Show me one poor person you know personally that you’ve been to their home who dines on filet mignon and king crab.
And seafood and steak is hardly the stuff of a price fixe gourmet restaurant.
Well, then, if it doesn’t happen, then this restriction affects no one,
and will do no “harm” if passed.
30 years ago there was a welfare queen who lived down the street from us. She had steaks on the grill that we could not afford. Her daughter had 3 kids but would not marry baby daddy because that would cut into her benefits. Turned out this woman was collecting food stamps (back then it was food stamps) under at least 3 different names and living quite nicely. The abuse isn’t new, people are just bolder about it.
I don't know anyone who dines on filet mignon and king crab, but I definitely known plenty who eat much better than we do. One of the neighbor kids, whose family, both immediate and extended, has lived off the government her entire life, spent half or more of the afternoons of her teen life here, meaning she was here while I was preparing dinner.
Over the years it became clear she was not familiar with any of the budget meals I prepared. For instance, they didn't have oatmeal at home, they had cold cereals -- and not the off brand Cheerios and the like we got sometime, but "the good stuff." They didn't cook barley, or beans, or lentils. When they had hamburger, it was for hamburgers; they didn't do casseroles or stretch the meat in other ways. They never, ever, had pancakes or some other breakfast food for dinner, and, for that matter, only made pancakes from a mix, not from scratch. And potato pancakes, like all my other vegetarian meals, were considered "weird."
So I finally asked her, "What do you guys eat every night?" And she replied, "You know, normal food. Steaks, roasts and chops. Chicken, sometimes." The whole neighborhood seems to break down the same way. Working families are eating a lot of grain and legumes meals, with meat as a flavoring sometimes; families living off the government are eating meat as the main dish. PB&J for the kids is common to both, but it's only the working families who still eat it as adults.
I've worked some local food banks, and the people who show up after work are the ones happy to take organ meats or other obscure cuts of meat; the guys who come during working hours whine and moan over uncommon meats, and complain about the quality of chops, when we have them (the meats are all donated by local stores so the food pantry has no control over what they get, and it varies considerable). Plenty of people are grateful for whatever they get, but the number of people who complain and scold over free food amazes me.