Slashdot Mirror
Doctors Say Food Stamp Cuts Could Cause Higher Healthcare Costs
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Lauran Neergaard writes at the Christian Science Monitor that doctors are warning that if Congress cuts food stamps, the federal government could be socked with bigger health bills because over time the poor wind up seeking treatment in doctors' offices or hospitals as a result. 'If you're interested in saving health care costs, the dumbest thing you can do is cut nutrition,' says Dr. Deborah Frank of Boston Medical Center, who founded the Children's HealthWatch pediatric research institute. 'People don't make the hunger-health connection.' Food stamps feed 1 in 7 Americans and cost almost $80 billion a year, twice what it cost five years ago. The doctors' lobbying effort comes as Congress is working on a compromise farm bill that's certain to include food stamp cuts. Republicans want heftier reductions than do Democrats in yet another partisan battle over the government's role in helping poor Americans. Conservatives say the program spiraled out of control as the economy struggled and the costs are not sustainable. However research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts estimated that a cut of $2 billion a year in food stamps could trigger in an increase of $15 billion in medical costs (PDF) for over the next decade. Other research shows children from food-insecure families are 30 percent more likely to have been hospitalized for a range of illnesses. 'Food is medicine,' says Massachusetts Representative Jim McGovern, who has led the Democrats' defense of the food stamp program. 'Critics focus almost exclusively on how much we spend, and I wish they understood that if we did this better, we could save a lot more money in health care costs.'"
All of the fat asses will have less food. If they want better nutrition maybe they should get a better job.
$2 billion/year x 10 years = $20 billion > $15 billion
I'm pretty tolerant of articles for slashdot, but this seems really far off subject.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Doctors and scientist report that it is possible that, talking too loudly could cause testicular cancer. Big foot could be real. The planet could be inhabited by 42 meter cheese eating arachnids. There are a whole lot of things that could happen or might be possible.
Perhaps if they ate healthful vegetarian meals, they wouldn't have to worry of all the health repercussions associated with food stamps. I lived with a guy three years ago who was on food stamps. He bought steak while I was eating ramen. His wife/girlfriend/ex-wife/whatever gave him money, and he went out and got CANDY all the time. He was a diabetic. Sat on his butt all day and ate candy and steak on my tax dollars and still was smoking a pack every other day.
Or you could go my route and spend $5/day (for one person) and eat collards, rice, beans, etc. Been unemployed for several months and still looking.
I see 350 lbs. people buying ding dongs and orange drink with their food stamps. how much does the healthcare for a person 200 lbs. overweight cost?
...from a "Dollar amount" to specifics foods or types of food. No $$$, just "Bag of apples/fruit", "Vegetables", "Loaf of Bread", "Milk", "Orange/Apple Juice", etc.
Perhaps have specific Food Stamp distribution centers instead of just about any old store accepting them. Take out the choice and lower the direct fraud (once they get the food from the program, there's not much you can do to stop them selling it if they choose, unless we just set up meal kitchens instead of food stamp, although that has it's appeal as well.)
The article actually states the $15 billion is the estimated savings on diabetes alone. The total saving would be far higher.
I like how they compare $2 billion a year could cost $15 billion over a decade, or $16 billion cuts over a decade could cost $15 billion over the same time frame.
From a strictly mathematical viewpoint, the argument does not make sense. Also, if the rate of increase continues, then in the same 10 years, the cost could be 320 billion, which far eclipses the 15 billion in health care costs (which is also an oversimplification).
Growing up, I always thought that the goal of civilisation was to alleviate suffering.
On economic grounds, it will cost net $500 million more per year (($2B x 10 - $15B) / 10) to keep people in adequate nutrition. By US budget standards, that's pissing in the ocean.
On humanitarian grounds, there is no question that the money must be allocated.
If society's job isn't to improve the lot of humanity, it has no purpose. If we look only at ourselves, we are no better than apes.
remove health care from jobs and there will be more them. As well getting rid of the no ot for salary worker or having some like a high min pay level say 100K+ + COL to be able to no pay ot
For years places have been useing salary workers working 50-60-80 hours to cover having less workers over all.
Your multi-billion dollar business go under? Get a huge bailout from taxpayers.
Have five kids with four different fathers? Taxpayers will cover your kids' entire upbringing.
Your bank cause a market crash? Taxpayers are forced to cover your corruption.
Stopped looking for work for a few years? Here's free food and housing courtesy of taxpayers.
"Food stamps feed 1 in 7 Americans and cost almost $80 billion a year, twice what it cost five years ago".
So we've doubled the amount of money we spend on food stamps and we have record numbers of Americans that rely on the government for their food. I wonder which way the vote. When you don't work and get your income from the government (who gets its money from taxpayers) then there is no incentive to look for work. Have some kids, collect some checks, and don't ever look for work. And with all the unemployment and record food stamp usage both parties are now talking about letting millions of illegal immigrants into this country and legalizing the ones that are already here.
And of course cue the screaming. "Corporate welfare is worse than individual welfare". They are both a major drain on society. And individual welfare is now a record drain. There's no incentive to succeed anymore. There's no incentive for personal responsibility. You can have six kids out of wedlock and be rewarded by the state with free food and housing. This happens on such a massive scale that we lose billions annually creating a system that encourages broken homes, unwanted children, and bastard children with no future as productive citizens.
Put everybody on food stamps! That should reduce 15 billion in healthcare costs for every 2 billion more in food stamps we spend. Perfect solution.
The things people will do and say to toe their party line.
Flat out ridiculous. This system is full of abuse/fraud and needs to be addressed, as do most other government 'programs'.
It is well known that near-starvation diet contributes to the highest longevity, which is a rough indication of overall health. Vice versa, it is a well known fact that obesity is a never ending source of all kind of medical problems.
So, to say that food stamps will increase healthcare costs it is, at the minimum, dishonest.
From the linked PDF: "Thus, diabetes costs alone could nearly equal CBO’s estimate of $20 billion in savings over 10 years from implementing proposed SNAP changes in H.R.1947, in addition to any costs associated with other diseases."
I currently get food stamps and they provide the entirety of my food budget. I am well educated and know my way around a kitchen so I can keep myself fit and healthy for well under the $187/month I get. But if I wanted, I could buy candy, coke, and chips and try and live off of that. If you are on food stamps you can NOT simply rely on prepackaged heat and serve meals - you'll either run out of money or not get the nutrition you need. You need to focus on the basics: beans, rice, lentils, fresh fruits and veggies, and only occasionally some raw chicken (forget your love affair with beef, its too expensive). In my view, the problem is with education rather than money. Teach people how to cook and what to cook and they'll be healthy. Barrage them with ads for canned raviolis and Doritos and you'll get people who think that cooking simply involves heating things up. The food stamp program needs to be revised so that you are prohibited from purchasing junk foods just like alcohol or cigarettes can't be bought. In addition to restricting crap foods, allow people to purchase things like vitamins, toothpaste, and toilet paper with their food stamps. Being on food stamps is not fun, but for many people it is not a choice (the elderly or disabled) so lets make the program actually work for the benefit of those who receive the money.
I'm somewhat shocked that 1 in 7 american's is dependent on foodstamps to get by...
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
You're telling me that the people who use food stamps spend it on healthy items like fruit or oatmeal? The only thing I ever see people using EBT cards for is buying carts of TV dinners and bottles of pop. Add some potato chips and hotdogs to round it out. EBT should only work on certain items like WIC does.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Are you implying that $15 billion worth of suffering caused by malnutrition is a price worth paying in order to save $0.5 billion a year for a decade?
Wow, the richest country on the planet is actually going to starve lots of its' own citizens in order to save a tiny percentage of the spending wasted on pork barrel projects happily voted through in order to keep politicians in power!
