I have to disagree, HTR. All of the items are electronically scanned in almost every location in the country. The card is also electronic. Any attempt at scanning an unacceptable item would automatically kick it out. Besides, it doesn’t seem to be hard for folks to reject a cigarette purchase made on the card, so I see no big deal even if it’s done by the cashier.
That process would not be hard or costly. And the study you cite simply says some are frugal. Those who aren’t are still a sizeable number, and if there’s any way to plant the idea that good things happen when people use their own money, then that is a neat lesson to teach.
The study showed enough are frugal that on the aggregate, they spend less of their stamps on snacks and sodas (if those are wastes, as there are valid dietary uses of small amounts of them — even Weight Watchers shows ways to put them into their plan) than cash shoppers shopping with their own money pay for the same.
Apparently you’ve never approached the back end of systems that treat different food items differently. There are often allowances for tax differences. But it’s not as simple as “kicking it out” as you say — often the Link card (as it is called across the country) is not even swiped until the order is ready to be paid for. This puts a burden upon the back end programmers of a hundred thousand groceries to not just find nonfood items, but xzins-grudged food items (how is the card bearer to know prior to checkout absolutely what is to pass?). If a big enough fuss is made and it looks like a frivolous “chips” issue, the cashier usually will swipe a substitute.
And I do not mean less in mere absolute dollars, I mean less of the allowance. People shopping with their own money not only buy a larger proportion of the “naughty” foods — they spend more dollars on them too, than a Link card user does. This was USDA, which is the head agency for these cards, during the middle of the George W. Bush years.
Attempting to live on chips is not the life of Riley either, as anyone with such an unbalanced diet can testify. It punishes itself. Even bums apparently appreciate that fact better than you do.
And even furthermore, you might consider the situation of the very poor with still a home, vs. the actual homeless. Portable foods and, in states which support it, high value fast foods (I challenge you to duplicate some of McDonald’s value menu for the same price), make sense for the homeless who have no kitchen in which to painstakingly prepare things that xzins wants only to grant to any Link card owner.
Long term, this system ought to give way to something like a United Way or other private-charity system with food pantries, soup kitchens, etc. But while it still exists, playing xzins-style games will only hurt the more honest “bums” and will scarcely touch the really game playing ones.