Trump Administration Wants To Decide What Food SNAP Recipients Will Get

North Atlanta suburb 99' - me surviving on roughly $25 a week for groceries at discount grocer.

Big fat (really fat) lady ahead in line gets 2 cartloads food (well really sugar and steaks) and pays with "eagle" card.

For beer and gallons of wine she whips out 3" roll of cash peels off few bills and pays.

I made my meager puchase of staples and went to car passing the extremely fat woman having groceries loaded into brand new cadillac with dealer tag still on it.

Lost any shred of sympathy right then and there.

a reply to: Phoenix

Maybe I can help.

I was behind an old lady a couple of years back. She was buying staples: dried chile's, masa to make tortillas, and some hamburger meat. Her bill ran something like $8, and her Lonstar card couldn't pay it. We ponied up to cover her (my wife and I both love the elderly), and passed her shuffling out the door on the way out. Her husband, who was equally ancient, picked her up in an 80's era Oldsmobile.

I accept that grifters work the system because people like that lady and her husband still don't get enough.

a reply to: seagull

I got to know her a bit over time, and she mailed in rebates, printed coupons off the internet, went to 12 hour sales, bought off the discount rack...

Maybe things are slightly better on this site. A couple of years ago, three or four pages would have followed that info with all manner of screaming complaints and revulsion that she had internet.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: Phoenix

Maybe I can help.

I was behind an old lady a couple of years back. She was buying staples: dried chile's, masa to make tortillas, and some hamburger meat. Her bill ran something like $8, and her Lonstar card couldn't pay it. We ponied up to cover her (my wife and I both love the elderly), and passed her shuffling out the door on the way out. Her husband, who was equally ancient, picked her up in an 80's era Oldsmobile.

I accept that grifters work the system because people like that lady and her husband still don't get enough.

We've covered the balance for people more times that I can count, whether or not they were using EBT. It's usually something small, like a $5 or $10 shortfall, but people really appreciate when someone helps them like that at the register. I'm pretty damn sure the little boy, probably 9 or 10 years old, doing the grocery shopping on his own appreciated my husband covering the entire amount for him instead of just the few bucks he was short. Bought him a orange juice for his walk home, too, little kiddo was absolutely shocked someone was that nice to him just because. We could tell he probably had to chip in at home more than a kid his age should, I mean, a 10 year old with a grocery list and lugging a carry basket of items solo isn't too common, so odds are he was doing some of the cleaning & possibly cooking, too. It brightened his day, and kept a little money in their pocket they likely badly needed, that's well worth the $20 or so it cost, IMO.

I just heard about this! I KNEW someone would post a thread on it!

I LOVE DONALD J. TRUMP!

This is exactly what we need in this country... common sense and honest, real compassion! If you can't afford food, we'll give you food! Real food. There is so much food in this country it's ridiculous.

And even better, we'll be able to give more food, because we just cut out the middleman. No grocery store to make a profit off poor people. No concerns over inflation eating away at the value of those dollars and making people cut back on food. They don't even have to spend gas to go get it... the food is delivered to them!

As for choice... if you want choice, choose to improve your life. That's a choice. Choose to keep trying, keep looking, for a better life. Choosing between Dr. Pepper and Coca-Cola is not much of a choice... that's a trap. It's an illusion pushed on the poor to keep them thinking they are supposed to be poor. Besides, this is not all the food stamps, just a portion. Some foods are perishable, and I'm sure there will still be money on an EBT card for those perishable foods. But instead of someone sitting in a heavily-strained lounge chair all day long munching on chips and dip and getting weaker by the day, they will actually need to cook real food.

I said we needed to do this 20 years ago... now Trump, it seems, has heard my pleas for sanity. Go, Donald!

TheRedneck

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Nope! Not acceptable to cover for the abusers by pulling emotional strings as you are.

Nobody is calling for end to programs.

They ARE calling for an end to decades of abuse for which there is no excuse.

The database algorithms available to minutely monitor citizens daily activities should be put to good use here and disallow buying crap or spotting trends indicating system abuse patterns.

That they are not tells me someone's making $$$ off the abuse.

originally posted by: Phoenix
The database algorithms available to minutely monitor citizens daily activities should be put to good use here and disallow buying crap or spotting trends indicating system abuse patterns.

That they are not tells me someone's making $$$ off the abuse.

Well no s#, Sherlock, there's a reason lobbyists are so heavy in the EBT game. It's not because people are milking the system on the sly, it's because the lobbyists got their way & government allows the loopholes that they take advantage of for crappy goods & iffy purchases.

Edit: Let me make what I mean a little more clear with an example of a purchase I did while on EBT that I still feel terrible for today years later. I spent months trying to set aside money to buy each of my kids an Easter basket, or at least a small stuffed animal and a small Easter chocolate. I ended up getting 2 little bunnies with an attached box of chocolates, we were really broke that year. They were also marked down, before Easter, so I kind of felt like I won the lottery that day. Put it in the cart, and went to pay for the food and laundry soap I'd also picked up in the store. It didn't dawn on me I was halfway home that the cash I'd had to use for the laundry soap was not quite as light as I'd thought it would be, I had leftover when I knew damn well there would be none left over.

