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Welfare drug testing is the wrong way to go. The last thing we need is another government program to do anything.

Actually, it's not another government program, it's an already existing government handout program that adds requirements to simply prevent subsidizing luxury items. If they can afford alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs, then they can afford to buy their own food.

That said, I fully agree with several of your ideas regarding making the purchasables more restrictive. I was at Whole Foods the other day and some lady in front of me had a huge cart with their organic fancy steaks, fancy veggies, etc. and she paid for most of it, ~$80, with an EBT card, and the remaining $30ish with cash (had a whole wad of 20s in her nice-looking wallet).

If anything, we should definitely restrict them to basic staples of foods: cheap meats like chicken/pork/ground beef, beans, rice, veggies, flour, etc., as well as getting rid of the auto-deposited debit card. Go back to actually issuing food 'stamps'. And they're subject to random drug testing (minimum once/year, plus when they first sign up) when they pick up their stamps.

I would bet even just a couple of these changes would cut the food stamp costs by half at least.

The food stamp program isn’t an area I’ve given much thought to, but here goes:

Kids in school are fed free or reduced-price meals, and most schools now serve both breakfast and lunch.

Kids 5 and older are therefore fed. If they truly come to school hungry, let them eat more at the two meals provided.

Kids under 5, what to do? Here, some sort of extension of the free or reduced-price program could be set up. Meal tickets exchangeable for pre-packaged complete meals could be issued to those who qualify for them. Food companies would rapidly develop those meals to meet the demand. Special debit cards could be issued that could only be used on the qualifying pre-packaged meals.

Adults: Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit to replace food stamps completely, but instead of returning all of the tax credit at tax filing time, issue debit cards and add 2% of the annual tax credit to the card every week so that money is available weekly to spend on food and other needs.

If they want to spend it on cigarettes and alcohol, so be it. This is still America, after all.

In other words, replace the food stamp program with a) sufficient funding for all schools to offer breakfast and lunch programs, b) a pre-packaged kid’s meal program for those under school age, and c) an expansion of the EITC to incorporate food stamp spending.

Then structure the EITC so that it doesn’t hamper an individual’s efforts to join the work force.

And finally, tackle most of the other welfare programs the same way.