Missouri Lawmakers Don't Want Food Stamp Recipients To Buy Steak

a reply to: stormson
You're playing devils advocate just for the sake of doing it. Some people need help, yes. I've worked in retail for ten years and about 98% of the people with ebt cards do not need them and perfectly able to work, and I know for a fact they don't have jobs. Most people getting help are just lazy. They'd rather get fat and eat sugar all day, and feed nothing but crap to their kids. I don't buy your crap statistics. WalMart starts part timers at 9 bucks an hour, and if you work at night that goes up to 9.50. That's not even counting that most Walmart employees don't deserve a raise. They'll literally hide from managers because they don't want to work. Fact is, the majority of people are lazy and dumb. Edit: and part-timers get usually no less than thirty hours a week, which is actually considered full time now.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

And that is the biggest issue. People using it in that manner, which is a lot, don't see it as waste, as anyone using EBT at any store I have ever seen, have a wad of cash, new shoes, nice cars, iPhones and so on.

They don't have a budget, because their financial situation in life is offset by the magical EBT card and Govt money.

originally posted by: daskakik
Just call it what it is, corporate welfare the long way around.
.

I agree with that.

sigh! still no one is talking solution only finger pointing ..

a reply to: MystikMushroom

I will have to disagree on that with you.

Here $10 on Tuesday will get you any large Pizza from there and I usually go buy the NY stuffed crust.

There is no way I can make one that cheap and I can eat off of it for 2 to 3 days.

I am not on EBT, but I have found that deal saves me money on food.

a reply to: Spider879

I already offered a solution.

Remove EBT/SNAP cards. Stop giving people money.

Once a month, the US citizen can get a stipend of the following:
Bag of rice
Bag of beans
Block of cheese
Milk
Chicken
Beef

Those are items that can sustain life and allow people to feed themselves. All removing the need for money going to people and money in turn going to corporations.

a reply to: macman

See, I know what you're getting at...as I too have seen the shopping cart full of soda, cookies and chips, basically all the stuff the kids want being paid for with EBT.

On the other hand, I've also seen some people using EBT to really stretch their meals. You can do all kinds of things with hot dogs, pasta, and chili.

This is why I think having a list of "approved" foods might be a good compromise. Oreos and fruit roll ups wouldn't be on the list. Pasta, bread, chuck roast, milk, eggs, spices, salt, butter, cheese, hot dogs, fruit, vegtables...that sort of thing would be. The weekly "flyer" could have a rotation of items that aren't always available for variety as well.

No one cooks anymore (sadly) ...

originally posted by: Spider879
sigh! still no one is talking solution only finger pointing ..

Exactly.


I can agree that there is a problem with abuse. The other problem I see is there are no good solutions being proposed.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom

originally posted by: abe froman
a reply to: muse7
I didn't blame anyone for anything, my point is if someone else is paying the check you don't order the lobster.

This is why when I'm on a date, I order a salad. Usually most people won't order something more expensive than what the person paying is having...

Yes. I am cheap.

I will.

Yes. I am shameless.

Having said that. I've been on welfare. It was tough. I don't know how people can afford steak and lobster using food stamps. I weighed 90 lbs when I was on food stamps, but my kid was fed. Most people don't game the system but I have no doubt that anyone will damn well notice when they do. If you are on food stamps the contents of your grocery cart are suddenly fair game for anyone to examine and judge.

Now, I can afford steak and lobster, which is awesome (and I'm glad that I can afford a treadmill too). Let the poor eat what they want, better use of my tax dollars than the real leeches in government.

originally posted by: NavyDoc
Yet the evidence shows is that these programs have increased poverty, not reduced it, and have not created a better and productive society. LBJ's great society is a failure. What you subsidize, you get more of. Handouts destroy initiative and drive but secure votes for those who provide them.

But we give wealthy corporations 10 or 20 times the amount we give the poor in subsidies. Yet, largely in part to those subsidies the economy is booming. If what you say is true, shouldn't Wall Street be in terrible shape right now due to the government handouts?

a reply to: MystikMushroom

That list, like the Food pyramid can be influenced greatly by companies.

Remove all of that, and hand out the basics instead, as I listed above.

a reply to: macman

your food options really suck if someone doesn't have the ability to cook. Not everyone poor has the modern luxuries of say a stove or running electricity. Must be nice being able to assume everyone has cooking as a easily accessed option.

a reply to: Spider879

I say that there is no real problem.

"I don't like what that person is buying with food stamps", seems like little more than personal opinion.

originally posted by: blackmetalmist
a reply to: NavyDoc

Tutoring is creating increased poverty?? HOW??

