Posted on 01/18/2017 7:36:41 PM PST by nickcarraway
UPDATE: Sheila Butt announced on Tuesday that she is withdrawing the bill. Read more about that here.
Tennessee, more than 1 million people depend on benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to put food on their tables. Rep. Shelia Butt, R-Columbia, introduced a bill that would stop people from using those benefits, know as SNAP or food stamps, to buy foods high in calories, sugar and fat.
Some people in our area think the bill is a good idea.
"Milk and food items is fine," said Alan Rogers. "That's what they're for. Just to sustain life. All this other stuff is extra stuff." Walter Little says he can see both sides.
"It's a two-way street," said Little. "It's a good idea health wise - but a lot of people don't want to be told what they should eat and what they shouldn't eat. I'm 69 years old. But I jog, I work out and I try to eat healthy. But this is my belief. And I would hate to force my ideas on someone else."
The bill says food "without any nutritional value" would be blocked. People would not be able to use their benefits for things like soda, ice cream, cookies, candy and cake.
Rep. Butt also proposes establishing a list of banned foods that would be made with help from the Department of Heath and Human Services using recommendations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
"All the public pays for food stamps and I think there ought to be rules on it," said Rogers. "There has to be. It just can't be wide open."
If the bill becomes a law, it will take effect in July.
The drug dealers’ SNAP scam could easily be ended by using signature verification.
Yes, death is not too harsh a punishment.
Junk food advertising is a large share of media income.
Remember
“Monday has a feel. Tuesday has no feel.” or whatever?
ALSO gone - they clip 2 or 3 secs here and there and jam in more commercials.
At least in my area. That’s why I’m not as well-studied as I once was.
There should be a statue of limitations!
Hard to devise a method to give away food that wont be corrupted in some way.
Sheesh, even I remember when commercials were only two minutes.
“I’m all for exempting junk foods from Food Siamps.
But packaging has to make it easy to tell or there’ll be chaos at the cash registers.”
Easy to solve; no packaged, processed or canned food. Food stamps should be limited to four areas:
1. Fresh fruits & vegetables
2. Fresh Dairy like milk, cheese, eggs, cream of all kinds - excluding deli
3. Fresh and frozen meats - excluding deli.
4. Household cleaning supplies like soap, shampoo and detergents.
If they want a starch let them buy potatoes, yams, taro other starchy root vegetables. This would force them to cook and cooking is a marketable skill. If they want a loaf of bread or bag of macaroni then find a way to pay for it in cash.
No bread, no noodles, no beer, no pizza, no coffee, no tea, no soda, no candy, no canned items, nothing frozen except non-processed meats, no tobacco. I am not against those things if you buy them with your own money.
This would remove most of the fraud. I don’t mind people using the system buying nice thing. I just want them to buy food and not junk. I also want the system to be a little inconvenient so that that they have a built in incentive to get off it.
Agreed. Pass out some cheese, some whole chickens, some vegetables, eggs, butter, plenty of potatoes, rice. Maybe some apples and oranges. And make them come in to an embarrassing TAXPAYER FUNDED FOOD OFFICE to get it.
One day of cleaning a house or putting up drywall needs to give you better food than if you just smoked pot on the couch all day.
It ticks me off every time I see it. Because I’m ready to follow the lines and poof! - gone.
They almost NEVER show the PR NYC episode, either. I can’t recall the last time I saw it. Liberal Seinfeld - victim of PC hysteria.
I still have my hand-held TV’s. Used to keep one in my briefcase and my SUV (oops). Still have 2 of them.
Wondering if I can hot-wire their antennae to the decoders I still have (I have a couple left). Only a nerd could endure such a setup....
I’m on SNAP. After working
for 45 years (half with a
paralized left arm and
shoulder), I can no longer
do the job I love. I can’t
sweep a floor, do dishes,
cook, or lift anything over
20 lbs. It’s difficult to
change one’s eating habits.
We no longer buy steak, opting
for items we can make 2 or 3
meals from. We’re allotted so
much per month, and towards
renewal time we eat a lot of
leftovers. It’s blatantly
obvious when the SNAP program
is being abused.
