Posted on 02/01/2012 2:32:39 PM PST by usalady
Money meant to help families on welfare provide the necessities of life are apparently being used inappropriately by some recipients.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
LOL, Yes - that is funny....Great Catch!
what a world - huh
Let me more specific so as not to offend, (insert eye roll) Convenience stores should not be places that accept food stamps.
I am certain that the Founding Fathers, and some of the idiots who believed they were helping when program was established, did not intend to be stroking checks to 7-11, JoeBlo’s Ez Stop, or the Drop-N.
Since we live in the twilight zone anyway, I guess it makes little difference.
Walmart is a liquor store here. So are they going to stop debt purchases there?
I am well aware that one rule leads to others, but... if the program is to remain, it should be for only specific items. (That also will bring out shiners and Exception Bullies)
It used to be 2 for 1, I remember reading. $100 worth of groceries bought with food stamps nets the recipient $50 cash.
It’s bank-time for the crack dealers in the projects on the 1st!
So, why were they on the list in the first place??? This is government waste at it’s worst!
What do you mean I can use my bennies for smokes and gin & juice. I need that pack of kools and that bottle of Tanqueray, maybe some stimulation at the local titty bar. I guess that the titty bar type of therapy should be covered by medicare.
Hey it costs money when those dirty girls have to pee in a cup or have blood taken for STDS,I appreciate her attention to detail.
You are correct.
I am more concerned that along with munchies before an intimate encounter, any party has the thought “oh yeah, I have free money from the government.”
I have to disagree, HTR. All of the items are electronically scanned in almost every location in the country. The card is also electronic. Any attempt at scanning an unacceptable item would automatically kick it out. Besides, it doesn’t seem to be hard for folks to reject a cigarette purchase made on the card, so I see no big deal even if it’s done by the cashier.
That process would not be hard or costly. And the study you cite simply says some are frugal. Those who aren’t are still a sizeable number, and if there’s any way to plant the idea that good things happen when people use their own money, then that is a neat lesson to teach.
I don’t care what you buy with your own hard earned money. The government shouldn’t either, but when your are using my hard earned money that was taken from me under the guise that you are hungry then the reciever damn well better be buying beans and rice and rice and beans.
Just sayin.
It’s much closer to 50 cents on the dollar.
The study showed enough are frugal that on the aggregate, they spend less of their stamps on snacks and sodas (if those are wastes, as there are valid dietary uses of small amounts of them — even Weight Watchers shows ways to put them into their plan) than cash shoppers shopping with their own money pay for the same.
Apparently you’ve never approached the back end of systems that treat different food items differently. There are often allowances for tax differences. But it’s not as simple as “kicking it out” as you say — often the Link card (as it is called across the country) is not even swiped until the order is ready to be paid for. This puts a burden upon the back end programmers of a hundred thousand groceries to not just find nonfood items, but xzins-grudged food items (how is the card bearer to know prior to checkout absolutely what is to pass?). If a big enough fuss is made and it looks like a frivolous “chips” issue, the cashier usually will swipe a substitute.
And I do not mean less in mere absolute dollars, I mean less of the allowance. People shopping with their own money not only buy a larger proportion of the “naughty” foods — they spend more dollars on them too, than a Link card user does. This was USDA, which is the head agency for these cards, during the middle of the George W. Bush years.
Attempting to live on chips is not the life of Riley either, as anyone with such an unbalanced diet can testify. It punishes itself. Even bums apparently appreciate that fact better than you do.
And even furthermore, you might consider the situation of the very poor with still a home, vs. the actual homeless. Portable foods and, in states which support it, high value fast foods (I challenge you to duplicate some of McDonald’s value menu for the same price), make sense for the homeless who have no kitchen in which to painstakingly prepare things that xzins wants only to grant to any Link card owner.
Long term, this system ought to give way to something like a United Way or other private-charity system with food pantries, soup kitchens, etc. But while it still exists, playing xzins-style games will only hurt the more honest “bums” and will scarcely touch the really game playing ones.
And we thought the Rodney King (police officers verdict) riots were bad???
What else can we cut off??? ;-)
I think you miss my point. I want to make taking assistance less comfortable rather than more comfortable.
If society says “don’t buy other than staples...no luxuries”, then hopefully that will make it easier to say “no more” to assistance as soon as possible.
Assistance injures independence past a certain point.
Don’t worry about offending me.
“Convenience stores should not be places that accept food stamps.”
In some of the “food deserts” these are the supermarkets; there are no more suckers who would operate a supermarket due to “shrinkage”. Newark NJ a few years ago opened up a chain supermarket, and it was the first one in Newark in years.
“Walmart is a liquor store here. So are they going to stop debt purchases there?”
That’s a good question; as we continue into a “Wal-Mart” economy (where they’re the last business standing, the so-called “company store”), I’d think they could use those bar codes on items to weed out some of these purchases.
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