Most food purchases with food stamps are not very nutritious to begin with.
Almost any political position is believed by its followers to be something that affects people's lives, and thus can be spun as affecting health care costs. It's just as easy to do it for the other side. Just take the standard political argument and tack on "so it affects health care costs". For instance, conservatives say that the costs hurt the economy. Well, in a worse economy, people have more health care problems (for hopefully obvious reasons). So food stamps increase health care costs because although they provide food (reducing health care costs), they also harm the economy by a marginal amount (increasing health care costs). If the latter effect is larger, then food stamps are a health care disaster.
And it's unlikely that the study which claimed that cutting food stamps increases health care costs by 15 billion took into account the possibility that paying for food stamps hurts the economy and health care costs are larger in a worse economy.
I can claim that gun control decreases health care costs (because it reduces gun violence and victims of violence use hospitals--this has been claimed for real). I could on the other hand claim that looser gun laws decrease health care costs (because people can use guns to protect themselves from criminals and people hurt by criminals use hospitals). Maybe we need stronger drug laws (stoned people don't take care of themselves very well) or weaker drug laws (the drug war sends people to prison where health is bad and they can't earn a living when they get out since they have an arrest record, making them poor, and so more likely to have high health care costs).
How about arguing that censoring video games reduces health care costs? (fewer teens will become criminals if you censor games; less crime means fewer people sent to hospitals by criminals). It's all about disguising a political position as a nonpartisan one, not about health care.
as the economy struggled and the costs are not sustainable
How about saving trillions by cutting other unnecessary programs like... oh I don't know... spying on everyone on earth and the long-term war on being middle-eastern that the US seems to keep waging.
Nope. We'll cut food to the poor, because fuck the poor! That's why!
They are "EBT" cards, and you most certainly buy all sorts of non-nutritional stuff. All the fast food joints around here proudly proclaim "EBT Accepted"!
That's just an invitation to sweep with a narrower broom. Feel free to refuse it.
Healthy food costs less than shitty food. Some examples:
A gallon of water costs less than a gallon of soda.
A pound of frozen vegetables costs less than a pound candy.
A pound of chicken costs less than a pound of hamburger.
A dozen eggs costs less than a dozen candy eggs.
A pound of potatoes costs less than a pound of potato-chips.
This is all anecdotal, of course.
how much junk the average welfare case buys that isn't healthy food. Also watch how much cash they bring in to buy cigarettes, liquor, or gambling merchandise (lottery/lotto tickets, etc). It's fucking pathetic.
Now THAT said: Random 'spot checks' at various stores could knock out a lot of these over the next 5-20 years. Just watch for people doing such behavior and permanently ban them from the program. (Obviously no jail time, or they'd get to benefit off the system some more.)
On the *OTHER* hand, the people I ran into who *WEREN'T* abusing them were generally coming into a convenience store to buy ramen because their primary modes of transportation were foot and bus and the particular area did not have any grocery stores offering either late night service, or food priced for the poor. These are the kind of people who need it and for the amount being spent, if it's really 1 in 7 Americans, it's a bargain. (Consider: Every American, assuming 7x the listed rate, would only cost 560 billion a year to feed! Given the yearly budget now, that's a drop in the bucket overall, and combined with at-cost drug manufacturing, could take care of the entire populace for less than a variety of governmental operating costs.)
Just some food for thought. I personally dislike many aspects of government handouts, but between the poor and the financial institutions, I'd rather it go to the lazy degenerates who don't have the power to fuck up the economy, than the ones who DO :)
You also need to count:
1) Lost worker productivity costs to the economy (most of these people have jobs)
2) Increased welfare costs (these new sick people are the age of parents and caretakers)
3) Increased long term health care costs (these sick people will not disappear in 10 years)
The costs of creating a huge underclass has serious economic implications. Ask any teacher and they will tell you that the kids they have trouble teaching are the ones who don't get enough food to eat, and those who don't live in safe neighborhoods. You know, the ones you're too afraid of driving through.
The fact that there are hungry children in this country should make you feel ashamed about gleefully cutting programs that feed the poor. And you don't even have the math partially right, nor do you seem understand the basic economic facts that operate in all known current economic theory (and common sense): taking care of a population's health (including nutrition) through a public service is much cheaper for societies than only guaranteeing emergency services, unless we start euthanizing the poor in hospital parking lots. That's how two dozen other countries provide 100% coverage for at least half the cost per capita with similar health outcomes.
These new puppet conservatives do not have common sense or common decency, and further, they lack a prime signifier of adulthood: the ability to put the needs of others above their own wants. Why you would want to support them in their quest to keep tax cuts for people who don't need them while gutting basic services to the next generation of Americans is quite mysterious, unless being a parasite of the aristocratic class is something that appeals to you.
And let's face it, that's all the Republican party is. As proof of this fact, name one Republican policy that benefits the poor to the detriment of the rich. Just one.
Christ may have died for the poor, but the GOP fights for the wealthy. It's an odd reality for the party of God, isn't it?
You cannot make money without spending money
You cannot save money without spending money
Cheap solutions can end up very expensive
Expensive but appropriate solutions can wind up costing less
This is all very basic stuff. Sticker price is rarely the only price.
NB: Appropriate is there for a reason. Charging more for a bad product doesn't magically make it a good product. If it did, can you imagine how good bank CEOs would be by now? In fact, there are a number of situations where the normal economic rules invert, where high prices are desirable and price wars lead to ever-higher costs.
Equally, low sticker prices don't automatically mean bad. Think of Linux, which has the lowest sticker price possible and is superb. But that only appears degenerate because of looking at sticker price alone. If you cost the time spent developing and testing, you actually show Linux to be in the fourth category. If you value developer time at typical market rates, Linux probably weighs in at around $1.2 billion. Very expensive, but the TCO of using it is very very low.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
..."skullfucked within an inch of their lives."
In short, if these so-called "doctors" really wanted to improve peoples' health, they would be lobbying to make it so that SNAP benefits could not be used to purchase foods with added sugars and cheap carbohydrates.
It's amazing, really. You take away someone's food and they get sick.
I think food stamps cutting is just what the USA needs to light the tinderbox once and for all. You never know what will trigger the next uprising until it goes off. Any event - however small - can do.
And what is the cost savings for reduction of the disease called obesity? Oh wait, that's totally backwards isn't it.
Better known as 318230.
OK, that's a deliberately controversial subject line. Do any other OECD countries have anything like SNAP? AFAIK, the poor and unemployed get income assistance of some kind. They trust their unfortunate citizens to make their own decisions and take responsibility for their actions. On the whole, it works about pretty well; most people are responsible and conscientious and do the best they can with what they have and what they know.
Also... deliberately divisive arguments like labelling groups "deserving poor" and "undeserving poor" are simply to distract us from the real problems. The same goes for "bootstrap" arguments. If you want less poverty, raise the minimum wage and give workers the effective right to organise and bargain collectively. This alone would go a long way towards making the US prosperous again. The simplest way to put the rationale behind this is that the 99% spend and circulate money thereby generating economic activity (so called "multiplier effects" described in Keynesian economics). The 1% hoard money thereby taking it out of the system (and into the casinos... ahem... Wall Street) thereby depressing the economy. FDR knew what he was doing with his top bracket tax rates.
When large numbers of people get disproportionately poor, start looking for who's getting disproportionately richer and then follow the money trail. I doubt where it leads will come as any surprise to most people.
... is to do away with the program completely.
First of all, it is flat-out wrong to suggest that one person is not allowed to have an opinion about how another person spends their food stamps. The fact the the stamps come from tax money means EVERY tax payer has paid for the right to have an opinion about it. See also: subsidized health care, and how it makes everyones lifestyle everyones business (I propose all dangerous, injury-causing leisure time activities now be banned for that reason, and I will decide what is "dangerous").