After I got home, I poured over the receipt trying to figure out if I was wrong, or something rang up wrong, not at all, or better than I'd expected. It turned out that the chocolates adhered to the bunnies had rendered the goddamn stuffed animals EBT eligible. Are you f#ing kidding me. Thank you, lobbyists, what a slimy loophole. They were eligible because they had what is considered a food product on them. $10 of EBT funds went towards stuffed animals because of that. I learned a valuable lesson that day, and that was to buy food & non-consumables completely separate from each other, and still do that today even though I don't need to.

a reply to: gimcrackery

10 to 1, he has a buddy in the wind waiting for a nice contract or something and this will end up costing more money than just giving people their bits and bites on their little ebt cards.

all I can say is that dependency=servitude and people's irrational attitudes seem to be a clear indication that that servitude is gonna be getting a little more painful in the future.

a reply to: face23785

Now that's a good, even great idea!!

It would lower the prices, at least a little, along with a bit more in the way of rules as to what's allowed? Money savings all over the place. Provided it's implemented right.

a reply to: Nyiah

I think, though I'm not sure, that particular loophole has been shut. I remember hearing about it some years ago, and there was something of an outcry about it, as there should have been.

Many cashiers, myself included, would warn customers about it.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Other Presidents have tried...they ran into the same issue DJT will. Congress. It's always an election cycle somewhere. You can figure out the rest.

a reply to: Somethingsamiss

As an idea I am for this because sometimes people get addicted to bad food. Sometimes parents don't know any better and feed their kids junk.

But in practice, never. Not in a free country.
The government is not our parents . They are not our friends and family. And those are the only people that have a right to force me to change in a free country.

a reply to: seagull

One thing I am learning is to never count Trump out. He has this way of getting what he really wants in the end, despite the obstacles in his way.

The points face23785 make are exactly why this will work so well. Nothing is truly free, even the 'convenience' of going to a store. That store makes profit... a lot of profit... off the food. Some of the stores around here actually cater to SNAP users. If I had a dime for every time I saw someone going through checkout with an EBT card (and often being just a little short), I'd have a whole bunch of dimes. The thing they don't see, though, is that some of the stores use this to their advantage. One I know of has two store brands... the really cheap one that is often out of stock, and the one that is just a little lower than name brands. People come in because of the price, but wind up having to pay the higher price because they're out of the cheap stuff.

They have store brand milk, for example, for $2.89 a gallon, best price in town. But they rarely have any in... so people have to deal with the next step up, $3.29 a gallon. They run specials once in a while on ground beef, but when they do, the cost of Hamburger Helper is way up, as are tomatoes, lettuce, buns... those prices drop when hamburger meat goes up.

With Trump's plan, that all stops. No more games, no more searching for deals that aren't really there, no more coupons. If you can't afford food, here's you some food. The perishables you can still get at the store, for obvious reasons, but the staples are delivered to your door, every month, for a lot less money and a lot less hassle than how it's done now.

That's compassion with common sense.

TheRedneck

I think it's a great idea and the WIC program has laid out a great program with guidelines that they could follow. There are always going to be people that want to abuse the system, but really, who are they fooling? The answer is themselves.

originally posted by: WUNK22
It should be for healthy essential products, that’s it! No soda, no candy, no KFC, no fast food! Believe it or not, in New York this is racist. Your denying people of color enjoyable things in life like McDonalds and Pizza Hut. My state is one of madness

You can buy Food at McDonald's with SNAP?

a reply to: pavil

Not here. No "hot food." No alcohol. No tobacco products. Sometimes certain vitamins will go on it.

I think some people just don't understand how SNAP works, or maybe it's just different in other states.

TheRedneck

that's a great idea and it stops sending our money to these gigantic corporations who don't deserve it

a reply to: TheRedneck

first, we should ask, just what is this USDA food being used for now... I know they are currently distributing it to different groups... like native americans on the reservations. Do we have enough surplus to add the food stamp recipients to the list?
second, yes, the stores make alot of profit off the food stamps, but it's the same profit that they would make from any other customer buying the same item. less profit means less tax revenue... less stock values, just saying.

and then there is this:

If you can't afford food, here's you some food. The perishables you can still get at the store, for obvious reasons, but the staples are delivered to your door, every month, for a lot less money and a lot less hassle than how it's done now.

so you are telling me that it will cost alot less money for our gov't to process this food, load it up in trucks, or box it up and ship it to people's doors?? or is it more like they will contract some lucky companies to do this for them, and probably pay more!!!

your not saving a cent when it comes to processing the food stamp claims, I mean they will still be adding the benefits onto the ebt card every month, it will just be less... but then you are adding this great big chain of events for the other half of their benefits. and yes, it's supposed to save us money by some magical means.
the only way this makes sense is if they k now that a famine is coming and they want to ensure that the "worthy" will get the best food and the not so worthy gets the surplus that they've been accumulating for just such a time.

a reply to: Boadicea

I absolutely love your suggestions! That is a fantastic idea.

Think of the effect on starvation if everyone learns to grow a garden, and gardens are grown wherever possible. Even window boxes are fine in a city.

We used to have a garden, and it was wonderful to walk out back and grab some fresh tomatoes, carrots, onions, melons, etc. I really miss it, but my husband was the gardener and he passed away. Your suggestion actually makes me want to get out his gardening books and give it a shot again!

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: pavil

Not here. No "hot food." No alcohol. No tobacco products. Sometimes certain vitamins will go on it.

I think some people just don't understand how SNAP works, or maybe it's just different in other states.

TheRedneck

I know you can't. I was just pointing out the silliness of their arguement.

There should be some restrictions on Food Stamps. I doubt buying soft drinks and Cheetos was the intent of food stamps.

But making poor people eat like starving people in Sudan with beans and rice is just as crazy.