“Riots always begin typically the same way”: Food stamp shutdown looms Friday

salon ^ | 10/29/13 | Josh Eidelson

[Nachum]

Food stamp recipients face a massive benefit cut set to kick in when stimulus funds expire Friday. The nationwide cut “is equivalent to about 16 meals a month for a family of three,” according to a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis using the USDA’s “Thrifty Food Plan.” CBPP called the roughly $5 billion annual cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program “unprecedented” in “depth and breadth.” “If you look across the world, riots always begin typically the same way: when people cannot afford to eat food,” Margarette Purvis, the president and CEO of the Food Bank..

[Black Agnes]

At some point your assistance will become enabling. Enablers cause far more damage than good.

Sometimes people have to hit total rock bottom. And stay there for a while. Before they learn the error of their ways. If you extend that hand immediately you will defeat this learning process and everyone loses.

[GOPJ]

I believe there are ways to help people that successfully skirt the problems of enabling... Just seems our ‘kind hearted ones’ are not interested in making the effort to find them.

[GOPJ]

Do you believe the Ten Commandments are ‘judgmental’?

[Catsrus]

i believe they are a guideline on what is right and wrong and I also believe that on judgment day these will be a standard of how we lived our life. So, in essence - yes - they can be. Our laws are based on the 10 Commandments - thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal. People go to jail and prison for committing crimes of such - and therefore, are used as a guideline in our court systems as to judgment and sentencing.

[Patriotic1]

So in your hypothetical.... let’s assume that he has declared bankruptcy. No, he’s not entitled to food stamps, but certainly assistance from a food bank during a time of financial crisis. No one needs to go hungry.

Of course, in my perfect world there would be strings attached. If I were running a smaller (most likely religious) org, I would request free medical appts for 1 or 2 people a week in exchange. I think Jesus would be pleased with the arrangement. (in light of 2 Thes 3:10) Being a Catholic, I take our (Biblically based/derived) acts of mercy seriously.

I don’t think that just giving stuff to people is good - there should be an exchange.

Of course, if you wanted to discuss this issue with a non-extreme case, since hard cases make for bad law...

[Patriotic1]

I have no issues judging people - but sometimes they need a and when life gives them a kick or two. (Not saying that some kicks aren’t deserved!)

[Patriotic1]

You have my sympathy GailA. Is the housing situation stable at least? I cannot imagine the stress on your DIL.

[GOPJ]

I don’t think that just giving stuff to people is good - there should be an exchange.

Reciprocity's the foundation of civilized cultures and emotionally healthy citizens. I suspect we agree on more things than we disagree on Patriotic... Thanks for sharing.

[GOPJ]

Then maybe you need to broaden your horizons. Just saying when you judge others, gossip and criticize - then it comes home to you. No, it isn’t a liberal concept, but a Biblical one.

You still need to answer my question about the Ten Commandments. Trust me, those ten given to us on stone tablets are highly judgmental... God seems to have placed great importance on them as they're also referenced in the New Testament ...

[hummingbird]

"The majority of people can get by quite well on $100 to $150 a month."

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Its like Dave Ramsey says - "beans and rice."

Mr. h and I have had to go that way in the past and looks like it is going to be in our future what with ObamaCare...

[Catsrus]

I did answer, but apparently, you overlooked my answer.

[GailA]

Nothing is stable, they rent a run down trailer that they pay monthly on twice a month. She is fed up with his laziness. And I am so very sorry that I told her to remarry him, so he would have so say so in her health care decision making. She’d done better kicking him out. And he need not come to me for shelter. I would take in my DIL and grandson, but not my worthless acting son. I’ve seen the stress she is under, she has been the sole support for a year now. What little he makes/made paid the cable, cigs and phones. Of which only the Phones are necessary. Her income as a CNA which prevents her from going back to work barely paid the other bills. No health ins either. Which is why she is on Breast & cervical cancer Medicaid.

TOUGH LOVE, may hurt, but if you don’t learn it by 43 you will never learn it. I have more health conditions than his piddly type 2 diabetes which he can control with mostly diet.