Secondly, I disagree with the notion that just food is cheaper at a grocery store than healthy items, and that it isn't fair to expect poor people to eat rice every day. I am the procurer of provisions in my household of 3, so I have direct experience. "Staples" are refreshed, and used up, every month. To suggest I am being forced to supplement our meals with ten pounds of rice and a bag of potatoes every month is ludicrous, it is just intelligent home economics. Many hours of my free time are also spent in gardening every summer, and tomatoes and onions from that garden are eaten year round after I can it up, an inexpensive technology that has existed in its current form for a couple hundred years, at least.
The only way to fix the problem of "spending their food stamps on steak and lobster and junk food" is just to remove that choice completely. If someone is poor enough for food stamps, then we consult the Official US Government Dietary Needs table for the person at that sex at that age, and they get a box every 2 weeks with exactly the nutritious food they need, at the appropriate calorie level for their age, with enough snack cakes for small dessert every evening. This makes the fiscal conservatives happy... less money is being wasted. This also eliminates the ignorance of a person not knowing which foods are nutritious, and then the government can also even out the production of agricultural products and possibly remove the need for farm subsidies. If the government KNOWS it is going to need X amount of bread each month, then it can more intelligently utilize the nations bread producers. This makes the central-government socialists happy.
Really, it's win/win/win. If the person on the dole still wants a lobster once a month, no one will stop them, they can use their allotment of cigarette money for that week.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It is unfortunate that politicians only look at the next year or two of results in order to get themselves re-elected. (Unless of course they can pull out a big number by extending savings over a decade.) Of course it could be argued that this might be brought about by the voter only looking at the short term and not electing someone who votes for proposals that look beyond the election cycle. But how things currently stand it is a rare politician who will vote to spend money on a program that won't get them votes in order to save money in the longer term.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Productivity, really?
You should at the consumers of food stamps before you accuse them of productivity.
POTUS LBJ declared a "War on Poverty". Just like his war in Vietnam, we lost.
in the past both offered poor plans that may people better off to be on medcade
Holy shit! What the hell is wrong with you? Go read this guy's posting history, everybody! You are a grade a soulless cunt. All you seem to do is hate on poor folks day after day, unless you're opining about the good ol days of playing Jarts. It's too fucking bad one of them didn't land on your skull. The world could do better with less of your kind. You're part of the problem, not the solution.
...and I'm not on food stamps. I work for a living and I don't want a hand-out, and I'm not whining about it. I frequent /. because I like thoughtful discussions. Nonetheless, sorry to be a troll but half of the people commenting here in this discussion are dicks for thinking they can judge poor people by watching someone else swipe an EBT any more than I could judge you by looking inside your glorious refrigerator.
I can see with my own eyes that opening the government spending spigots ("stimulus", food stamp expansion, etc.) has not made anything any better. It has made things worse.
The GOP doesn't care of the negative effect, they only care about slashing costs. As to that end, it will not increase costs. If they're poor, then they're on medicaid or medicare. Both programs will get slashed if the Grand Old Party has it's way. Cut food stamps, cut health care, no increase in costs, no problem.
Cutting foodstamps, welfare, social programs has never been about balancing the budget. It has ALWAYS been about clearing up more room for corporate handouts.
problem solved.
Let me make sure I understand this.
Congress is waging war over $2 billion in budget cuts. In a budget that is around $3 trillion. The deficit alone is $680 billion.
Let's frame this in context. This is arguing over a 2 cent line item on a $300 bill.
And we wonder why our government is the laughing stock of the free world.
niggers and spics can't feed themselves, need charity from whites, jews and asians
Of course, if government is declared as responsible for nutrition, then then naturally it must also be responsible for the effects thereof.
This is a significant reason why state control must always beget more state control: regulators must make an at least ostensible attempt to correct unintended effects that are the result of a given intervention. The domain of responsibility becomes effectively unbounded.
While devising a complex system by means of patches in ad infinitum can work (see, Linux kernel), but only if that system's usage is constrained by voluntary choice.
Sadly, this means that folks with a given expertise (say, medical), will say things like they do in TFA: the sort-sighted view that governments should generally increase or at least maintain spending in order to avoid the expected bad effects of backing out on a responsibility.
There can be no substitute for individual responsibility.
Income disparity has grown so great there has never been a better time to "succeed." Epic rewards are driving epic greed.
Cut food stamps,
Cut Public healthcare.
Cut Taxes.
And stop fucking with things that don't need fucked with.
That way all those lousy people just die sooner...sounds like a typical Libertarian/Republican doesn't it? Makes sense less people to care for solves all sorts of social problems.
But wait what happens when the top .0001 have 99.99999% of the money and then all the middle class Libertarians/Republicans become members of the lower class because the middle class has disappeared? (This is where we are headed! Just wait till 99% of the jobs can be done by machines.)
Curious what will you all say then? Heh? Burger anyone?
I do see possibly a large outrage or riot as more and more things get cut when it comes to welfare
People once told me 68K ram was all we needed,
No jail time? So you have thought about this being a real possibility? Wasting more time and money for people that haven't committed a crime!!
Lets ignore the other factors that have killed the economy!!
"" Random 'spot checks' at various stores"" If the stores and there employees were to implement a system of training and reporting FS abuse, like I believe there suppose to this would cut down on people abusing the program.
I thought the biggest health problem in the US is obesity, and obesity is roughly inversely related to wealth. So....this should actually reduce health care costs.
http://www.epi.org/publication/ib330-productivity-vs-compensation
Seems like they're very productive. Deal with it.
C|N>K
Bescuse giving birth is just that easy, and doesn't involve a man at all.
How about this idea
If you receive food stamp - you receive a 5 acre plot, fertilizer, soil, seeds to grow your own food
and you can do what ever with the food you grow.
The article would have you believe food subsidies are a way of helping the poorest USians afford a basic necessity of life. What it actually is a method whereby the richest can lay a tax on the middle class and give a small percentage of the money to the poor. It is similar to the lottery. The only one who has your best interests at heart is yourself. Conservatives understand this. Democrats like to play a game to pretend they are helping the poor, but in fact help themselves a WHOLE lot more. Who ones all the subsidized housing complexes. Rich fuckers like Al Gore. You can't help someone less well off unless your are more well off. Unfortunately the way to get more well off seems to be by taxing the middle class.
Water has ZERO calories vs. a boatload for soda.
Google for "calories per dollar". Most of the foods at the top of the list are junk like fast-food burgers and pizza. Papa John's advertises that they accept EBT (I think it's because the pizza is frozen and you have to heat it, so that's OK). That's probably a good calorie/dollar ratio on their pizza. (No, I don't work for PJ's). The one food that's considered healthy on those lists is bananas; but you'd have to eat like a gorilla to get a full meal from them. A good rule of thumb is to eat like Mexicans. Beans and rice have excellent calories/dollar if you don't mind what beans do. Throw in just a bit of cheese and meat on the side and you can feed yourself cheaply.
Anyway, healthy food *can* be had for less than junk, but you really have to think about it. The typical EBT recipient is not even likely to make the leap of logic to google for "calories per dollar" or think about healthy food. Also, those who are working poor are pressed for time. Have you ever tried to get from afordable housing to low-wage work via public transit? I've seen people doing that riding the opposite way on the Metro--working people living in DC going out to the 'burbs on the train, transferring to a bus to get to some office park where they answer the phones. You're so tired at the end of the day, the fast-food place near your house is all you've got time for.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'll answer with a Video that says if you vote for Paul Ryan he will push your grandmother off a cliff with Medicare cuts.
