Trump Administration Wants To Decide What Food SNAP Recipients Will Get

[AthenaAwakened]

Link to Article here.

The Trump administration is proposing a major shake-up in one of the country's most important "safety net" programs, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. Under the proposal, most SNAP recipients would lose much of their ability to choose the food they buy with their SNAP benefits.

The proposal is included in the Trump administration budget request for fiscal year 2019. It would require approval from Congress.

Under the proposal, which was announced Monday, low-income Americans who receive at least $90 a month — just over 80 percent of all SNAP recipients — would get about half of their benefits in the form of a "USDA Foods package." The package was described in the budget as consisting of "shelf-stable milk, ready to eat cereals, pasta, peanut butter, beans and canned fruit and vegetables." The boxes would not include fresh fruits or vegetables.

I don't like it.

It penalizes the poor even more and it takes choice away from the citizens who are only trying to feed their families.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

But this will save us a lot of money down the road because...

Also, if poor lazy people are forced to drink shelf stable milk, that might actually get them off their asses and applying for a CEO position or something.

 

[southernhybrid]

I don't like it either, but it's not going to happen. Even the Republicans in Congress are saying it's inappropriate. However, Trump wants to cut SNAP by about 30% and who knows if Congress will go along with that or not. The Trump proposed budget is full of plans to take away from programs that help the poor to help make up for the tax cuts given to the wealthy. Are we surprised?

Do these people even realize that the majority of SNAP goes to the elderly, the disabled and the working poor?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I don't like it either, but it's not going to happen. Even the Republicans in Congress are saying it's inappropriate. However, Trump wants to cut SNAP by about 30% and who knows if Congress will go along with that or not. The Trump proposed budget is full of plans to take away from programs that help the poor to help make up for the tax cuts given to the wealthy. Are we surprised?

Do these people even realize that the majority of SNAP goes to the elderly, the disabled and the working poor?

You are right, but the story has to be put out so that when whatever draconian ax finally falls, enough people are primed to hate the poor and not the shitty way the poor are treated.

 

[coloradoatheist]

I agree with the concept though I think they need to expand on the foods and make sure it's the right amount and does include healthy choices. But I will agree with other southern that cutting for the sake of cutting here is bad at the outset. I would rather it go up to make sure they have the correct baskets.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

love this quote. Sums up the situation

Harry Hopkins, who established the New Deal relief structure under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, understood the impulse to demean the poor, because he had spent years in social work watching the process unfold, to his disgust. The mindset of relief workers in that era, Hopkins observed, was that "the applicant was in some way morally deficient [and] must be made to feel his pauperism. … Every help which was given him was to be given in a way to intensify his shame."

One recurrent approach was to dictate how recipients spent their benefits. Hopkins abominated the system. "It is a matter of opinion," he said, "whether more damage is done to the human spirit by a lack of vitamins or complete surrender of choice."

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-food-stamps-20180213-story.html

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I agree with the concept though I think they need to expand on the foods and make sure it's the right amount and does include healthy choices. But I will agree with other southern that cutting for the sake of cutting here is bad at the outset. I would rather it go up to make sure they have the correct baskets.

(A) I don't agree with the concept and (B) we tried this before during the Great Depression and we stopped because it costs too much money, takes too much time, and all around just doesn't work well on a national scale.

 

[coloradoatheist]

I agree with the concept though I think they need to expand on the foods and make sure it's the right amount and does include healthy choices. But I will agree with other southern that cutting for the sake of cutting here is bad at the outset. I would rather it go up to make sure they have the correct baskets.

(A) I don't agree with the concept and (B) we tried this before during the Great Depression and we stopped because it costs too much money, takes too much time, and all around just doesn't work well on a national scale.

It is the expression government cheese came from. I think we are a little bit ahead of the Depression in terms of distribution of goods.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I agree with the concept though I think they need to expand on the foods and make sure it's the right amount and does include healthy choices. But I will agree with other southern that cutting for the sake of cutting here is bad at the outset. I would rather it go up to make sure they have the correct baskets.

(A) I don't agree with the concept and (B) we tried this before during the Great Depression and we stopped because it costs too much money, takes too much time, and all around just doesn't work well on a national scale.

