Bill to ban using EBT for junk food

Discussion in 'Latest US & World News' started by Doofenshmirtz, Jan 17, 2017.

  1. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Personally, I feel that providing the necessities should not include soft drinks and candy bars. I don't think it will ever happen, but want to discuss what limits, if any, should be placed on which products food stamp recipients should be able to use your tax dollars for.

    Soft drinks would be the first on my list. I don't buy them for my kids and don't want to buy them for their kids either. Its like a triple subsidy. Corn is subsidized to make the HFCS, the soft drinks are paid for, and then they become a burden on the healthcare system once diabetes sets in.

    What do you think?
     
  2. Mircea

    Mircea Well-Known Member

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    I'm all for limiting EBT to fresh, canned and frozen foods only.

    Since I'm paying for EBT, it's my house, my rules.
     
  3. Maxwell

    Maxwell Banned

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    No soft drinks, chips, candy, bottled water, desserts.
     
  4. Deckel

    Deckel Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No limits. They can use it to buy car tires for all I care. Can't get a job if you ain't got tires to get you to it.
     
  5. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Interesting. I couldn't afford to fix my car, but I never missed a day of work. I took the bus until I was able to save enough to get my car fixed. To me, having a car is a luxury.
     
  6. Maindawg

    Maindawg Account closed at members request

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    You would deny people drinking water ? Isn't it enough that we deny then toilet paper and soap. The soft drink corporations would have a fit. Musnt let the children have any cake ?
    Poor children are not driving our debt. Rich bankers are.
     
  7. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I think his point was that bottled water is a luxury. The difference between bottled water and tap is insignificant. I grew up on tap water and can remember the taste of water from a garden hose. EBT cards have a cash allowance for soap and TP.


    What do you think about them spending over 10% on soft drinks? That's more than what those paying for their own groceries spend.
     
  8. NCspotter

    NCspotter Active Member

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    Even though it's illegal, those who are desperate enough to buy products such as alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs will sell their food stamps for cash, then make the transaction that way. Unfortunately, prohibiting more and more products from being purchased via EBT will only work so effectively and for so long before we arrive at other problems.

    The bottom line is that everyone should be responsible for their actions. No one is forcing you to smoke, drink, or consume any other sort of crap like that, so no one else should share the consequences that stem from your bad decisions.

    Personally I think most issues like this are due to bad (or in some cases, nonexistent) parenting and the decline of the family. My parents didn't "forbid" me to have soda, candy, or anything like that when I was younger, but made it clear to me that they were not going to be buying any soda or paying for any fillings, and left it at that. And yes, I do have an occasional soda or candy bar (literally only once a month at most), but I'm not addicted to those kinds of products because I didn't grow up addicted to them as a kid.
     
  9. Genius

    Genius Active Member

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    Of course this should be the rule. It would take a lot of the fraud out of the system.
     
  10. One Mind

    One Mind Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    . I think we should go back to commodities as we had when I was growing up in the 50s and early 60's. Once a month the poor would go to pick them up. Dried beans, dried potatoes , huge cans of peanut butter, huge cans of pork and beef, and these big blocks of cheese. And more. It kept the poor fed and all of the packages had US Gov't on them. If you want to care for your poor, this is the way to do it, and you lessen the risk for abuse. I remember back when we had food stamps, there were businesses who would buy the stamps from you, and give you something like 50 cents on the dollar, and it was rampant here where I live. In Fayette Alabama you could even buy a used car with food stamps, and people did. So, limiting what can be bought with ebt cards is the intelligent thing to do. But more intelligent would be to move back to commodities. And the poor would get better nutrition to boot.

    I am all for helping out the poor, but we would be better off if we had public service jobs like the old CC camps my grandpa worked at during the depression. You make the poor work for their aid, which would cultivate work habits which many of the generational poor never develop. Our welfare programs has been cut too deep, and is a cruel joke. You no longer get enough in ebt food allowances to feed a family for more than a couple of weeks, which is absurd. But we would rather spend billions on war mongering than helping the people out who had their jobs sent to communists. Our economic model no longer values work, unless it is a high tech field, or professional field. Basic labor has little value monetarily, for now they just call it unskilled and you have to draw welfare to survive. Of course you hear this rubbish from mostly right wingnuts that these people need to go to school and prepare themselves for a new economy. What these idiots conveniently forget, or ignore, is that a significant percent of any population is made up of people who are not college or higher education material, for all are not created equal. We used to pay them living wages for what is now deemed unskilled, although much of that work requires skill, and strong backs. This new way of looking at hard work is nonsense, but an excuse for non living wages. If any job is necessary for our society to run smoothly, the trains to run on time. the garbage picked up, then it is worth a living wage. But this economic model that replaced the one that created history's largest middle class, features many business models like walmart that depends upon working poor wages, with the wages subsidized by tax payers. These same walmart jobs used to be done by locally owned businessnes that were decent and moral enough to pay living wages, doing the same work. The American worker has been cluster (*)(*)(*)(*)ed by neoliberalism, and simple human greed of the top dogs. I grew up and live under a different economic model, that was changed beginning in the 80s, and has impoverished working people ever since. But it was aided by the party of FDR being turn coats and no longer representing working people. Thanks to bill Clinton and the treasonous democrats who joined the GOP, leaving working people without a party. This is what beat the dems and Clinton, for trump got these white working class voters. For he was the first person since JFK who at least acted like he wanted to represent their best interests. Which is why both parties tried to take him down, and are still doing it.
     
