Food Stamp / Welfware Reform

[Kadarin]

Welfare should:

Allow a family to survive at a very basic level until the adults in the family can get jobs.

Welfare should not:

Allow for a culture where generations of people grow up who have no incentive to be productive members of society.

Should not encourage people to have children for the purpose of getting additional money.

Given these, now come up with a system that will accomplish this.

 

[BoberFett]

Bad idea. You don't want to ever give anything to the can't do for themselves for free. You find something, anything they can do and pay them to do it. You chart their productivity, such as it is and increase their welfare as their productivity increases, if it does. You can pay them for anything, picking up trash, putting asphalt in a pot hole, watching for crime at night, anything, even learning to read or learning a trade, but not for free unless the disability is total.

People don't know it, but they hate themselves if they don't contribute, if they live like they feel. Best to deny people real reasons to hate themselves.

Our ideas are not mutually exclusive. People receiving those government benefits can pay for them by assisting in their production. They can help maintain the government housing and work in the government kitchen.

 

[sportage]

It's fun to bash the poor. Pretend they live high on the hog. Truth is most of the poor on stamps are stuck with no hope. A single mother with a child can hardly work and raise the child. If she works, she loses her assistance PLUS add in the cost for day care ( that btw states have been cutting to the bone). Add in the cost if transportation not only for mom working, but getting the kid to and from daycare and on the daycare providers schedule. Mom works till 6, daycare closes at 5. Check mate?
Or consider today where so many retired grandparents living on SS also have a grandchild living with them in the home. A child that requires a lot of expense to raise. Especially for seniors on a fixed income barely able to scrape by month to month. Many in that situation now qualify for stamps.
It's fun to just assume people on food stamps are working the system. Making a killing. Taking your tax money. Living high on the hog with not a worry. It's easy to pretend anyone on stamps or government assistance have "options" available. Fact is, few have "options", nor a way out of poverty.
What they eat is not the issue, the issue is how they can afford to eat at all in the first place.
$200 Worth of food stamps for one month for the grandparents and a grandchild doesn't last that long. Certainly not till the end of the month.
People find it impossible to conceive there are Americans actually starving.
They all must be "working" the system and living high on tax payer handouts.
So just pull their plug. Solves the problem. Right?

 

[BoberFett]

Not really, I am serious.

I have been thinking about this for a while, but I realized that 500 per person should maybe be 750 a month per adult and 250 a month for each child under 18. The current food stamp program should also be abolished in favor of a 40 to 200 dollars a month (food stamp) money that can only be used to purchase groceries. The cost would be around 3 trillion a year, but would help end homelessness and poverty. It an be paid through higher taxes, and mandatory employment laws. Basically everyone who is able to work will work either through their own free will or through forced labor.

LOL. Democrats.

 

[Moonbeam]

Our ideas are not mutually exclusive. People receiving those government benefits can pay for them by assisting in their production. They can help maintain the government housing and work in the government kitchen.

They are not mutually exclusive but they emphasize very different things. To attend to the body is good but it's better still to then attend to the soul. Poverty is a condition of the body and the mind.

 

[nehalem256]

It's fun to bash the poor. Pretend they live high on the hog. Truth is most of the poor on stamps are stuck with no hope. A single mother with a child can hardly work and raise the child. If she works, she loses her assistance PLUS add in the cost for day care ( that btw states have been cutting to the bone). Add in the cost if transportation not only for mom working, but getting the kid to and from daycare and on the daycare providers schedule. Mom works till 6, daycare closes at 5. Check mate?

Being a single mother is largely inconsistent with reality. The problem is that liberals were the ones that normalized divorce and unwed motherhood. You cannot create a problem and then complain about it :\

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Being a single mother is largely inconsistent with reality. The problem is that liberals were the ones that normalized divorce and unwed motherhood. You cannot create a problem and then complain about it :\

lol

In the immortal words of the guy who reported the Hindenburg crash....

"Oh, the stupidity."

What normalized divorce was women not feeling indebted to the church and to men, thus making them realize dealing with a man like you wasn't worth just being able to say they were married.

 

[nehalem256]

And exactly how do you plan on not allowing a person to have a child?

Or food stamps come into the picture when the child is one?

Cant wait to hear how were going work this one out.

Exactly the same way Obama is enforcing the health insurance mandate.

If the child is older then beans and rice can be delivered to them.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Exactly the same way Obama is enforcing the health insurance mandate.

If the child is older then beans and rice can be delivered to them.

I don't blame him for enforcing health care, despite not agreeing with it, because it is clear that American businesses have seen extra profit in not offering health care to their workers. The fact that you don't see it once again just proves you are either a sheltered kid or a troll.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

To a small extent, you're in the right ballpark. But mostly, you're wrong. Let's say the demand was 12 billion units of whatever product it is that farmers produce. You realize that their production doesn't happen overnight, right? It takes many months between planting & product ready to go to market. For national security, it makes little sense to aim for close to or barely over that 12 billion units. All it takes is a drought, a large flood, etc., and you could lose a significant portion of that crop. Then what? Are you willing to put up with occasional food shortages?

