Under Obama, 10.7 Million More Use Food Stamps—A 32 Percent Jump

originally posted by: tridalop
So this is why US national debt doubled over 8 years. Too much welfare.

Yip. The poor are to blame for everything..Not the Banks, Not the politicians, not the endless Wars and the countless dollars the pentagon loses, not the corporate shysters who bleed as much tax dollars from the people as they can get their greedy hands on....The Poor, it was them what done it.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Just a tad bit disingenuous.

Agreed. Wonder what the real number / percent of eligible, unemployed persons is?

originally posted by: Soloprotocol

originally posted by: tridalop
So this is why US national debt doubled over 8 years. Too much welfare.

Yip. The poor are to blame for everything..Not the Banks, Not the politicians, not the endless Wars and the countless dollars the pentagon loses, not the corporate shysters who bleed as much tax dollars from the people as they can get their greedy hands on....The Poor, it was them what done it.

Those damn poor people, why don't they get with the program and come in for the big win? Don't they realize the rich are losing money off them?

Remembering Nazi Eugenics program solution makes me shudder.

"Lives not worth living"

As a disabled American my food stamps were cut under Obama as were 200,000 other vets elderly and disabled in Michigan. Thanks to the farm bill passed in 2014.

a reply to: Indigo5

How about break up big monopolies,tax everyone equally, de regulate small business entrepreneurs, subsidize them instead of conglomerates. Hate to break it to the world, the last country to do that sort of thing was wiped out by NATO.

The food-stamp system could use a reform. Junk-food, junk-drink and other non-healthy items should be banned. Iv'e seem many people ring up energy drinks, candy, and other terrible food at the registers.

originally posted by: blueman12
The food-stamp system could use a reform. Junk-food, junk-drink and other non-healthy items should be banned. Iv'e seem many people ring up energy drinks, candy, and other terrible food at the registers.

And of course you feel privileged to control what other people eat because....

a reply to: xuenchen

Fake News Alert!

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees SNAP, counted almost 43.6 million people in the program in April 2016, the most recent data available. When Obama took office in January 2009, almost 32 million people received SNAP benefits. The number increased during the Great Recession as more families turned to the program for assistance, averaging an annual high of 47.6 million participants in 2013.

A report by the Food Research & Action Center, a hunger and nutrition advocacy group, applauded the 43 million figure in April as the lowest level of participants since October 2010. From April 2015 to April 2016, participation is down 1.9 million participants.

US Gov't spends between $75-$100 billion per year on SNAP program.
Americans (individuals and corporations) underpaid their taxes by $450 billion in 2006 and the trend continues.

Collect the taxes owed and it would pay for this program four times over.

originally posted by: blueman12
The food-stamp system could use a reform. Junk-food, junk-drink and other non-healthy items should be banned. Iv'e seem many people ring up energy drinks, candy, and other terrible food at the registers.

It's not that simple. I feel I do a good job of balancing eating healthy with budgetary concerns. I don't buy many microwave meals, I don't buy soda, and I don't buy candy. The cheap and "healthy" food I've found is primarily crock pot foods. It's easier to do this in the winter when it's more of a comfort food, but I get a lot of soups and stews. The inexpensive parts of this though are bread, noodles, rice, and so on. Those foods just aren't healthy in the amounts I have to eat them.

I actually want to try out a no carb diet to lose weight. I've spent the last 2-3 days trying to figure out how to make a budget where it works. High in meat, eggs, cheese, salads, and so on but low in breads, noodles, pasta, sugar, and all the rest. I haven't given up on trying to budget it and meal plan yet, but it might simply be out of my price range.

Food stamps don't really allow for healthy eating. The prepared stuff is often times outright cheaper than the meals you have to cook, and if you put a value on your time, they're much cheaper. I could eat at a $10 diner for an entire month for $300. But reasonable groceries to make the same meals are going to run $200 plus cooking time. If you put a value on your time, the stuff you have to prepare just isn't worth it. It effectively sets you up to "work" for $4/hour, which keeps you in poverty and in need of assistance. That also happens to be why I stick to Crock Pot meals. Most of them only require minutes of preparation which makes them delicious and time efficient which lets me focus on the things in life that matter like bettering my situation.

Besides that, you just aren't going to force people to eat healthy. Budgets are pretty fluid, and most people aren't 100% reliant on food stamps. If you cut certain food items out of the program, they'll just shuffle how/when things are paid for and buy the junk food that would have gone towards food anyways, with cash. Taking my situation for example, I spend about $150/month on food and $60/month of that is covered by food stamps. It's trivial to buy "approved" food items with that $60, and then buy junk food with the remaining $90.

originally posted by: F4guy

originally posted by: blueman12
The food-stamp system could use a reform. Junk-food, junk-drink and other non-healthy items should be banned. Iv'e seem many people ring up energy drinks, candy, and other terrible food at the registers.

