not in the Constitution for them to do, it isn't in the Constitution for them to fund.
While the author in the link below narrows his focus, I think what he says can reasonably be applied here.
https://tomkratman.substack.com/p/lod-135-and-together-is-inherently?publication_id=1807428&post_id=177884662&isFreemail=true&r=1i2jd&triedRedirect=true
The problem with charity is that there will ALWAYS be fraud. Private charities can combat it on suspicion, especially when they are small enough to actually keep track. Larger charities run into a signal vs noise problem. GOVERNMENT charity has that, plus the certain knowledge that they will have to justify every decision, plus the effects of Parkinson’s Law and the Peter Principle on any bureaucracy.
Charity, to be effective and as un-wasteful as possible, requires subtlety, nuance, and tact. Three qualities government is terrible at.
Also local charities, whether church or city-run, usually know, or know of the people they are helping.
Preach it, brother.