Posted on 12/07/2016 11:28:18 AM PST by PROCON
WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Republicans are laying the groundwork for a fresh effort to overhaul the food stamp program during Donald Trump's presidency, with the possibility of new work and eligibility requirements for millions of people.
The GOP majority on the House Agriculture Committee released a two-year review of the program on Wednesday that stops short of making specific policy recommendations, but hints at areas where Republicans could focus: strengthening work requirements and perhaps issuing new ones, tightening some eligibility requirements or providing new incentives to encourage food stamp recipients to buy healthier foods.
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That’s all good eating.
I know. I was trying to not seem completely heartless. We grew up with powdered milk, for many years. Had no lunchmeat sandwiches, usually just PB&J or one slice of cheese with a squirt of mustard between two pieces of white bread, purchased at the “day old bread store”. I was so jealous of the kids who had bologna sandwiches.
My mom would buy frozen smelt for 20 cents a pound or whatever, and fry them for “fancy” dinners. Stale hamburger buns were buttered and cooked face down in a skillet, then sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar for a treat.
We need to contact our reps to give our input on what needs to be included in the overhaul. They need to ditch the current ideology of trying to make food stamps use “invisible” as to the foods to which the recipients have access/funding.
I grew up in a large family. At times my dad earned a very modest income. My mother was a full-time homemaker. She compensated for this buy cooking all of our meals from scratch with basic ingredients. You can actually get the cost per meal down quite low when you cook this way, and it’s healthier.
She would go ballistic whenever the school sent home letters promoting the free lunch program.
Of course...BUT....They must get an approved doctor’s statement showing they are incompetent to do the work...
What?!? No more lobster and filet mignon? Jes dang!
You probably won’t be able to tell apart the vehicles of the EBT card holders from the million dollar donors.
Now that you mention it, there ARE a lot of BMW’s and Cadillac Escalades in the parking lot at Dollar General these days.
My mother grew up on a farm during the depression...
She said she was so jealous of kids that could afford to eat “store bought” cereal and oatmeal for breakfast when she had to eat homemade biscuits, gravy, eggs and sausage....
“I’m for cutting out that free lunch program in schools-if a parent is getting food stamps, they can damned well pack their kid a healthy lunch-meat/cheese sandwich, fresh fruit, some raw veggies...”
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Yes, and if they can’t get their priorities right and feed their children FIRST - before getting hair extensions, tattoos, beer, drugs, fake fingernails, designer clothing and lottery tickets - remove the children from the home and make the parents attend parenting and nutrition classes until they have proven they know how to take care of their children. Tough love!
Put all the "means tested" benefit programs (food stamps, TANF, Section 8 housing, etc) all into one department. That would allow you to lay off a ton of redundant staff. It also allows you to more easily see the total spending (which is why the programs are dispersed among dozens of departments).
It is funny some of the obsessions that people developed during the depression.
My mother, who was Very intelligent, worked her way through a Catholic HS in Mass Washing windows and other janitorial tasks.
She developed an obsession with winter coats, which all the girls received yearly, more or less. (She was second of five, family had no money)
My sister, me, and my brother got a winter coat for about 65 years until she passed on.
I wouldn’t mind my tax money going to cooking and nutrition classes instead of EBT cards-at the nearest food market out here every woman you see using one weighs at least 250 lbs and when she starts putting stuff on the checkout counter it is easy to see why...
I grew up on a small family ranch inhabited by my parents, sibling, two aunts and their husbands and kids. My dad and one of the uncles were in the AF, so they were off someplace else a lot of the time. Fresh food was all there was-it came from the livestock and garden, and my family was very into healthy eating-the 1st time I had a frozen dinner was when I did a sleepover at a school friend’s house in town-the crap tasted like Styrofoam insulation with tasteless gravy-horrible stuff.
I still eat the fresh way-no processed food. My 1st husband was a ranch kid, too-so we lived as far from the city as practical, cooked and ate fresh food-when he was in the AF and didn’t have much rank-convenience food would not have been financially practical even if we had wanted it
For instance as long as you demonstrated you looked for work, but couldn't find any, the requirement was waived. This requirement was incredibly easy to game, as you could just write down the names of three business you supposedly tried to get hired at knowing the DHHR never actually checked this information and bingo your benefits were renewed for another six months.
This is one government program that I REALLY want to see overhauled.
It is outrageous how this “hand up” financial assistance has become nothing more than a “hands out” dependency entitlement and at taxpayers expense.
Just in my area, there are so many young women, who purposely get pregnant just to get that “government check.”
They do nothing to try better themselves, they don’t try to educate themselves, they don’t work, they just “whore around” as my grandma used to call it. In fact, one of my nephews, knows a young woman who has five children with five different men and is in the process of trying to get pregnant again.
And just for the record, it isn’t just young people taking advantage of the system. We see plenty of obviously, well-fed, middle-age women and men, loading up their grocery bags with steaks, cakes, and anything else that strikes their fancy, because the federal government doesn’t care if they’re needy or not.
Prove you’re a citizen should be a requirement.
You got frozen smelt?
If we wanted fish we had to walk to the creek and catch it! LOL
And it was 20 miles, uphill both ways!
Don’t need to provide incentives to buy healthier foods, just flat out make the purchase of certain foods by food stamps illegal, period.
Want soda? Fine, pay for it yourself etc... no real need to offer incentive, just flat out make purchase of certain foods not covered by food stamps.
Just like WIC does, only some things are allowed, others aren’t.
I have a cousin that wound up with nothing through a divorce. She receives Social Security and lives in an old person complex that is government funded. Huge step down for her. Anyway, she filed for food stamps and got them. She told me she gets way more than she needs and has never eaten so well. lol
You can’t buy alcoholic or tobacco products with an EBT card. The authorization computers are set up to reject that kind of purchase. I don’t think Rite Aid would take a chance on adjusting their checkout registers to show a purchase other than what the customer is buying. So something is wrong here, not sure what.
Like I said in another post, even out here in BFE, you have a few women grocery shopping with EBT cards-they are all orcas-250 lbs or more, I swear-with carts full of boxed cereal, chips, candy, frozen convenience food and pizzas-all empty calories and carbs-they need nutrition classes and a 1200 calorie a day diet for sure-I eat about that amount, but it is fresh food that I cook, and I do a physical job-it is probably healthy, since I’ve weighed 108-110 since I was 17, except when I was pregnant...
When I was in college, there was an on-campus nutrition program meant for kids away from home for the 1st time who didn’t know anything about healthy eating or cooking fresh food-it was even free. When I was pregnant with the cub, my military insurance paid for Lamaze classes-and parenting and nutrition classes if you wanted them-if Obamacare is so great, why doesn’t it pay for that? Or better yet, make those nutrition and cooking classes a requirement for anyone getting an EBT card...
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