And of course you feel privileged to control what other people eat because....

Yes.. I do. Not just me, but all the taxpayers ARE privileged to control what other people eat on food stamps. Why should we all be putting money into a system so that the less-fortunate can satisfy their taste buds?

Either you're on food stamps because you need some extra help to feed yourself, or you're abusing the system to buy things that are simply for pleasure.

a reply to: Aazadan

I agree and disagree with two things you said.

I agree that less healthy food can often be cheaper and the easier choice on a budget. I was mainly arguing against things like candy, chips, energy drinks, soda ect.. The type of things that makes your taste buds go crazy, but makes your body sad.

I disagree with the notion that people will simply buy their desired junk food with their own cash if food-stamps put a ban on junk food. While you may be very responsible with your food-stamps, many others will see it as free monthy money.

Instead of considering that snickers bar or monster drink at the convience store, they will do an impluse-buy on these junk food items knowing that they can use their food-stamps card because it's not money they actually worked for. It's just money that they are getting for free.

Putting a ban on junk food prevents this impulse buying. It doesn't hurt the people who were already responsible, it just helps control the people who aren't responsible.

If anything, vitamins should be available on food stamps. It's just so absurd that you can buy a twinkie with a program that is about helping people eat nutritional food.

And yes.. the program is about getting "nutrition". Just go read the mottos on your state's website. I'll bet it says someothing about nutrition in there.

originally posted by: Soloprotocol

originally posted by: tridalop
So this is why US national debt doubled over 8 years. Too much welfare.

Yip. The poor are to blame for everything..Not the Banks, Not the politicians, not the endless Wars and the countless dollars the pentagon loses, not the corporate shysters who bleed as much tax dollars from the people as they can get their greedy hands on....The Poor, it was them what done it.

GREAT movie on the great recession...



Bonus reel explaining how the economy nearly collapsed:

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: Indigo5

How about break up big monopolies,

I am a fan of that...whenever one player dominates an industry sufficiently where they price competition no longer exists and they can over-charge for service or product, capitalism fails and the consumer is abused.

tax everyone equally

Fan of that as well...Now let's define "equally"?

de regulate small business entrepreneurs,

I own 3 different businesses..never had regulation problems. Dergulating "small business" is code for deregulating huge businesses that want to transfer the costs of polluting onto American Citizens. "De-Regulation"??? I think you will find what the GOP has in mind will not effect anyone but the stock holders and executives of large Banks, Energy companies etc. I wish it wasn't so, but never seen anything that even hinted otherwise.

subsidize them instead of conglomerates.

It's tricky to have government place bets on industries...I'd rather have them place bets on geographies...Easy loans, tax breaks and subsidies for New Businesses large and small through Apalachia and other long-time suffering rural regions of America.

Hate to break it to the world, the last country to do that sort of thing was wiped out by NATO.

Gaddafi was a mad-man and a dictator.

a reply to: blueman12

You can impulse buy with a debit card. Budgets are budgets, if you have X in food stamps and Y for food that you're buying without food stamps, you just buy the candy bar from Y.

a reply to: Indigo5

Gaddafi was a mad-man and a dictator.

He wanted to unify Africa and make it independent from the world bank and IMF.

Thats why they killed him and destroyed Libya.

more poor people , including more poor white people.

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: Indigo5

Gaddafi was a mad-man and a dictator.

He wanted to unify Africa and make it independent from the world bank and IMF.

Thats why they killed him and destroyed Libya.

He also had his military plan and execute blowing up a civilian airliner over Scotland...he was a terrorist..

originally posted by: Indigo5

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: Indigo5

Gaddafi was a mad-man and a dictator.

He wanted to unify Africa and make it independent from the world bank and IMF.

Thats why they killed him and destroyed Libya.

He also had his military plan and execute blowing up a civilian airliner over Scotland...he was a terrorist..

You didn't watch the video I already linked, the trial witnesses were paid millions to give false testimony in the Lockabee trial against him, since have recanted their testimony.

You should watch one more video, all the way thru.

a reply to: xuenchen


Remember when that thing happened towards the end of 2008 under the Bush administration which lead to Americans losing their jobs and or homes? No, can't be why more people are on food-stamps.

a reply to: Aazadan

That still does not refute the notion that we as taxpayers should not be paying for someone's junk food. Also, not everybody has budgets and will view food stamps as part of their normal real income.

There really is no arguement to support food stamp junk food. Unless one is getting donated junk food.