Posted on 02/12/2010 1:24:28 PM PST by Touch Not the Cat
Like most farmers markets across the state [California], the one held Sundays in the state capital only accepts cash.
Lawmakers are considering a bill that would help the markets get equipment to accept electronic food stamp benefits cards — joining legislatures nationwide considering similar measures they hope will expand the menu of fresh food options for the poor as food stamp enrollment soars.
"Everything in the supermarket is expensive, and a lot of their fruit and stuff is not ripe," said Tennyson, a 39-year-old grandmother who feeds a family of three on $300 a month. She called California's bill "a good idea."
The supermarket checkout counter-style card readers operate like those used for bank debit cards, except the cards cannot be used to get cash. Only about 15 percent of the 640 markets in the state have the capability.
State Assemblyman Juan Arambula said he introduced the bill to help poor people gain more access to fresh fruits and vegetables because poverty and unhealthy lifestyles lead to obesity and diabetes. Unemployment soars above 30 percent in some communities in Arambula's Central Valley district.
"You have poor people who work out in the field and make very little money, and they can't afford to buy nutritious food for their families," said Arambula, an independent from Fresno.
The need is growing amid the struggling economy, and persistent joblessness.
Enrollment in the federal food stamp program grew by 43 percent in California from October 2007 until October 2009, according to the nonprofit California Budget Project. By comparison, the group says enrollment grew by 6 percent over the same period from 2001-2003, the last significant economic downturn.
...
The Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association, which trains farmers to become independent and sell directly to customers, helped draft the bill.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Good idea.
They had it for seniors here but I didn’t find out until the end of the season. Next year!!!
Just Cally pissing away more money they DON’T have.
What would be a good idea is ending this stupid Food Stamp program entirely.
I agree. Nothing wrong with a better use of taxpayer monies. And using food stamps for more healthful food makes sense.
I lost my job and have been using food stamps for the last four months. I paid in, now I’m withdrawing some of my contributions.
What’s wrong with getting some fresh veggies?
Geez. Some on here are holier than thou and have no compassion or basis of reality without regurgitating bile.
Kindly point out the me the Article and Section of the US Constitution which authorizes Congress to take my money at gunpoint and give it to you to purchase food.
Unfair riposte. You didn't quote goseminoles, who actually pointed out: "I paid in, now I’m withdrawing some of my contributions."
If you want to generalize the entirety of the constitutional illegality of the federal confiscatory taxation system in order to deprive goseminoles of food when he has no other way to eat, you can at least acknowledge that you are referring to someone who has been as fully deprived at the point of a gun as you of his hard-earned work, and who therefore has a right to get some of his own money back as food stamps when he's hungry and without an alternative.
Yes, and welfare queens are entitled to the half dozen government checks they wake up at noon to collect because at some point in their lives they “paid in”, and their 2% make them just as “fully deprived” as the rest of us losing 40% of what we earn.
The reason they’re pushing to include this stuff is that it’s more expensive, and the food stamp program is so obscene that they have to find ways for people to spend the money.
In my area (Crook County / Chitcago), a single person can claim $500 a month in food stamps. That’s far more than I spend on myself as a gainfully employed 23 year old, and the result is watching people load shopping carts full of steaks (just steaks) at the end of the month, and sell the food stamp cards for 30 cents on the dollar outside of Aldi.
Think about how much they have to be flooding the market for them to sell for that much of a discount. And I’m paying for it, while feeding myself for half that.
This is so scary.
I don’t know why the Farmers would want to lose 5% to 10% on Credit Transactions. Unless of course they plan on raising prices by 10%. Which is what EVERYBODY else that accepts Credit Cards does. In My business I have never and never will accept Credit Cards, I tell everybody Cash,Check,or Legal Tender at which time I pull out 2 Silver Eagles and 1 Gold Eagle from my pocket to remind them what Legal Tender is. Yes I carry them everyday. Almost All of my Customers remember when we had REAL MONEY.
If the Farmers were smart and got Organized, they could really put a monkey wrench in the system by immediately DEMANDING Gold and Silver Coin for ALL PURCHASES by GOVERNMENT AGENCIES.
Article 1, section 10
“No State Shall Make Anything, but Gold and Silver Coin, a Tender in Payment of Debt.”
There is NO LAW Requiring Individuals to Accept FEDERAL RESERVE CREDITS. Only Government and Financial Institutions.
Now the First State to go down this road will mark the Beginning of restoring our Republic. Refusal to Accept Federal Reserve Credits at the State Level as required in the Constitution.
After the the Farmers have been treated By the State,and Government in General, “Delta Smelt” why in the Hell would they ever get into bed with them?? These are the same people that put them out of work in the first place. 3/4 of the Largest Food Producing Valley in the WORLD is Barron and growing NOTHING, precisely Because of Government.
I recently saw a woman buying prepared fruit (already cut and packaged, ready to serve) at Walmart. She used her food stamp card to pay $38.00 for fruit she could have gotten and cut herself for waaaay less than half that amount.
The rest of us slobs buy fruit then wash, core, pare, cut and slice it ourselves. The food stamp card people get to buy the best.
It is not the job of the government to provide food, clothing or shelter for its citizens.
It is the responsibility of the CHURCH to ensure that people have food, clothing and shelter.
Unfortunately in the United States, the government has illegally usurped this responsibility from the Church.
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