You didn't mention tutoring in the post I replied to. In addition, we already have government funded schools and they are not helping. We spend the most per student in the world but get a fraction of the benefit. Obviously throwing more money at the problem will not work because it has not worked yet.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: NavyDoc
Yet the evidence shows is that these programs have increased poverty, not reduced it, and have not created a better and productive society. LBJ's great society is a failure. What you subsidize, you get more of. Handouts destroy initiative and drive but secure votes for those who provide them.

But we give wealthy corporations 10 or 20 times the amount we give the poor in subsidies. Yet, largely in part to those subsidies the economy is booming. If what you say is true, shouldn't Wall Street be in terrible shape right now due to the government handouts?

No, crony capitalism stifles competition and hurts the economy. The economy is not "booming," and politicians paying off wall street cronies hurts the economy in the long run and the building debt that we are riding on is not sustainable forever.

a reply to: NavyDoc

If you would have read my previous post you would have known that I was referring specifically to tutoring. I do agree that we have spent quite a bit of $$ on programs that have not helped. Others have such as after school programs. Some things need to be re evaluated and see where they are going wrong. I personally believe most of it starts at home. But that is just me.

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: macman

your food options really suck if someone doesn't have the ability to cook. Not everyone poor has the modern luxuries of say a stove or running electricity. Must be nice being able to assume everyone has cooking as a easily accessed option.

Some people are so far removed from the problem that they literally cannot comprehend the issue. No stove to cook food, no refrigerator to keep items, no ability to travel the store periodically and buy small amounts of fresh goods each time. I remember a few months ago, maybe a year ago someone here posted a website where you input your income and it would display your wealth relative to the rest of the world. The purpose was to make it look like our poor are actually rich in the grand scheme of things. I put my income in and it was so low the website claimed I was lying. According to them, no American has that little. That should give you an example of the type of disconnect that goes on.

originally posted by: NavyDoc
No, crony capitalism stifles competition and hurts the economy. The economy is not "booming," and politicians paying off wall street cronies hurts the economy in the long run and the building debt that we are riding on is not sustainable forever.

But without that crony capitalism the claim is that stores would have to cut jobs. Walmart for example would have to raise wages and reduce it's work force. Exxon would leave the country and rebase somewhere that they get a nice tax rate and a government willing to buy them refineries.

As far as the economy goes, I'll hold Obama to the same standard Bush was held to. The economy was said to be booming under him due to record Wall Street numbers despite the unemployment. If Wall Street is the measure people use in popular conversation, we have a great correlation between tax money going to corporations and Wall Street being higher. Why would it not make sense then, that if the poor are getting additional money (in any source), and if they don't have the ability to save anything, that any money given to the poor in addition to improving quality of life, is also a direct economic stimulus.

originally posted by: NavyDoc

originally posted by: AdamuBureido
a reply to: caladonea

we need to strip any and all calvinists or promoters of calvinism of their citizenship and expel them from the us.

this most despicable brand of xtianity teaches Predestination: that people are poor because they're already damned to hell;
and being prosperous, a sign of being of the elect.

And those of us who are atheists? Would you strip us of our rights simply because we disagree with the notion of buying votes with handouts?

your post just goes to show the hypocrisy that infects the minds of too many in america:
democracy is perfect when it's imposed on others by force or when you're in the majority
but you're fully aware of it's flaws and against it when you're in the minority

and if atheists are anti-human and irrational greed mongers they should be put down as a mercy.

it was never your money to begin with, it's a loan
STOP TALKING CRAP ABOUT "YOUR" TAX DOLLARS it's not your money and never was.

it's your world, I'm just living in it.

funny how you're overly concerned with your rights being stripped away
when you're usually on the side of taking away other peoples rights

y'know like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

and all these asshats trying to steal from the poor usually already have more than enough money of their own, yet lust for what's not theirs, and want the poor dependent on THEM, not on the GOV.

they lust for the days when they could get away with paying off a 12 hour workday with a bowl of gruel

and this douche politician gets free meals at taxpayer expense, him not being able to afford lobster or steak is a BLATANT LIE and should be grounds for immediate impeachment

originally posted by: Aazadan

But we give wealthy corporations 10 or 20 times the amount we give the poor in subsidies. Yet, largely in part to those subsidies the economy is booming. If what you say is true, shouldn't Wall Street be in terrible shape right now due to the government handouts?

Corporate welfare could be a problem depending on how one looks at it.

But I think the amounts might be more even. Not 10 or 20 times more.