You make my point for me which is to illustrate how subsides basically increase the cost of crops and food stuffs over the long term.

Government sets higher prices for corps then the market would allow to ensure that farmers over produce and grow more crops then what is needed to offset difficult periods of little demand, increased demand and/or as you stayed periods where natural disasters such as prolong droughts etc.

In the end however the result is that prices for crops via subsidies are set at a unrealistic price point which is not in line with what the market would offer or bare thus this is why we see a verifiable and notable rise in food prices over a long period of time with any kind of food/crop subsidies (which includes the food stamps program).

Also, farmers are good at what they do. Damn good. Milk production is so good that the farmers, competing against each other, would be able to run each other out of business by over-production & forcing the price too low. You really can't consolidate all milk production into too centralized of farms; it works better to have a lot of farms more spread out.

Again you make my point for me here as well.

Farmers would be forced to compete in the market without subsides and this competition would then drive down prices because efficiency brought to bare in market prices and farmers would seek to sate the demands and needs of consumers at prices both parties are willing to accept and which allows farmers to be able to compete with each other.

Furthermore monopolies that would occur naturally in the market would only exist so long as the monopoly in question is able to provide their goods and services at a low enough price level to sustain their dominance over others in the market. Thus prices for crops and food in general would decrease over time. In addition not all monopolies are inherently "bad" for the economy. If these monopolies occur naturally and without the aide and support of government intervention due to competition and lower prices then it is a benefit to the consumer.

However if these monopolies originate or are in part due to government action via regulations and/or subsides then their benefit is not seen by the consumer as these types of monopolies have no incentive to set their prices lower as they are partly maintained and sustained by government influence in the market which has the effect of removing any competition that would attempt to undermine their control by undermining them via lower prices.

 

[Vic Vega]

...

 

[Darwin333]

Right, that's what I meant about penalizing them. The reality is it's easier for government to let them spend it how they please. It's not worth the punishment factor.


How would that work at checkout counters? That would require imposing some sort of database system on supermarkets and then forcing the supermarkets to enforce it. Again, not a very business-friendly thing to do.

It really isn't that big of a deal to let people drink soda. It's not the healthiest but it does provide nutrition.

That system already exists. Go to wallyworld on the 1st and 15th and if you go through the line enough times you will see someone ahead of you using foodstamps. All of their stuff gets rung up, including stuff like beer and cigs that foodstamps don't pay for, at once. They swipe their foodstamp card and it pays for only the stuff that it covers and they have to cover the balance with cash or some other means of payment. Say their total was $100 and they had $20 worth of stuff foodstamps didn't cover, after the swiped their card the register automatically shows the remaining $20 balance.

So I would assume it would simply mean updating the existing database and not actually implementing a new one.

 

[BoberFett]

That system already exists. Go to wallyworld on the 1st and 15th and if you go through the line enough times you will see someone ahead of you using foodstamps. All of their stuff gets rung up, including stuff like beer and cigs that foodstamps don't pay for, at once. They swipe their foodstamp card and it pays for only the stuff that it covers and they have to cover the balance with cash or some other means of payment. Say their total was $100 and they had $20 worth of stuff foodstamps didn't cover, after the swiped their card the register automatically shows the remaining $20 balance.

So I would assume it would simply mean updating the existing database and not actually implementing a new one.

Does it not bother anybody that someone who's so poor that they need foodstamps can buy things other than solely what they need to survive? If you can afford cigarettes, you don't need foodstamps. You need to quit smoking.

 

[nehalem256]

Does it not bother anybody that someone who's so poor that they need foodstamps can buy things other than solely what they need to survive? If you can afford cigarettes, you don't need foodstamps. You need to quit smoking.

It reminds me of the woman who worked at walmart and was going to be able to afford health insurance anymore because they started charging smokers more.

Of course if she quit smoking she would have been able to afford it because of the lower rates. And she would have saved money from not wasting it on cigarettes.

 

[CycloWizard]

This sort of selective purchasing power is already in place for the WICK program. I don't see why the same principles should not apply to others receiving government assistance. That seems like a bare minimum baseline that everyone should be able to agree upon.

 

[Moonbeam]

Does it not bother anybody that someone who's so poor that they need foodstamps can buy things other than solely what they need to survive? If you can afford cigarettes, you don't need foodstamps. You need to quit smoking.

In a nanny state the government would prevent the poor from smoking or drinking or buying drugs. Are you suddenly in favor of a nanny state?

 

[Moonbeam]

This sort of selective purchasing power is already in place for the WICK program. I don't see why the same principles should not apply to others receiving government assistance. That seems like a bare minimum baseline that everyone should be able to agree upon.

Why? The conservatives want to cut benefits to the poor to fund military expansionism. Why not just send the military in to kill the poor. Maybe we could arm the poor, so the complex could make money from both sides.

 

[soulcougher73]

(In a past discussion, a conservative said they wanted government grocery stores.) Conservatives should want individuals to have freedom to make choices. I don't have a problem with a poor person buying calorie-rich fast food if they have to commute a long way to a job.