It is the expression government cheese came from. I think we are a little bit ahead of the Depression in terms of distribution of goods.

You were responsible for going to get govt cheese, it was not sent to your house, and that program began in 1982 under the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program of the Food and Nutrition Service. And whatever efficiencies there may be now is distribution, are lost in the specialization each box will have to have. Depression boxes were the same. If you couldn't eat something in it, too bad. That won't fly today.

 

[Ford]

Funny isn't it? The party that freaked out over Michelle Obama making suggestions about healthy foods now wants to select the specific foods poor folks can eat.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Funny isn't it? The party that freaked out over Michelle Obama making suggestions about healthy foods now wants to select the specific foods poor folks can eat.

It's okay when its whites telling lazy unemployed, cell phone owning blacks what to do. That's my tax dollars! That should be going to fund American fighter jet purchases by Egypt via US foreign aid.

 

[funinspace]

I don't like it either, but it's not going to happen.

Yeah, probably not.

Even the Republicans in Congress are saying it's inappropriate. However, Trump wants to cut SNAP by about 30% and who knows if Congress will go along with that or not. The Trump proposed budget is full of plans to take away from programs that help the poor to help make up for the tax cuts given to the wealthy. Are we surprised?

Do these people even realize that the majority of SNAP goes to the elderly, the disabled and the working poor?

They most likely realize this, but do these people care?

 

[starwater]

Nope they don't care. It's the reverse Robin Hood syndrome.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

So they want to make SNAP more like WIC?

 

[Derec]

If you couldn't eat something in it, too bad. That won't fly today.

Beggars should not be choosers. Most of the time "can't" just means "won't".

 

[AthenaAwakened]

If you couldn't eat something in it, too bad. That won't fly today.

Beggars should not be choosers. Most of the time "can't" just means "won't".

We're not talking about beggars, we are talking about citizens. Many of whom are too young or too old or too disabled to worked. And workers who bust their humps on multiple jobs to make forty hours or more a week and because of stagnant wages still can't make enough money to make ends meet.

 

[laughing dog]

If you couldn't eat something in it, too bad. That won't fly today.

Beggars should not be choosers. Most of the time "can't" just means "won't".

Absolute bullshit. People have food allergies that a standardized bag cannot accommodate. What if someone is lactose intolerant or allergic to gluten?
And why should people be given food they find distasteful and probably won't eat?

Honestly, only a douchebag or a dumbbell find promote this type of condescending stupidity.

 

[Derec]

Do these people even realize that the majority of SNAP goes to the elderly, the disabled and the working poor?

Whatever else they are, vast majority of SNAPers have bloody children that they can't afford to bloody feed. Look at the SNAP eligibility table - if you are single with no kids, you are cut off at about $15k. Very few people make that little. If you have 4 children and a spouse, you are eligible up to $42k. That's hardly poverty wages (it's equivalent to about $20/h full time). I do not see why a person making $20k should subsidize somebody making twice as much just because they never bother to wrap it up!
Maybe there should be a rule that if you have 2 or more kids you must be on birth control to receive food stamps.

 

[coloradoatheist]

If you couldn't eat something in it, too bad. That won't fly today.

Beggars should not be choosers. Most of the time "can't" just means "won't".

Absolute bullshit. People have food allergies that a standardized bag cannot accommodate. What if someone is lactose intolerant or allergic to gluten?
And why should people be given food they find distasteful and probably won't eat?

Honestly, only a douchebag or a dumbbell find promote this type of condescending stupidity.

WIC allows changes in baskets. Is there that much complaint about WIC?

 

[Derec]

We're not talking about beggars, we are talking about citizens.

Actual beggars are just as much citizens as metaphorical ones are.

Many of whom are too young or too old or too disabled to worked.

See my comment to southernhybrid about eligibility cutoffs. Many are still eligible for SNAP well past $40k in annual income. Why should actually poor have to subsidize middle-class income people who have many children?

And workers who bust their humps on multiple jobs to make forty hours or more a week and because of stagnant wages still can't make enough money to make ends meet.

World's smallest violin playing just for people making $40k who think taxpayers should pay for their food.

P.S.: Welcome back. I have started to miss you.