Not sure how much better of an answer to your question is possible. Not only do they do it, this shows you who, and shows how they hold that power over people, and EXATLY the political ads they use to exercise that power.
Not sure why you are being stupid about this and pretending you've never heard about something like this.
I was behind someone last week that bout 6 strawberry shortcake popsicles on her EBT card at a convenience store for $2.25 each.
Zoid.com
Why should they care if this goes against their hateful ideology? According to them, if you cannot make enough money to feed you and your children in the screwed-up economic system they built, you are not worthy of survivor.
If you need proof that the current program is completely out of control and being abused resulting in a waste of American tax dollars, just take a look at this guy.
http://redalertpolitics.com/2013/08/11/watch-california-surfer-uses-food-stamps-to-buy-sushi-and-avoid-work/
This is what we need to prevent. Yes, programs providing real support to those trying to better themselves should be supported to provide basic needs. However we could do far more of that if we kick the people off support who are basically stealing from each and every American in the way this guy is.
The only issue with that last thing is that while it sounds good in theory, it will just end up in big groups lobbying to have whatever food they produce to be included in the program so they can cash in.
See: corn.
I am disabled, and I live on a thin line between life and death. And the only help I have managed to get for over ten years of trying. Is Food Stamps, and the crappy county health plan that hardly covers the basics. Last year they cut my food stamps, and took my mom completely off. I am lucky to have my mom to help , but she is working two jobs and still we can hardly pay the bills. She is still under the poverty line, and they are going to cut her county health plan soon. I am ashamed to call myself an American because freedom in this current world does not mean what I thought it did. I am not afraid of death, it would just be a release from the physical suffering. What I fear is the future of the people who live on. Like my mother, she does not deserve to suffer from the stress of this corrupt world. -Never give up hope for a better future for all.-
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
Problem is, people aren't your statistical average for their sex and age. In fact, the majority of people will be eating poorly and their health suffering from being forced to your standardized diet. Someone who's 4'8" and someone who's 6'9" should not eat the same calories. Someone who works a physical labor job in the hot sun all day needs a heck of a lot more calories than someone who sits in bed unemployed. And of course there are all sorts of personal allergies (say gluten intolerance) and personal needs to account for.
This space intentionally left blank
"It's everyone's responsibility to go out and get a good job and make lots of money. Anyone can do it!"
Next time ask: "Is your company hiring?"
The government could even set aside land for small community gardens, like they do to build parks for recreation.
That's unlikely with cities and homeowners' associations being anal about zoning, throwing people in jail for three months for growing what used to be called a victory garden.
Seriously, all it takes is a couple months working at Wal-Mart to know that this is extremely short-sighted. Abuse of the system isn't just a here and there thing. What is truly rare is someone who isn't obese using their EBT card to buy healthy food; at least that's how it is in my area. It's just one disgusting fatass after another pushing cartloads of junk food and candy. What really needs to happen isn't reductions to the program, but severe restrictions on what kinds of items they can buy. I know a cashier that once had a customer who used her EBT card to buy a wedding cake. You heard me right. A GODDAMN WEDDING CAKE. Then of course at least half of them buy their crap food with food stamps and then proceed to spend $100 cash on booze and cigarettes. I am not exaggerating. You actually expect me to believe that the food stamp system as it currently is reduces health care costs? I beg to differ.
And nobody does anything about it ?? Not even the most enlightened and human-hearted of the so-called "leaders" do anyhting ? How socially backwards is that country, anyways ?
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Sticking to the article, doctors are saying we need to keep the $80 billion foodstamp program because any cuts will increase healthcare costs.
By how much will healthcare costs increase? Perhaps a $10 billion decrease in food stamps will only increase healthcare costs by $5 billion. We can borrow $5 billion less from china that year.
Walmart is used as a strawman argument as to why we don't hold people accountable for their actions and refuse a round of tough love to make people reclaim the virtue of self reliance. There are other places where a single mother can get a job other than walmart. There are plenty of actions a person in a difficult sutuation can take to improve their situation. Most of these actions require people to take resposibility for themeselves first, and why would anyone do that when others are telling them that nothingn is their fault?
Is it game over for the USA?
Many think so.
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
Someone exposed to harsh chemical pesticides every day is more likely to become a health care burden later in life.
"I'm starving, but I'm also obese"
Where is my +1 Obvious for this article? It is obvious that if you cut money for food for poor people that leads to costing the government more money in the long term. Anybody with more than half a brain can think through the expected consequences of higher poverty and malnutrition. Republican's have more than half a brain which means they thought through these consequences and they DON'T CARE!
Why isn't Fox News spouting about the WAR ON THE POOR? Because the war on CHRISTMAS is more important to them. They couldn't care less what happens to poor people and when it comes time to pay for their health costs, well, they are happy to just cut that as well and LET THEM DIE! Weren't there people shouting that at the last Republican presidential debate?
Cutting food stamps might cause people to eat more poorly. Or maybe it will cause them to eat better. To eat better, you need to prepare food yourself (rather than eat out or buy prepared foods), cut down on meat, and eat more vegetables and fiber. All of those are things that you tend to do when you need to save money on food.
I know a number of people who are working poor, often through no fault of their own. Try getting a job with full-time hours when you don't have any in-demand skills, in demand certifications or a college education. There's not a lot of choices out there. They often don't earn enough to feed themselves and keep a roof over their heads. They have to go through a lot of BS to get what services they can which basically try and screw you over. Try getting a job when you're 18 with nothing more than a high school diploma when you're kicked out of your parents house. I know people who were kicked out at 16 because they don't fall within their family's church's strict belief system. Social services are completely strained and they waste an inordinate amount of time to get anything done, often with those providing the social services being overwhelmed.
I just had to send money to a friend so he could buy basic groceries and pay his rent because a job that promised him a certain number of hours immediately caused his food stamps to disappear when he got the job. Turns out the job significantly overstated the number of hours he would be working to the point where it costs more for basic transportation for his job than he earned. On top of that he has constant medical expenses that the state does not provide for just to function. All these people want is a job with full-time hours so they can pay rent and buy food but they're always getting dicked about. People complain about them owning cell phones. Try and get a job without a phone.
Or these women with children. If the child is over 5 years old that child was born when the economy was good and the parent likely could afford the child. When the meltdown hit what do you do? You can't stop taking care of the kid until they're 18. People like to blame mothers who are poor when often when they had their child they were in a much better situation. It may be their husband became abusive when the economy tanked or they lost their full-time job. It's easy to blame someone who's poor for their own problems when you don't actually know all the BS they have to put up with and go through.
The whole cutting food stamps is disgusting. Almost all of the people getting them need them to survive, and for the amount they get they're far from eating healthy, causing lost productivity and medical expenses. Try living on what food stamps provide, especially if you live in one of the less generous states. If Walmart or McDonalds doesn't want to pay their employees a living wage or give them regular full-time hours, why should I, the taxpayer, have to subsidize their employees just to put food on the table. As far as I'm concerned, companies should be fined to pay for the food stamps their employees use rather than me subsidizing their degrading employment practices.
Food stamps and unemployment payments are one of the best stimulant programs out there. The people who receive these basically spend every penny they get and put it back into the economy. A tax cut is a very poor stimulus by comparison, especially when used as an excuse to cut food stamps and other programs people need to survive. Also, the poor generally don't pay income taxes so the tax breaks do them no good whatsoever unless they affect sales taxes, which they almost never do. Also, tax cuts rarely lower fees, which tend to affect the poor far more than the middle class.