My mother, after her divorce,
had 5 kids to raise. She would
sell some of the food stamps
she received to buy non-food
items like deodorant, toilet
paper, toothpaste, etc.
We, as youngsters, would wait
in the car at night while she
raided an onion or corn field.
We never went to bed hungry.
She would also fish and hunt
(without a license) to put meat
on the table. Ammunition was
purchased with bartered food stamps.
I'd suggest food stamps should be limited to nourishing food. Sodas, bottled teas, candy, cakes, cookies, and other desserts should be ineligible. Any beverages with 0 calories, such as bottled water, coffee, and tea should be ineligible.
My program can be staffed at no additional cost by retasking those current federal employees whose firing by Trump are currently on hold because of union or civil service actions. They'd continue to receive their current wages and benefits while collecting the necessary BMI data in locations convenient to the applicants. Thus providing useful Federal services for the duration of their employment after Trump decided their prior services were no longer required. Such contact between the Federal client culture and the Federal employee culture will benefit and reduce both.
I am perhaps a little more generous than others: I’d prefer to see some sort of arrangement where food stamp recipients received two different types of stamps.
One, which would be 90% of the monthly giveaway, would only be good for generic foods, house brands, staples, cheaper cuts of meat, and so on, only up to the average cost of what was available in the area. (Yes, I know, this would perhaps “unfairly” advantage chains like Aldi!)
The other 10% could be used for almost any food item desired (excluding alcohol). Basically, the idea would be to encourage those “luxury” stamps to be used or even saved up for something nicer, treats, holiday meals, and the like.
The food stamp program is administered on the state level. Makes sense for this law to be enacted at the state level.
I could almost agree with you, but then I looked at that receipt more carefully:
5x 24-packs of Mountain Dew??!! $33.95 (after the in-store savings) PLUS the deposit ($12 for the 5 packs), adds up to $41.95 — almost 30% of the total.
I hope that person was stocking up. Whatever happened to water? (And I say that as a person who’ll often drink maybe one can of Diet Sundrop if I need the caffeine to stay alert when working late or driving.) (If I need more than one can, it’s time for bed or a rest stop!)
We can't afford them. Pop and ice cream are a treat in our house.
So why are we paying for so other people can have them?
It is like going to a restaurant and seeing you can only afford beans and rice but being told your purchase is helping feed the guys at the other table having surf and turf.
When I was in grad school I became ill. After 4 surgeries in 4 years I could no longer work. I spent a whole year in bed, and I could not take care of my family. I went to the welfare office, and got on food stamps. I was so ashamed, but I could not work. The amount of food stamps we received for one month was enough to feed my family for about 3 months, we always had a lot left over at the end of each month. To all the tax payers out there I hope you understand how grateful I am to each and everyone of you. I would only buy staples, no snacks or any junk food.
I stopped getting food stamps the same day that I went back to work, and I still had enough food stamps to last about 4 months. I never ate so well in my life.
The welfare system being reformed with proof of citizenship (not just residency) reviewed time limits , on-site case management at the current address, SNAP food restrictions and drug-testing to qualify. The moochers would no doubt run for the hills and we could probably pay off the national debt in record time!
Never should have been introduced in the first place. This is the kind of busy-body, social engineering, I-know-better-than-you, government micro-management type bill I would expect from petty Democrats who want to control everything we say, think, breath, eat and drink.
I can understand wanting to restrict the ton of freeloaders out there who shouldn't even be getting foodstamps, particularly illegals. But instead of going after individual freedom of choice, which IMHO is a fundamental American right (IF you're actually an American), go after the excessive funding and who gets the food stamps. If the gibsmedat crowd doesn't get a ton of foodstamps to piss away on food items in the first place, whether designated "healthy" or "unhealthy" by some government bureaucrat, then the real problem has been addressed.
When I was doing a pediatric case in Austin, I was shocked when I walked in the house and saw a grocery store of food which was piled to the ceiling....of every type of canned or packaged goods, including sodas. There was barely enough room to make a path through the house. Turns out that she and her boyfriend would raid all the local food pantries every week and she would sell stuff for cash out of her home.
And children in the house are getting free lunches and breakfast in school
Yep! And we wonder why most lifetime welfare recipients are large and in charge. They live in a grocery-rich environment.
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