  11. AmericanNationalist

    AmericanNationalist Well-Known Member

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    GOP to America: We have absolutely NO idea on how to get you out of debt. None at all, so we'll restrict what you eat and drink in the name of 'good health'. Lol. What a sham.
     
  12. Thehumankind

    Thehumankind Well-Known Member

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    They can shift with orange juice or some fruits as alternatives for soda pops and candies.
     
  13. Deckel

    Deckel Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Having a job is a luxury to many.
     
  14. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Bring back government cheese!

    This is not a DEM/CON tantrum thread. Lets at least be honest. No one is restricting what people consume; only what you and I should be forced to pay for. The two extremes would be government supplied crack, and letting people starve. Where do you draw the line.

    I have to respectfully disagree. Many hard working people cannot afford the luxuries many welfare recipients enjoy. My son worked at Whole Foods for 2 years. (High end grocery store) He helped a lot of people get their groceries to their expensive, luxury cars after watching them use their SNAP card to pay.
     
  15. perotista

    perotista Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm all for taking any snack food off EBT cards. Sodas, candy, chips etc. But like you, I doubt it will ever happen.
     
  16. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm torn.

    Part of me agrees with you, part of me hates the government telling people what they can eat and drink and part of me thinks that Washington has far more pressing concerns to focus on.
     
  17. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    One way to try to impose some limits in some states would be to limit purchases to tax-free foods. It would be quite difficult to define what foods and beverages would and would not qualify outside of prohibiting taxable prepared foods.
     
  18. Deckel

    Deckel Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Did he check their license and registration to make sure it was their car? The reality is that you can be living high on the hog one year and be on food stamps the next. It doesn't mean that you have to sell off everything you own first and show up in a sack dress with no shoes. Sure there are people who abuse the system. I have little doubt that this no soda junkfood movement is really about something else though---keeping people from being able to use them at convenience stores that convert them to cash for a big cut of the pie under the guise of selling them $100 in soda and chips when they really gave them $60 in cash and kept $40 of it.
     
  19. Cdnpoli

    Cdnpoli Banned

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    Orange juice has more sugar than pop
     
  20. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I see it as an issue of what the government tells me what I have to buy for others. I don't buy soft drinks, red bull, candy bars, chips, and cake for my kids. Why should I be forced to buy it for their kids?

    I grew up on food stamps. I wore donated clothes and shoes. I am not sure I would have learned to provide for myself if I didn't know what it was like to do without.
     
  21. Zer0

    Zer0 Member

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    I'm quite frankly in support of this. It occurs to me junk food is a luxury food that is not vital to our needs. If you are on assistance and cannot pay your own way why are you buying luxury items of any kind? Maybe if we made junk food harder to obtain it would create a healthier atmosphere in the lower class and middle class. You know, once upon a time in history being fat was a symbol of wealth. I do not endorse obesity but I do think we need reforms. I think this is a measure that should be looked at and passed nationwide.
     
  22. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I am certain they are not stupid enough to have any assets in their own name. If you are living well and end up broke and applying for welfare, you will be denied because you made too much money. Im not sure if abuse is the exception or the rule.
     
  23. dadoalex

    dadoalex Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So, in your house, a six pack of beer is OK but a box of cheerios is not?
     
  24. Collateral Damage

    Collateral Damage Well-Known Member

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    By taking those foods off SNAP eligibility, doesn't say they can't have them, it just means the tax payer isn't paying for them.

    Some tap water is barely drinkable these days, so for some, bottled water is a necessity. Don't know if they can limit it to gallon sized store brand, or at least by brand.
     
  25. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That's a legitimate way to look at it.

    I know where you're coming from. When I was young there was a time I was so poor I was practically starving to death and what little food I could afford was the most nutritious food I could buy. Soft drinks and candy were luxuries I simply could not afford.

    Where you and I differed is that I was never on assistance, and having to pull myself up by my own bootstraps is what taught me how to provide for myself. This is what worries me about welfare programs that remove or diminish the incentive to bust your ass and get off welfare. They encourage dependency, and I think it's immoral to encourage people to stay trapped in it. I suspect you know as well as I do that a person can never be free as long as they rely on others to provide for them.

    There's another aspect to this. Our faux-humanitarian compatriots on the Left who destigmatize dependency and rail against individualism don't seem to realize that people who can't take care of themselves can't help take care of others. We need to encourage people to be self-sufficient individuals so they can contribute to society and help those who truly need it. The cynical collectivist propaganda that individualists want to turn America into some Dickensian nightmare is a lie - nobody wants that.
     

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