The poor I know would love to work full time and get off of welfare if they could. The sad part is that they're in a vicious cycle. They have no savings, so things like a car breaking down or a medical issue can be catestrophic as an employer may use that as an excuse to fire someone because they didn't show up on time. They're often abused by management who knows they can treat them like shit since there are enough other desparate people willing to take any job they can get. Without skills in demand it's just a race to the bottom. Companies like Walmart give bonuses to managers who cut hours and employees which just makes life worse.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
I know many poor that could not garden if their life depended on it since their living situation does not provide any land to do so. Maybe out in the country, but certainly not in the city in high density housing where many of these people live. Some areas don't even have grocery stores. For example, most grocery stores have left many of the poor areas, leaving few choices for healthy food.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
"As Brad Plumer of the Washington Post explained in September 2012, by far the largest group of recipients, with money sent to them directly by checks, is not, as conservatives assume, single mothers. No, 53 percent of direct cash entitlements go to people over 65 years old. Another 20 percent goes to disabled people and another 18 percent to working people, leaving only 9 percent for non-disabled, non-working people that conservatives like to pretend make up the bulk of recipients of social spending."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/10/single-mothers-are-not-america-s-real-welfare-queens.html I don't believe it completely but it's worth a read.
Also; $2billion per year ($20billion) leading to an increase of $15 billion in health care costs over 10yrs. Now cutting over 10yrs cutting $20 billion and costing $15 still leaves $5billion in the black. BUT...
This is only part of the cost you must remember that there are social, criminal and learning impacts of low nutrition. Ie. "Poor Nutrition Leads To Low IQ" http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20041021205759data_trunc_sys.shtml
Cutting food stamps is not the answer, how about;
1) stop paying farmers to plough food into the ground.
2) stop subsidies in general, embrace capitalism (stop pretending).
3) realize that class immobility is at an all time high.
4) put some bankers in jail, am look carefully at the Dallas feds recommendation for "too big to fail companies"
5) reform the senate, bunch of do nothing monkeys
6) reform the lobby system
As a non-American, I was unfamiliar with this food stamp program (we don't have specific food-oriented services here in my country, it's up to the local communities and cities to provide welfare benefits).
However, when I look at the number of participants per state, I notice the rural states (Wyoming, etc.) are way lower: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3899
My question: why is this so? Is it a problem of logistics, or is the average American farmer better off than the ones who live in the cities?
For MacDonalds, Walmart and other corps
"How McDonald's and Wal-Mart Became Welfare Queens"
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-13/how-mcdonald-s-and-wal-mart-became-welfare-queens.html
You mean 20 cent on a $300 bill
If they are strapped for cash why not just cut the defence budget? Jesus tap dancing christ on a popsicle stick, that shit is hundreds of billions worth and deserves to be cut if the food stamps get cut.
The heck are you going to do with all them nukes and guns when people are dropping left right and center from starvation and or diseases???
have you seen the stuff these schlubs buy while on SNAP? thanks, Obama! you're killing American children!
"Food stamps feed 1 in 7 Americans"
We need to address the root causes that so many Americans need financial assistance to the point where they require food stamps to start with.
Until the root causes are identified and dealt with the cost of such programs will only continue to go up.
Of course dealing with the root causes will be too painful or politically inexpedient (ie. the decline of K-12 education and the outsourcing of every job that can be outsourced overseas) so the politicians and Americans will focus on the symptoms instead of the cures.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
The Reps continue to treat science, scientific facts and data as hokum, as Sheldon would say. Remember, some of them think humans lived with dinosaurs...
Sounds great, the government would just be a really big food bank then. Except Republicans would never go for that because it would put grocery stores out of business.
When the majority of the stores folks on Food Stamps can get to are Stop and Rob type stores and not actual grocery stores we have a problem that SNAP customers are being charged more (even counting not being taxed).
Also i would say that most Job programs are a Sick Joke (hint putting somebody through a 15 page signup form so that they can fill out an 8 page form just to get to the line "Do you have a Felony record?? If Yes explain in detail" which actually means DO NOT BOTHER WITH THE REST OF THE FORM YOU AIN'T GETTING A JOB THAT ISN'T SLAVE LABOR) and not doing what the PolCritters are selling this as. We created 70,000 new jobs ! (that are 15 hours a week at maybe a nickel above minimum wage and you can't say anything because they will on the spot fire you).
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
From the synopsis:
Just so we're clear, Democrats also want to cut SNAP/Food Stamps, just not as much as Republicans do.
So $2 Billion/year cuts in Food Stamps leads to a $1.5 Billion/year increase in healthcare costs - sounds like a way to save a half billion dollars/year... Put another way, we need to spend $2 Billion in food subsidies to save $1.5 Billion in healthcare costs.
Ken
It's something even better: Prevention.
This whole thing is based on a flawed argument. It assumes that cutting food stamps will lead to decreased nutrition. That is truly a possibility, however, it is only one of many. It is also a possibility to tighten up the controls on food stamps without hurting nutrition at all. Usually this is accomplished by eliminating waste and fraud in the program.
The issue is not about the cuts, but how the cuts are made.
People always complain "They only get $240/month". Guess what? That's bigger than my food budget for my family of 4. And no, we don't eat out that often. And this $240 is suppose to be supplemental. That means the person needs to be contributing also.
1 in 7 on food stamps? How does this not resemble 3rd world dependency politics? From Oakland to Appalachia, we've placated generations of poor with tax schemes and handouts while simultaneously robbing them of economic opportunities. Killing rural jobs in coal, gas, and mining, while hustling throngs of dependent Americans into inner city 'poverty zones' seems to be the modis operandi of our ruling class.
Sometimes it seems to be about the moral self-esteem of our more liberal Americans than the efficacy of their programs or the plight of the poor. How can you advocate for the powerless while you stomp all over their only means to attain some modicum of power?
Really? According to Obama the healthcare cost are because of people making false claims.
On a side note. Do you use generic medication? Did the pharmicist tell you it was the same thing? If it's the same thing, then why is it so different? Taste is different, look is different, and the price is much different; sometimes it's hundreds of dollars less per prescription.
Some people will tell you they are the same, except for the candy coating, the packaging; but if that is true, then it means the huge proce differences is all because of that. That means they are lying to you about the real cost of healthcare; it's not the medicine that cost so much money, its the cherry flavor. Somehow I don't believe that.
On the other hand, it could be the active ingredients that are different. But if that's the case, then they really aren't the same, and you need to be wondering what you are putting into your body. What are the side effects?
Or, maybe they are lying about the healthcare costs, AND the active ingredients. Either way they are lying about something.
Which of those do you think the filthy rich will be using? Yeah, me too, and I had to special order it since my pharamacy does not normally carry the more expensive one.
I'm going to have both analyzed and find out the real difference.
It will also be the backbone of their diet in the process. It won't just be empty calories but will be a good chunk of most of what they need to live on since we are mammals.
Lots of people cannot consume milk past infancy. Most of the population of the world actually. About 30-50 million people in the US are lactose intolerant including 75% of Native Americans and 90% of those of Asian descent. Worldwide about 65% of people have some form of lactose intolerance. The percentage of people in north america and europe that can consume milk products without ill effects is actually unusually high.
Also bear in mind that most milk is heavily subsidized in price. The real price of a gallon of milk is somewhere closer to $4-$8 per gallon. Even higher for organic stuff.
You also can't easily replace that calcium.
You do not need milk or milk products to get the needed amount of calcium. There are plenty of fortified foods with extra calcium. Dark leafy greens are an excellent source as are sardines, soybeans, tofu, oranges, sesame seeds, almonds, salmon, white beans, figs, broccoli, and quite a few other foods. The notion that you need milk to get adequate calcium is easily and demonstrably not true.
'If you're interested in saving health care costs, the dumbest thing you can do is cut nutrition,'
Right - because sooo much of food stamp spending goes on veggies and vitamins.
Every "welfare day" all I see at the grocery store are big, enormous, fat people buying twinkies, ho-hos, frozen pizza, and other junk food with EBT cards.
