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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: 516
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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#1. To: Deckard (#0)
(Edited)
I totally approve. Food stamps with the EBT cards has been a scam. They keep finding people using them in casinos, strip clubs, bars, etc. Even before the EBT cards, food stamps were a scam. I once met a young husband/father that I had met through another friend offer to sell me his food stamps for 60¢ on the dollar. I suspected he wanted to buy drugs with the money.
I finally watched those two videos. Awesome. I just wish they would have locked up Achmed's wife and daughter, both very hateful and both obviously involved in his welfare fraud crimes. They should all be deported.
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.
There will be related employment. And I'm not sure that you couldn't largely administer such a program via existing stores. We used to do it with paper food stamps. In an era of much more abundant and flexible technology, I think you could streamline the supply chain and use existing grocery distribution and retail outlets much as you do now. BTW, it looks like this will be all American produce and foodstuffs. You think the farmers in the flyover states might like that policy too? Yep.
Well, like I say, on balance I think it's a good idea. But there will be important consequences of it that are not all positive. On balance, yeah, do it. As an absolute, no. It won't save $214 billion. The ticky-tacky pieces and parts of putting it together and monitoring it will eat up a lot of that. Programs are never efficient.
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. I'm the infidel... Allah warned you about. كافر المسلح
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.
I dunno. You might administer it via the old Bush "faith-based initiatives", for instance. Bring in Catholic Charities, Salvation Army, Samaritans Purse and see what they could do with it. For that matter, you could pretty well just bid out contracts to deliver the goods. Walmart would, of course, snap up most of them and use their supply chain. Since many of these items would be dry goods, Amazon might try for it too. And any time government gets involved, it does create winners and losers. It is inevitable. And there will always be a constituency of those who claim they are being harmed because of any change in gooberment policy. We can't allow ourselves to be paralyzed by this. In the end, it is about getting food to needy people, seeing to it that they are getting only the food they need (not cash, strippers, gambling and drugs). This is not a welfare program for grocery stores and bodegas. They are irrelevant, even if they squeal like pigs lined up at a trough.
Scam artists........... "Contractor promised 30 million meals to Puerto Rico. Only 50,000 were delivered. https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/06/us/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-meals/index.html
Yeah - I posted that one yesterday. Seems that the black woman who owned the company had screwed up at least five other government orders. FEMA Contractor Seeks $70 Million After Failing to Deliver 29,950,000 Hot Meals to Puerto Rico According to CBS, FEMA itself had vetted Brown’s company and proceeded to award the massive contract — despite the Atlanta businesswoman having “had five previous government contracts terminated for ‘not delivering required food’ and her ‘inability to ship products’ — and no experience in dealing with large-scale disasters.” Further, “One government agency put out a notice saying her company could not work for it again. But that warning did not apply to FEMA.” I knew I read it somewhere...........
I remember when the leftards were blaming Trump. We're you one of those leftards?
#2. To: Deckard (#0)
#3. To: Deckard (#0)
The only losers are scam-artists.
#4. To: Vicomte13 (#3)
(Edited)
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.
#5. To: Tooconservative (#4)
#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.
#7. To: GrandIsland (#6)
#8. To: Vicomte13 (#5)
It won't save $214 billion. The ticky-tacky pieces and parts of putting it together and monitoring it will eat up a lot of that. Programs are never efficient.
#9. To: Deckard (#0)
The only losers are scam-artists
#10. To: Jameson (#9)
"Contractor promised 30 million meals to Puerto Rico. Only 50,000 were delivered.
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.
#11. To: Deckard (#10)
Yeah - I posted that one yesterday.
#12. To: Jameson (#9)
Contractor promised 30 million meals to Puerto Rico. Only 50,000 were delivered.
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