Do you have some charts?

originally posted by: Spider879
sigh! still no one is talking solution only finger pointing ..

it's REDEMPTION PT II, only this time, despite all the racebaiting, it's color blind this time around, not that poor whites didn't suffer at the hands of these terrorists.

en.wikipedia.org...

In United States history, the Redeemers were a white political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era that followed the Civil War. Redeemers were the southern wing of the Bourbon Democrats, the conservative, pro-business faction in the Democratic Party, who pursued a policy of Redemption, seeking to oust the Radical Republican coalition of freedmen, "carpetbaggers", and "scalawags". They generally were led by the rich landowners, businessmen and professionals, and dominated Southern politics in most areas from the 1870s to the 1910.

During Reconstruction, the South was under occupation by federal forces and Southern state governments were dominated by Republicans. Republicans nationally pressed for the granting of political rights to the newly freed slaves as the key to their becoming full citizens. The Thirteenth Amendment (banning slavery), Fourteenth Amendment (guaranteeing the civil rights of former slaves and ensuring equal protection of the laws), and Fifteenth Amendment (prohibiting the denial of the right to vote on grounds of race, color, or previous condition of servitude) enshrined such political rights in the Constitution.

Numerous educated blacks moved to the South to work for Reconstruction, and some blacks attained positions of political power under these conditions. However, the Reconstruction governments were unpopular with many white Southerners, who were not willing to accept defeat and continued to try to prevent black political activity by any means. While the elite planter class often supported insurgencies, violence against freedmen and other Republicans was often carried out by other whites; insurgency took the form of the secret Ku Klux Klan in the first years after the war.

In the 1870s, secret paramilitary organizations, such as the White League in Louisiana and Red Shirts in Mississippi and North Carolina undermined the opposition. These paramilitary bands used violence and threats to undermine the Republican vote. By the presidential election of 1876, only three Southern states – Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida – were "unredeemed", or not yet taken over by white Democrats. The disputed Presidential election between Rutherford B. Hayes (the Republican governor of Ohio) and Samuel J. Tilden (the Democratic governor of New York) was allegedly resolved by the Compromise of 1877, also known as the Corrupt Bargain.[1] In this compromise, it was claimed, Hayes became President in exchange for numerous favors to the South, one of which was the removal of Federal troops from the remaining "unredeemed" Southern states; this was however a policy Hayes had endorsed during his campaign. With the removal of these forces, Reconstruction came to an end.

As Democrats took over state legislatures, they worked to change voter registration rules to strip most blacks and many poor whites of their ability to vote. Blacks continued to vote in significant numbers well into the 1880s, with many winning local offices. Black Congressmen continued to be elected, albeit in ever smaller numbers, until the 1890s. George Henry White, the last Southern black of the post-Reconstruction period to serve in Congress, retired in 1901, leaving Congress completely white.

In the 1890s, the Democrats faced challenges with the Agrarian Revolt, when their control of the South was threatened by the Farmers Alliance, the effects of Bimetallism and the newly created People's Party. On the national level, William Jennings Bryan defeated the Bourbons and took control of the Democratic Party nationwide.
Disfranchising

Democrats worked hard to prevent such populist coalitions. In the former Confederate South, from 1890 to 1908, starting with Mississippi, legislatures of ten of the eleven states passed disfranchising constitutions, which had new provisions for poll taxes, literacy tests, residency requirements and other devices that effectively disfranchised nearly all blacks and tens of thousands of poor whites. Hundreds of thousands of people were removed from voter registration rolls soon after these provisions were implemented.

In Alabama, for instance, in 1900 fourteen Black Belt counties had 79,311 voters on the rolls; by June 1, 1903, after the new constitution was passed, registration had dropped to just 1,081. Statewide Alabama in 1900 had 181,315 blacks eligible to vote. By 1903 only 2,980 were registered, although at least 74,000 were literate. From 1900 to 1903, white registered voters fell by more than 40,000, although their population grew in overall number. By 1941, more poor whites than blacks had been disfranchised in Alabama, mostly due to effects of the cumulative poll tax. Estimates were that 600,000 whites and 500,000 blacks had been disfranchised.[3]

African Americans and poor whites were shut out of the political process and disfranchised. Southern legislatures passed Jim Crow laws imposing segregation in public facilities and places. The discrimination, segregation and disfranchisement lasted well into the later decades of the 20th century. They were shut out of all offices at the local, state, as well as federal levels, as those who could not vote could not run for office or serve on juries.

they also eliminated taxes that affected big landowners and passed them to the small farmers, eventually forcing many to sell their lands to those whose already large holdings had a tax free status.

it's all about reducing everybody not in their little neo-feudalist club to serfdom.
and that's the real Civil War that's coming, not the race war they're trying to touch off.