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Title: Trump Budget Would Swap Food Stamps With "100% American Grown Food"
Source:
Information Liberation
URL Source: http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=57949
Published: Feb 12, 2018
Author: Chris Menahan
Post Date: 2018-02-13 09:23:29 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 502
Comments: 12
President Trump's new budget proposes reducing EBT card (food stamps) payments and swapping in "100 percent American grown food" boxes distributed directly to recipients. 
From Bloomberg:In what would be one of the biggest shakeups of the U.S. food-stamp program in its five-decade history, President Donald Trump is proposing to slash cash payments and substitute them with "100 percent American grown food" given to recipients.
The changes, outlined Monday in Trump’s budget proposal, would reshape the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which supports roughly one in eight Americans, by reducing cash spending by about one-third from current levels.
The plan is part of an effort to reform SNAP and save a projected $214 billion over a decade. It would give all households receiving more than $90 a month in cash a food-aid package that would "include items such as shelf-stable milk, ready to eat cereals, pasta, peanut butter, beans and canned fruit, vegetables, and meat, poultry or fish," according to the proposal.
This would help greatly to cut down on fraud. As it is now, criminals frequently buy other people's EBT food stamp cards and use them to stock their stores.
The so-called USDA America’s Harvest Box "is a bold, innovative approach to providing nutritious food to people who need assistance feeding themselves and their families -- and all of it is home grown by American farmers and producers," Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in a statement. The program would provide food-stamp recipients with "the same level of food value" as the current system, Perdue added.
The food stamp program served 42.2 million people and 20.9 million households on average during the 2017 fiscal year. The average household benefit was $254.14, thus 81 percent of homes receiving aid would be included in the initiative, according to the USDA. SNAP assistance cost $68.1 billion in 2017, with $63.7 billion given out as benefits.
WKBW explained how the scam was run back in 2016:According to the Erie County District Attorney's Office, between October 9, 2014 and March 21, 2016 [Buffalo deli owner Ahmed Alshami] is accused of buying EBT (food stamp) cards from people willing to trade them for cash. He usually paid people half of what the cards are worth.
This is huge problem.
It is alleged that Alshami would use the food stamps to buy items to be sold in his store. In some instances, it is alleged the defendant would tell the original card holder to go to Tops, Wegmans, Walmart, or another "big box" store and buy the items for him.
Giving people a choice of actual food options would allow people to have access to a relatively healthy range of foods in so-called "food deserts," help American food manufacturers and farmers, and cut down on fraud.
This is a win-win-win for taxpayers, welfare recipients and American businesses.
The only losers are scam-artists. (2 images)
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#3. To: Deckard (#0)
While I agree that, on balance, it's a good thing to reduce the costs of the program and improve the quality of the food supply of the poor by directly giving them surplus food that the government has already paid for through crop subsidies and farm stabilization payments, it isn't really true that there are no losers besides scam artists. Most food stamp money is not spent on criminal activity but on food, and it is spent at grocery stores and bodegas all across the country, particular those stores that serve poorer areas. If the government gives 50 million people their food, thereby saving $214 billion dollars, that's 50 million people who won't be shopping in the commercial grocery stores, and $214 billion that won't be spent in private businesses, generating taxes and employment. The grocery stores and bodegas that serve poor areas are going to be hit very, very hard by this, and many will go out of business. It's the inevitable unintended consequence. Does that mean we shouldn't do it? No. But it does mean that honest people will lose, and businesses will be crushed by this policy.
And just like that, you're dubbed a filthy libtard. There is NOTHING you could ever do, say or post to change my mind. You are the problem with society. You disgust me. Don't bother posting back. I'll ignore you.
#7. To: GrandIsland (#6)
You version of knee-jerk, hate-filled conservative Republicanism has lost. Regardless of which party wins, the country continues to march further and further away from you and your kind, because most people simply do not want to live in the angry wasteland your ideas would create if you and your ilk won. But you can’t win. You’ve lost, and you and your type will keep losing, all the way to the end.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestThe only losers are scam-artists.
#6. To: Vicomte13 (#3)
Most food stamp money is not spent on criminal activity but on food, and it is spent at grocery stores and bodegas all across the country, particular those stores that serve poorer areas. If the government gives 50 million people their food, thereby saving $214 billion dollars, that's 50 million people who won't be shopping in the commercial grocery stores, and $214 billion that won't be spent in private businesses, generating taxes and employment.
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