I spend less money on groceries than I would get from SNAP, and I feed my family fresh, nutritious foods. I'm sick of hearing this bullshit about how government doesn't give out enough handouts and oh my how terrible is it that we're staaarving people to death? These people can get jobs. There are millions of vacant positions in this country for skilled and unskilled labor alike.
The problem is that government is paying more and more for people not to work, and now we have a labor participation rate we have not seen since Carter's disaster in the 1970s.
I buy 3-pound bags of frozen chicken for $5, and 3-pound bags of frozen hamburgers for $10.
Your purchasing of frozen products is in all likelihood a false economy. If you want real economy, you buy whole animals or primals and butcher yourself. Any times you pay to have someone butcher or package the food for you, the price goes up. Buy a whole ham or chicken and use the entire product and you'll save a lot more money than anything you normally get from a freezer.
You can buy a 4lb whole fresh chicken for $6-7 if you don't mind doing the butchering yourself. You can pretty much use the whole chicken including the bones. I rarely buy pre-cut chickens anymore and I use the entire bird, including the bones (for stock). Taste is FAR better than anything you will ever get from the freezer section.
Around here ground beef costs around $2.25-2.75 per pound, fresh from the butcher. If you are getting frozen patties for that amount of money you very likely can get better product for less money.
I'd have to know more about this to unpack it, but my own experience is that buying frozen food is much cheaper than anything else except for rice, beans, and flower. Nutritionally, there is no reason to pick fresh food over frozen food.
Nutritionally you are generally correct but if you are purchasing seasonally then you'll find that frozen foods are frequently not any cheaper. It might be more convenient and sometimes is actually a better option for stuff like peas. Sure if you insist on buying strawberries in November in the midwest USA, you'll pay more. However if you purchase in season, utilize farmer's markets, and actually carefully watch prices you usually can beat frozen food prices and with some exceptions you'll get tastier food as well.
would it be unfair to limit the types of foods that one could buy with food stamps? For example, no cigarettes, no booze, no "junk food" (certainly a broad category but it's at start). I'm not suggesting this to be mean spirited. I'm suggesting this to promote healthy eating. Healthy eating is better for them and better for society in general. Healthy food does not necessarily cost more than junk food. It's a matter of education and making good choices.
I hate to be reduced to it, but THIS. So much this.
Congress continually reauthorizes food stamps, that's pretty much what the whole article is about.
For additional perspective, I participated in a hackathon in NYC last spring that focused on food insecurity in Newark, NJ. The problem was that in many poorer parts of Newark there are virtually no supermarkets and no produce to be had. Most people had to get food at corner delis because they did not have cars and could not get to a larger market. Now the problem was, none of the food at the delis had price tags, and no receipts were given after purchase. So the deli owners could and did charge ridiculous prices like $4/lb for apples at the beginning of the month, when everyone got their SNAP benefits, and then extend credit with interest to customers at the end of the month when those benefits had been exhausted. So everyone was under the thumb of their local deli owner and you had to keep good relations with him or he could decide to charge you $7/lb for apples or refuse to extend you credit to get you through the end of the month. It was difficult for us techies to wrap our heads around, but the problem is real and pernicious. There are places in this country where large numbers of people suffer under food slavery, and cutting the SNAP benefits they rely on compounds the problem severely.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Because we do not want to limit foodstamp recipients to just healthy food, we allow them to purchase pretty much anything except beer and cigarettes (and foodstamps are often used for those anyway; and consider that when alcohol & cigarettes are purchased "legally" with earned income by foodstamp recipients, we have effectively subsidized that purchase--they could have used that money to buy food, but we gave them money for food which enabled them to have a few extra bucks for beer & cigarettes). Beer & cigarettes aside, the anything goes for foodstamps leads to several problems. We see foodstamps now allowed to be used at McDonalds. The states of Florida, California, Arizona and Michigan already allow select restaurants like Golden Corral, McDonald's, Subway, some Yum! properties (Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut and Long John Silver's) and others to accept food stamps. We see hipsters on foodstamps (http://www.salon.com/2010/03/16/hipsters_food_stamps_pinched/). “I’m sort of a foodie, and I’m not going to do the ‘living off ramen’ thing,” he said, fondly remembering a recent meal he’d prepared of roasted rabbit with butter, tarragon and sweet potatoes. “I used to think that you could only get processed food and government cheese on food stamps, but it’s great that you can get anything.” And we see a strong correlation between foodstamps and obesity. "Participation in the FSP in each of the previous five years compared to no participation over that time period was associated with approximately a 20.5% increase in the predicted probability of current obesity."
I wouldn't be surprised if any conservatives in charge actually want to increase medical costs if only to make any of Obama's health initiatives more likely to fail or look bad.
From the actual article: "a growth in government and private sector medical costs for diabetes alone of nearly $15 billion over10 years".
Your conclusion is correct... if diabetes is the only effect ever.
One that that has occurred to me is that children cause poverty in a very real sense.
A single person with no children working full time at even minimum wage would certainly would not be living in the lap of luxury, but he or she would be about 30% above the poverty line (often cited as 130% of the poverty line).
Add a child and that equation is reversed and that family is now living in poverty earning about 97% of the poverty line. Add a second child and the picture is much dimmer, as that family is now living on 77% of the poverty line.
A married couple with no children (or to be PC, a two-income household with no children) where both work full time at minimum wage would be living at 194% of the poverty line. But if they have 4 children, it drags that household down to 95% of poverty level.
between global warming, anti-charter school articles and now this, slashdot has turned into a mouthpiece for liberals.
For most Americans, the word “poverty” suggests near destitution: an inability to provide nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter for one’s family. However, only a small number of the 46 million persons classified as “poor” by the Census Bureau fit that description. While real material hardship certainly does occur, it is limited in scope and severity.
Any number of sources (e.g. www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2009/#undefined) will highlight the fact that the poor in the US are living a lifestyle that is better than the lifestyle of middle-class is some other countries (the average poor American has more living space than the typical non-poor person in Sweden, France, or the United Kingdom, for instance). The U.S. Department of Agriculture collects data on these topics in its household food security survey. For 2009, the survey showed:
* 96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were never hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford food.
* 83 percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat.
* 82 percent of poor adults reported never being hungry at any time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.
People living below the poverty line in the US often have their own home, cars, air-conditioning, big-screen TVs, playstation, computers, microwave ovens, dishwashers, cable TV, smart phone, high-speed internet.
We're talking about using food stamps to maintain a lifestyle, not preventing people from starving.
OK, I am sick and tired of all of you not understanding the "myth". Have you been on food welfare or so poor ? Almost certainly not. Firstly I have worked for long hour for next to no pay. Then I had no pay so I could not afford a fridge, an oven, and other stuff to store food. And i had no time. At the end of working 10+hours you fucking want to go to sleep and no spend 1 or 2 hours again gathering stuff you cannot store and prepare them.
It is not only the raw price which count, it is the time, and the tools needed to prepare food which *all together* make the cheap food you cite , out of grasp.
As soon as i got enough money for a fridge, oven, *and* time (working then only 8h for the same total loan) I got much better.
There was no college football played this weekend. The FBS championship was played Jan 6th and was the last game played in that division. The FCS championship was played Jan 4th and was the last game played in that division. The Division 2 championship was played Dec 21st and was the last game played in that division. The Division 3 championship was played Dec 20 and was the last game played in that division.
What was this local University that had a flyover this weekend again?
Therefore was spending $6-$7 every workday on lunch at Wendy's.
A loaf of bread and some peanut butter is no worse nutritionally and is a LOT cheaper and does not require refrigeration.