I have never heard that idea before, but i like it. I would create Welfare Grocery Stores. It has the basics and you get to spend your foodstamps etc there. But they only take food stamps as to not be government sponcered competition for regular grocery stores.

As well as job training. I'd put some kind of hard cap on how often/long you can be on welfare. Maybe 2 years out of every 10 or something. May fall into hardship later in life etc again.

Plus id have manditory birth control for women so they cant become baby factories while receiving government aid.

Basically id have it keep you alive with the bare minimum so you will want to get off of welfare.

As far as housing go. Maybe scrap section 8 housing and just have government owned apartments etc. No money goes into the welfare recipients hands. They get free room and board, food via food stamps, and job training.

But along with all the above another issue would be actually creating jobs in this country for more low skilled labor to do. Manufacturing needs to come back in a big way from China etc.

No sense in traning people to do jobs that dont exist or are far and few between.

 

[Steeplerot]

Even better than the charade of blaming the results of a failed system. About time to give up the moronic victorian era protestant "work ethic" as it was created by the exploiters -while we are at it isnt it about time to lose the old18th century views on sexuality and recreational drug use as well. None if these old ideas served mankind well. Time to grow up and stop blaming everyone else.

 

[BoberFett]

In a nanny state the government would prevent the poor from smoking or drinking or buying drugs. Are you suddenly in favor of a nanny state?

Quite the opposite. I'm against a nanny state. If it were up to me there wouldn't be any assistance. Hunger is a great motivator. Unfortunately the nanny state already exists. That's what welfare is. And since we've already established the nanny state, then if we're going to have assistance there have to be strings attached.

The left wants to give assistance to businesses, say bailing out the banks. But want to see strings attached such as "No massive bonuses for the failures they call executives." Why should this be any different?

You want housing assistance? Live in government housing where there will be plenty of public transporation available. You don't get to live in the suburbs which requires you to have a car, because if you can afford a car you can afford to pay your own rent.

You want food assistance? Then you're not allowed to smoke, drink or do drugs. If you can afford to consume things which destroy your body, then you can certainly afford to pay for the things to sustain it.

 

[Yreka]

This sort of selective purchasing power is already in place for the WICK program.

This...

You are only allowed 4 candles per month, and even then you can only choose from Apple Blossom or Eucalyptus.

 

[nanette1985]

It's fun to bash the poor. Pretend they live high on the hog. Truth is most of the poor on stamps are stuck with no hope. A single mother with a child can hardly work and raise the child. If she works, she loses her assistance PLUS add in the cost for day care ( that btw states have been cutting to the bone). Add in the cost if transportation not only for mom working, but getting the kid to and from daycare and on the daycare providers schedule. Mom works till 6, daycare closes at 5. Check mate?
Or consider today where so many retired grandparents living on SS also have a grandchild living with them in the home. A child that requires a lot of expense to raise. Especially for seniors on a fixed income barely able to scrape by month to month. Many in that situation now qualify for stamps.
It's fun to just assume people on food stamps are working the system. Making a killing. Taking your tax money. Living high on the hog with not a worry. It's easy to pretend anyone on stamps or government assistance have "options" available. Fact is, few have "options", nor a way out of poverty.
What they eat is not the issue, the issue is how they can afford to eat at all in the first place.
$200 Worth of food stamps for one month for the grandparents and a grandchild doesn't last that long. Certainly not till the end of the month.
People find it impossible to conceive there are Americans actually starving.
They all must be "working" the system and living high on tax payer handouts.
So just pull their plug. Solves the problem. Right?

Where do you live that grandparents and a grandchild can get $200 worth of food assistance for a month. It's way less here in NJ.

P.S. It isn't called Food Stamps any more. It's now SNAP - Supplental Nutrition Assistance Program. what used to be actual stamps are now EBT - Electronic Benefits Transfer Card.

 

[Darwin333]

Does it not bother anybody that someone who's so poor that they need foodstamps can buy things other than solely what they need to survive? If you can afford cigarettes, you don't need foodstamps. You need to quit smoking.

Yes, it "bothers" me but I also know what hungry people are capable of doing to society and it ain't that good. I would rather an absurdly small percentage of my taxes go to preventing hungry people in my society than having hungry people in my society. Hell the increased police and incarceration costs will likely be higher than what we save on foodstamps.

Yes, I feel your pain on the "suckage" factor of seeing some asshole getting better food than you are at the grocery store but the alternative is far worse suck.

 

[Darwin333]

Quite the opposite. I'm against a nanny state. If it were up to me there wouldn't be any assistance. Hunger is a great motivator.

Hunger is the best motivator. Unfortunately, it often motivates people to fuck society up for the rest of us. Hunger will motivate someone to get a job shoveling shit or will motivate them to walk up behind you and put a bullet in your head for the bad of groceries that you are carrying. Be very careful what you wish for.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Dont allow people who are unable to support a child to have a child.

A 4 year cap should be enough to allow for unforeseen bad things that might happen.

Two parent household can support a child but one can not. so if one parent leaves, then who suffers.
you have a child entering school and you are going to penalize the child.