Posted on 02/19/2016 10:38:02 AM PST by nickcarraway
The concept of the food-stamp queen was first proffered by Ronald Reagan during a 1976 campaign speech. "In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record," he told the assembled crowd. "She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans' benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year." Reagan's story turned out to be a gross exaggeration of a minor case of welfare fraud, but since their patron saint conjured her up, conservatives have been unable to rid themselves of the image of the food-stamp queen. And despite her nonexistence, they've tried over and over again to stamp her out.
Their latest attempt takes the form of a bill introduced by New York senator Patty Ritchie designed to keep people from using New York's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to buy things like expensive steaks, lobster, decorated cakes, or energy drinks. "The goal of this legislation is to improve dietary quality and reduce obesity," as well as to "restrict the abuse of the program," reads the bill's memo.
Even if it passes the Democratic-controlled senate, the bill is unlikely to accomplish either goal. According to a 2007 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, "no evidence exists which indicates that food stamp benefits directly contribute to poor food choices and negative dietary outcomes, such as obesity." The majority of food-stamp recipients still buy a portion of their food with their own money, with which they can make as many unrestricted choices as they want.
The Republican fear of "abuse" of food stamps to purchase "luxury items" is founded on a decades-old and highly unrealistic stigma. Last April, when Missouri politicians introduced a similar bill, Representative Rick Brattin told the Washington Post, "I have seen people purchasing filet mignons and crab legs with their EBT [Electronic Benefit Transfer] cards. When I can't afford it on my pay, I don't want people on the taxpayer's dime to." Similar outrage flared up in Kansas when a bill was introduced to limit "a long list of items, including alcohol, cigarettes, concert tickets, theme park tickets, or cruises," and in Wisconsin, where another aimed to strike "crab, lobster, shrimp, and any other shell fish" from the list of available foods. Yet in studies of the diets of people on food stamps, they're shown to eat less seafood than the rest of us, and about the same amount of beef. (How they would buy cruise tickets with their benefits is unclear.)
"It's seeking to legislate urban myths in our society," Milwaukee representative Evan Goyke told WSAU when Wisconsin's bill was in the spotlight. "Forty-one percent of the people who receive food stamps are under the age of 18, and the next largest chunk are the elderly. And they're not eating lobster; they're struggling to get by."
Even the customer said, "I don't think that's right". The girl said "That's what it rang up."
Would the actual register receipt actually say “Debt Food Stamps Tender”? Looks phony to me.
The buyer converted the lobsters and steaks into cash by selling them at 50% off.
When I wake up at 2 in the morning screaming, it’s your fault.
Your winnings, sir.
A few years ago we had dinner at a friend’s house. Steak and lobster!
“Wow - how come such a special dinner?”
“Bob found a job, so this is the last of the food stamps - we’ll have to eat regular food for awhile.”
“The buyer converted the lobsters and steaks into cash by selling them at 50% off.”
True, according to Snopes.
“Why should the parasites and moochers get all the benefits? Why not some for the people that supply the leeches?”
Excellent point. Merchants get taxed, too, and why not have some of that tax money come back to them in the form of sales? I totally agree.
Oh boy. I would have been biting my tongue for sure.
Someone needs to replace her political module.
“One of the things I’ve noticed is the prodigious quantity of soda pop they buy.
That crap is poison.”
It sure is. Once weaned off of it it is nasty too.
My aunt taught me how to cook. It’s old school Southern cooking, but I can stretch a dollar five times as far as my wife when she goes shopping. Greens, cornbread, chicken fried steak and sweet potatoes with cream gravy, from scratch, hoss. Larrupin’! As opposed to a few ounces of deli meat, hummus and a couple little boxes of crackers.
A friend of mine runs a non-profit to help people in Africa.
One of the things they do is have pack-a-thons, where you pay $25 to work for an hour manufacturing just-add-water and heat meals. Two meals a day of this meets all of your nutritional requirements, and actually tastes pretty good.
And it costs about 50 cents per meal in ingredients.
This is what we should be feeding people who cannot afford food, instead of giving them a debit card.
There’s always whiners (many Hollyweirdos) complaining about SNAP not covering the entire food bill for the entire family for the entire month. Sorry to break it to them but the “S” in SNAP stands for “supplemental” meaning it’s merely a bonus, not the whole shebang.
So 41% of the recipients are also getting two free meals five days a week at school. That means almost two-thirds of the ‘assistance’ is redundant and could be easily converted to expendable tax-free income. The system is not only rife with fraud; it is designed to encourage it.
“Everyone I see at the Food Lion that uses EBT usually drives a new car.”
And most of the EBT users I see have to waddle out to their new car!
Well, at least you got back some of what you paid in. Guess Bob doesn't have any common sense to stock the pantry with regular food to tide them over when Bob loses the new job or to throw that extra $ into next month's rent.
I had a friend who was on food stamps for a very short while. The husband got a job like a month or two into the program but the welfare office wouldn't take them off until around the 6 mo. mark. Or so she claimed. She is also on SSI and is more physically fit than I am. Claims she can't work but drives to the city 2-3 times a week to shop and visit. Visits and shops locally on the other days of the week. Goes to the pool every other day. Has a garden and works with kids. I have to plan it out just to do simple daily chores so they don't kill me. Notice the past tense in "had" a friend. Makes me angry thinking about it. That's another government program that is being scammed big time.
Illegal aliens can get SNAP, housing, and Medicaid almost as soon as they walk across the border. They’re given an “immigrant registration number” and a court date for a deportation hearing, then released.
To get welfare benefits, they only need to fill in their “immigration registration number” on the application, which also requires an address. You’d think, then, that the address in welfare records would make it easy to go get ‘em when they don’t show up for their deportation hearing. But noooooo...
So much fraud is being abetted by the US government.
A dope dealer who owned several vacant, blighted 4-plexes was collecting section-8 rent subsidies, and using the rent money to purchase more drugs and expand his drug empire. The apartments were vacant; he just had various women in the neighborhood (who had multiple fake IDs and SS#s) get the vouchers and claim to live there. The rent was auto-deposited into his account. He’d give them kickbacks in cash or drugs. Section 8 is supposed to inspect the properties but didn’t, so it was years before anyone caught on that they weren’t even occupied.
Another woman who owned her house had 2 identities. So she posed as both landlady and tenant, got paid “rent” on the taxpayer’s dime to live in her own house. They should take pictures, or thumbprints. Or something.
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