Which meant the $117 had to buy the other 1,000-1,500 calories a day or I'd fucking die of starvation. That meant pop and candy. With all this I still ended up losing like 40-50 pounds.
You can get 1000 calories in a just one triple whopper from Burger King. Claiming you needed pop and candy to survive is complete nonsense. That just means you didn't want to think very hard about it. Getting lots of calories is not difficult or expensive these days, even for someone without much income.
With all this I still ended up losing like 40-50 pounds.
Which means you were severely malnourished and/or were overweight to begin with. Given the diet you shared I'm think both are probably true.
Eat food, not too much, mostly plants." Rules 1 and 3 are useless to me because I can't afford 'food,' and I can't store vegetables.
There are plenty of vegetables that have minimal or no refrigeration requirements and are extremely affordable. First off there are tons of very inexpensive canned options which do not require any refrigeration of any kind and are good for you. Tomatoes, dried beans, rice, grains, onions, potatoes, squash, sweet potatoes, bananas, apples, and many many more. The only way you can legitimately claim you can't store vegetables of any kind is if you are homeless.
You know, if not for the fact that our government gives multi-billion dollar, highly-profitable corporations orders of magnitude more welfare dollars than what they spend on keeping the poorest Americans from starving, I might actually give a shit when someone bitches about what people buy with food stamps.
Seriously - you're pissing and moaning about not letting people starve? Well, until I see you at one of those 'end oil company subsidies' protests, I'm going to ignore your selfish ass.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
OK, I see what you mean. You didn't mean to imply oatmeal was on the buzzfeed list. I get it now (after hitting Submit of course).
Anyway, oatmeal. Good. Rice? Not so much. Why? Glycemic index. I've know this first hand. I was raised eating enriched long-grain rice. As an adult, I figured out that my tendency to "crash" after dinner was directly correlated to eating rice for dinner.
I've moved towards eating less white rice, and only eating it at lunch when I'm not tired and won't crash. I've tried brown rice, but it seems to do the same thing at dinner, even though they claim it has a lower GI (however, that's a recent experiment possibly ruined by the fact that I had a cold when I tried it).
A lot of the cheap foods you mention have a high GI or are starchy. Maybe "wild" rice can be had cheaply without the high GI, but now we're cycling back to things that the poor and uneducated won't figure out. Heck it took me long enough, and I've got a batchelor's degree. I've known professionals doing much better than me money-wise; but they have terrible diets.
Anyway, I get what you said. Aside from all that, calories/dollar is obviously not the only metric you should use. You need veggies and proteins, which will result in fewer calories/dollar, but less chance of diabetes from eating cheap starches and sugars all the time.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Things Republicans have done that have helped out the 99% of Americans:
1) Freed the slaves
2) Gave women the right to vote
3) Protected the right of people to bear arms in defence of themselves and their homes
4) Protected the right of individuals to increase their personal wealth and wellbeing in a legally recognized manner
Things the Democrats have done to undercut the 99% while appealing to an ignorant populist message:
1) Defend slavery
2) Defend union protection of jobs against poorer people who would like to do that work
3) Subjugate millions to the control of bureaucracy in return for bread and circuses
Food is not medicine. Just continuing to implement the nanny state is a huge stressor on society, as is the never ending stream of lies from the modern Democrats -- and stress is a huge factor in illnesses of all kinds. Stop voting to force other people to take care of you -- from healthcare to welfare to SS to food stamps to a "free education" to the 2nd amendment. Stop calling things free -- anything worth doing or having requires effort and has costs. Just reforning the IRS income tax code (over 70,000 pages of regulations) would likely cut the annual budget deficit in half -- but they won't do it. Why? Because both sides of the aisle have bloated the code with giveaways for their friends. Not sure what the answers are, but more incentives for the private sector and less dependence on the federal government is a good start.
Compare "poverty" in the US to the real poverty billions live in around the world. The vast majority of the people in the US living in "poverty" would be the richest person in many villages around the world.
While there may indeed be a disparity between haves and have nots, there is the fundamental question of what separates them? Why do people with nearly identical backgrounds, educational opportunity, etc. have such wildly different levels of success? There are far too many stories of people getting out of the ghetto or out of the mining town or getting off welfare to be ignored--those people did something different from those around them, took advantage of the opportunities in front, the people left behind didn't. Whose "fault" is that?
When Obama says "you didn't build that", he tried to backpedal and say he meant the infrastructure, the educational system. The same infrastructure is in place for everyone, education is available for everyone (I understand there are variances here, but people succeed within the same setting while others fail). What *prevents* people from taking advantage of the opportunities in front of them, what *prevents* them from making good choices? Nothing.
In California, food stamps can't be used to buy hot food that is sold by a grocery store. I've pulled out my wallet a few times and paid the bill, because I could see what the mother was trying to buy for her child with a food stamp card wasn't junk food. Maybe they don't have a working stove at home. Conversely, and this is the insanity - food stamp cards can be used in many fast-food restaurants in California. So this same mother who can't buy her kid a bowl of hot soup from the deli at a grocery store can buy him a hamburger, fries and a soda at Jack in the Box. This is such twisted logic.
Why are we juxtaposing the food stamp costs against corporate welfare? Sure, the most recent Cato report on "corporate welfare" e.g., "$80 billion-a-year food stamp program or corporate welfare $100 billion a year?"
This is a false dichotomy, which frames the question as a an either/or issue, ignoring other alternatives.
I ask: "How about cutting or even eliminating both?"
I believe in the "beggars can't be choosers" school of thought. While I don't want anyone to starve, neither do I think that I should be required to effectively hand over cash so that the hungry can shop for whatever goodies they feel like--from roasted rabbit with butter, tarragon and sweet potatoes even up to fast-food! How about making food-stamp program a voucher for rice and beans, oatmeal and vitamins? Boring? Sure, but plenty nutritious, cheap and easy to cook so no one starves or goes malnourished. The lack of choice at the same time provides incentive to be able to afford something different. That's a "safety net" rather than a lifestyle subsidy.
Then we can cut corporate welfare at the same time.
According to that Cato report the single biggest item in the $100B corporate welfare list is FHA mortgage subsidies at $15.739B. Cut 'em.
Second largest is National Institute of Health, Applied R&D at $13.845B. Let big pharma do their own research. Cut it.
Third biggest is Farm Services Agency, which as far as I can read their documentation is farm loans, at $11.863B. Cut 'em.
"Energy supply and conservation" is another big one, at $9.834B. I can only guess at what they spend their money on, but I wouldn't be surprised to find Solyndra in that pile. Cut 'em.
Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, $4.834B. Call those loans, then cut the program.
Foreign Military Financing, $5.2B. Cut it.
Small Business Administration (loans programs as far as I can tell), $3.157B. Cut em.
NASA, Applied R&D, $2.799B. Cut it.
Broadband Technologies Opportunity Program, $2.227B. Cut it.
High-speed rail, $1.251B. Cut it.
Below this you start getting into a few billion here and a few billion there. Cut it all!
Funny, though, there's no line item here "Shovel money into Wall Street coffers." I was convinced by liberals that this was the primary use of corporate welfare. OTOH, if you like all those programs above, then qwitcherbitchen about corporate welfare!
A 2012 Gallup poll found that prety much 40% of all Americans believe that or something close to it.
"The study notes that highly religious Americans "are more likely to be Republican than those who are less religious" as 58 percent of Republicans believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years (compared to 39 percent of independents and 41 percent of Democrats).
It's just that the self-important leaches don't feel like contributing back to society.
a cut of $2 billion a year in food stamps could trigger in an increase of $15 billion in medical costs
So medical costs have dropped $300 billion in the last 5 years? I rather doubt they've dropped at all. It seems to me if we've been increasing food stamps to help people, and food stamps have SOME SORT of correlation with medical costs, they should be SOME SORT of decease in medical costs over the last 5 years.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
Not when you can buy Red Bull and twinkies on a food stamp card.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Number of elementary schools in an area usually determines (correlates strongly & inversely with) the number of prisons.
