Posted on 04/08/2015 5:53:55 AM PDT by cotton1706
Rick Brattin, a young Republican state representative in Missouri, has come up with an innovative new way to humiliate the poor in his state. Call it the surf-and-turf law.
Brattin has introduced House Bill 813, making it illegal for food-stamp recipients to use their benefits “to purchase cookies, chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood, or steak.”
“I have seen people purchasing filet mignons and crab legs” with electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards, the legislator explained, according to The Post’s Roberto A. Ferdman. “When I can’t afford it on my pay, I don’t want people on the taxpayer’s dime to afford those kinds of foods either.”
Never mind that few can afford filet mignon on a less-than-$7/day food-stamp allotment; they’re more likely to be buying chuck steak or canned tuna. This is less about public policy than about demeaning public-benefit recipients.
The surf-and-turf bill is one of a flurry of new legislative proposals at the state and local level to dehumanize and even criminalize the poor as the country deals with the high-poverty hangover of the Great Recession.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Actually, we need gov to get out of the charity business.
It doesn’t take a government to hand someone a sandwich.
People can’t buy pet food, personal necessities and medicine on EBT.
Hello - it only funds food. But now you have Scrooges who think even a food program is demeaning.
merge all welfare into a monthly cash dole and fire 90% of the bureaucrats (without actually cutting benefits) and see how the leftist media whines. Most welfare cost is bureaucracy I hear.
So, Dana, tell me why “the poor”
SHOULD
be able to buy luxury foods that those who are
actually paying for them can’t afford.
Go ahead. Drop the emotional BS and tell me why this is OK.
Don’t want to have someone telling you what you can and cannot buy to eat? Then pay for it with your money NOT mine.
Seems like someone straightened you out on this point yesterday. Do you remember?
You can’t humiliate those without shame.
I guess then that it is actually a gift card, since I see people buying $8.99 6 packs of microbrew with cash and their food with EBT.
If I am forced to Pay for what people eat, It is my business.
Then the bill will have no effect, if this is true. So what is the problem?
The fact that there are anecdotes all over the place from people who witnessed such purchases proves the lie.
No, sometimes there are obvious cases of abuse.
Exercise discernment and confront the fraud where you see it.
I’m against Gubbermint telling you how to live your life just as much as you are, but I also see (daily) a lot of sloth and abuse. I don’t live in the best neighborhood. Lots of able bodied people not even attempting to go look for work. People on public assistance for 10+ years. Quite a few homeless. A lot of these people choose (through their life choices) to live this way.
I work 12+ hour days most days. It’s disheartening to see what I see almost every day.
Eggs, cabbage, carrots, potatoes and rice are fine too.
Its human nature to judge others.
There is welfare for the well-off who don’t need it.
No one is eager to abolish it.
Why? Because of PACs and K Street lobbyists on hand to protect it.
The poor have no such advocate.
bump
“There is fraud but Republicans have no business playing food police.”
Okay, who else is going to police the fraud?
“If Battin wants to keep junk food off people’s tables, let him set the example for his own family.”
It’s not about “junk food”, it’s about fraud. If people are buying “junk food” with these benefits, they obviously don’t need the benefits.
“And keep his nose out of other people’s shopping decisions. I hate fascist bullies, whether they’re on the Left or on the Right.”
When people applied for public assistance in this area, they made their shopping decisions the public’s business. This is not “fascism”, this is our elected representatives trying to be good stewards of the public purse that they are entrusted with.
“I don’t like government managing my personal life for me.”
Then rely on yourself and don’t come begging at the government’s doorstep.
Sorry but you can’t purchase alcohol with EBT.
Is that the best argument you’ve got? A logical fallacy?
4 charged in alleged food stamp, child care benefits scheme
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3276841/posts
At my local store, 50+ pounds of steak is $500+ dollars. How much food stamp money do you think people get?
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