Turns out when most kids make it through sixth grade, they can get jobs instead of just robbing each other. Most of you are probably aware that it costs less to give a kid an elementary school education than house a prisoner. But that takes foresight, too.
Let's frame this in context. This is arguing over a 2 cent line item on a $300 bill.
20 cents on a 300 dollar bill, or 2 cents on a 30 dollar bill.
I was poor in university. Real poor.
Rice and potatoes in bulk purchased at opportune are almost free. Potatoes are mostly nutritionally complete with the skins, and high calorie, particularly fried or roasted in oil.
Oil is also very cheap purchased in bulk at lower grades.
You don't want candy, you want bulk sugar. It's also so cheap it's almost free.
The bulk stuff I could usually get a drive from someone once every month or two to help with. If you can't do that, work on making friends.
Those staples do not go bad nor need refrigeration.
Learned to use spices. Those days are long over but the lessons stayed.
The hardest thing I had to replace was protein. That was difficult to do cheaply, and I didn't carry a lot of muscle either. I remember I knew what bars had cheap wing deals and took advantage.. but that was 20 years ago now.
..don't panic
Ever wonder why there are subsidies to pay for land not in production? That came about back in the 40's and 50's when there were surpluses of crops and the prices were so low, the small farms could not survive. I say small. A 100 acres might just be enough to make it, but the big farm of over 300 acres or more were the only ones that could have survived and even that is doubtful as it cost more to grow the crops than selling the harvest would yield. The idea behind those subsidies was to keep the farm land available for farming and not have it sold off for housing development. Had they not had supports "back then" food prices would be higher than they are now as there would be shortages. Back then, approximately 40% of families lived on farm. Now it's about 1% or less. Even with supports, the small farms were gobbled up by the larger ones and conglomerates. Even large industries own vast amounts of farm land today. The supports are still needed, but like many of the entitlements the way the are issued and to who needs to be revised. The wide spread use of supports did keep "some" land from development, but led to the development of the huge conglomerates. There are still families farming 600 or a 1000 acres, but they are having a hard time competing with the conglomerates who also control who can sell what and seed has been engineered so it's only good for one season and the resulting harvest will not germinate. OTOH the seed producers require their customers to sign contracts that they will not use second generation seed.
And yet it makes you feel just as full after drinking it. How come so many people here don't seem to get that drinking soda like it's water makes you fat and gives you diabetes?
I must be tired! I honestly thought, from the title, that this was some silly study about people getting paper cuts from food stamps
You're reading too much into that line. phantomfive saw past that; but a lot of you didn't. Pleaes read the thread between me and phantomfive before knee-jerking on that one line. TIA.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Health is everything. Try seeing how the world works with unhealthy people making decisions, doing their job, etc.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Americans both republicans and democrats want to disown a huge swathe of americans (the poor) and build walls around their own class.
I don't know when people finally will realize that the only way forward is to cull the top 1%, and destroy the government completely, it's rotten to the core and is only self serving to individuals. There's no incentive for people in government to do anything for the people themselves, why there aren't violent coups everywhere in America is insane.
One day the camels' back will break and the rich will pay for the ostracization and exploitation of the majority. Here's to hoping it'll be sooner rather than later.
The fact the the stamps come from tax money means EVERY tax payer has paid for the right to have an opinion about it.
No it means every *person* has a right to have an opinion about it. Being a victim of unemployment doesn't negate your right to have a say in democracy and government, otherwise the rich could (and did) reduce the number of people entitled to be part of the work force and confiscate the right to be self-governed from those people. Slaves could not vote, or stand up to speak a political opinion, and neither could people without land holdings, and neither could women. These people who were marginalised by rich, white landowners fought hard to get these rights, and you are advocating that they give up these rights because you feel entitled.
You also ignore the fact that for the vast majority of people who are not taxpayers, that it is not through their choice, but because of structural violence engineered by rich men and women to disempower and disenfranchise them. The whole structure of modern society, particularly the focus on educational labels is designed to deny able people from empowered jobs which in most cases any able person could learn. In my parents generation, employers would hire people at the entry level, and provide training and education, expecting people to advance their careers and develop their skills. Today that burden has been fully leveled on the (un)employed, and often it is a gamble whether any given training will pay off in even marginal employment at the completion of it. Education has turned from the development of skills, to an arbitrary classifier for class warfare.
Has anyone stopped to consider how alarming a trend is being pursued here ? For too many people, the Govt. is no longer regarded as deriving it's authority from the consent of the governed as Lincoln reminded us. The poor have never had their voice, yet those of us who care about those depressed economicly have always spoken effectively for them. If our voice is falling on deaf ears its because the Govt has being reduced to a subservient role as it's being dominated by Corporate Banksters. Question: Have any of you had experiences with irresponsible teenagers whom you as parents have entrusted a credit card to only to have them abuse balancing their accounts ? It's not my intention to embarrass or humiliate any present member of Congress, rather to point out they've been subjugated to the subservient role of teens by an UnConstitutional central bank playing their " responsible " parent. And to denounce the rotten to the core corrupt system we as Americans have been saddled with since the UnConstitutional Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Under the Jeffersonian Democratic principles, We the People, Constitutionaly, have the sole power to create money, through our Treasury, an office held in sacred trust for US, including our poor, downtrodden. Human beings create money to serve the essential needs for food, shelter, medical care, retirement so that we can all live in a lawful, orderly civilized country. HUMANS create it, not some central Banksters. Real money is created through our toil and service to provide essential goods & services to support other humans. To be REAL money at all, it has to have value before it can serve as a medium of exchange. Things have value as money only if (1) they're intrisicly valuable in serving HUMAN life, and (2) they're finite & limited as time & our work product is. Humans have always used semi/precious metals as coins to represent money because they have intrinsicly valuable industrial uses and have always been recyclable, with cheaper, harder alloys preserving their durability. We the People are the beginning, middle and end for what REAL money is all about. Before the inception of the Rothschild's Fed hijacked our Govt as " financial terrorists " , we experienced a stable monentary system from 1792 thru 1932 as the Constitutional legal standard for American money endured intact. Since this foreign owned international banking cartel entered our country as a Trojan Horse to convert us from our Soverign nation to their multi lateral Corporation, our lawful monentary system has been converted into their debt based Ponzi Scheme monentary system, as their credit system of low reserve infinite unbacked fiat script is based on daisy chains. Americans now struggle with debt slavery daily to avoid loosing everything they've worked for their entire lives. That's the legacy of loss of our Soverignty. To understand how their corrupt Ponzi Scheme debt based monetary system wrecked the very economy it was purported to assist, you have to know how they work. While the U.S. issued debt free U.S. Silver Certificates, our country took 120 years to amass an aggregate national debt of mere Billions of real $ and the value of our money was viable, predictable. After 1964 when our Treasury was hijacked and unbacked Corporate Monopoly parlor game script called Federal Reserve Notes was substituted, an out of control phony national debt was created. The Congress of 1913 & Woodrow Wilson were duped into unlawfuly authorizing a fiat system where Banksters, not citizens, were allowed to create $. In 1913, the U.S. sold the rights to a foreign owned Corporation to substitute their foreign name for ours on our currency. Rights they couldn't own and could never legaly have to sell were sold anyway for Bribes. The interloping Banksters now compell the Treasury to issue debentures of indebtedness, and sell them, before they'll print their phony debt based counterfeit currency which your taxes pay the Mints to coin real money to redeem. The French have a word for that: Embezzelier. Meaning to de