Panera guy thinks food stamps are not enough?

[silencertalk]

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video ... e.cnn.html

Yes, on $4.50 a day, you cannot just eat anything that you desire. I used to buy either Ramen noodles or the 5-for-a-dollar generic macaroni and cheese. Oatmeal or rice is just 9 cents per serving. It is nice that Panera has the no-set-price cafeteria, but that is pretty awkward. Maybe he should just take food stamp cards but charge 1/2 the amount for people using them. Panera is pretty expensive - about $9 for a sandwich that feels like it should cost $7.

[doubloon]

Aren't food stamps supposed to augment your food budget?

Living in "poverty" doesn't mean your only source of income is the government. There are plenty of professional people out there with jobs who qualify for food stamps because of the number of people in their household in relation to their income.

I know there are people out there who struggle for meals but to put that number at 48 million is intellectually dishonest (or ignorant) drama.

[rogerme]

In Maine we offer so much more then just mere food stamps.

Food stamps
Free Car repair
Free Home repair
Free oil ( heat )
Free electric
Free phone
Free medical care
WIC extra free food
Free refrigerators
Free freezers
Free rent
Free transportation ( to get on more programs )
The towns give out free cash if the above has not meet you're needs

And this is just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Of course while these are FREE for the folks getting it folks like me pay higher taxes and fee's of every type to fund them.

[silencertalk]

In MA we have a nearly free taxi called "The Ride."

http://www.mbta.com/riding_the_t/access ... =7108#Ride

THE RIDE paratransit service provides door-to door, shared-ride transportation to eligible people who cannot use fixed-route transit (bus, subway, trolley) all or some of the time because of a physical, cognitive or mental disability.

[robpiat]

I agree with the concept of providing food for the hungry, one way or another. No issue with it.It SHOULD be a shitty life though. I think the food stamp elgible foods should be one small section, all off brands, and just the staples.

I'm sorry this d-bag has trouble with it. Honestly he'd probably be whining about eating my diet of cereal, fast food, and burgers/ chicken on the grill. If he's whining about too many carbs, I think he has never really been hungry.

[rogerme]

I agree with the concept of providing food for the hungry, one way or another. No issue with it.It SHOULD be a shitty life though. I think the food stamp elgible foods should be one small section, all off brands, and just the staples.

I'm sorry this d-bag has trouble with it. Honestly he'd probably be whining about eating my diet of cereal, fast food, and burgers/ chicken on the grill. If he's whining about too many carbs, I think he has never really been hungry.

I disagree that money should be taken form one to give to another. Not the Governments job. There are charities that can do it. As we can clearly see when one can get something for nothing to many will do nothing. When one can not get things for doing nothing surprisingly they get out and do stuff to earn money.

[silencertalk]

True but there are some people who really are disabled. Homeless people are mostly mentally ill and really cannot work.

[doubloon]

It is a complicated problem.

I am somewhere between f*k them all, let natural selection run it's course and helping those who truly need the help and are not taking on additional, unnecessary burdens like children or drugs.

I'm really not interested at all in being *forced* to help the malcontents or ne'er-do-wells who are the habitual leeches of society.

[eric10mm]

Aren't food stamps supposed to augment your food budget?

Living in "poverty" doesn't mean your only source of income is the government. There are plenty of professional people out there with jobs who qualify for food stamps because of the number of people in their household in relation to their income.

I know there are people out there who struggle for meals but to put that number at 48 million is intellectually dishonest (or ignorant) drama.

And that was a choice they made. Don't breed them if you can't afford to feed them! Why should I, through the taxes that are taken from me, have to pay for another's bad decision making skills???

[eric10mm]

True but there are some people who really are disabled. Homeless people are mostly mentally ill and really cannot work.

BALONEY!

Trash needs picked up, gutters need cleaned, ditches need dug, hedges need trimmed, grass needs cut, etc, etc, etc. There are PLENTY of tasks that cities pay Public Works Depts for which could be performed by welfare (a generic term for all assistance programs) recipients.

If you disagree, please explain why.

[jreinke]

True but there are some people who really are disabled. Homeless people are mostly mentally ill and really cannot work.

BALONEY!

Trash needs picked up, gutters need cleaned, ditches need dug, hedges need trimmed, grass needs cut, etc, etc, etc. There are PLENTY of tasks that cities pay Public Works Depts for which could be performed by welfare (a generic term for all assistance programs) recipients.

If you disagree, please explain why.

Every time I've heard of a city trying this it was always squashed by the city employees' UNIONS.

[silencertalk]

If you disagree, please explain why.

Because mentally ill people make terrible workers. You would have to organize a chain gang to get anything out of them.

[rogerme]

If you disagree, please explain why.

Because mentally ill people make terrible workers. You would have to organize a chain gang to get anything out of them.

Maybe so. However if they are not my family I am not responsible for them. Why is it my boy can not have a PB&J in school because one kid is to stupid to learn to stay away from it? Why is it when I built my office years ago I was forced to spend 5 grand extra to put a handicapped ramp and handicapped bathroom in when I never had one person that was handicapped apply to drive one of my trucks? I could go on but I think the point has been made.

[doubloon]

I'm borderline OK with rounding people up who can't take care of themselves and putting them in some kind of asylum. That is about the only way I'm OK with using my tax dollars to completely support someone but we're not talking about an environment much different from prison.

I'm also willing to cut people some kind of break for taking care of their own elderly or dealing with a disabled child. The problem with disabled is agreeing on what constitutes "disabled". It's almost as bad as agreeing on the point between fornication and severing the umbilical that life begins.

I have no sympathy for people popping out babies irresponsibly.

I also don't care to give any freebies or support to people on drugs, alcohol and tobacco included. Not because I consider recreational drugs wrong but because I consider them a luxury unless you're growing it yourself.

[silencertalk]

I bet most people who are disables would not be disabled if they lost 100 lbs.

[doubloon]

Or were faced with choosing between living in an institution or getting a job.

[rogerme]

Or were faced with choosing between living in an institution or getting a job.

Yep.. If there where no welfare the amount of people who "needed" it would drop by 90 plus percent.

[silencertalk]

I agree with that. Maybe not 90% but at least 70%. May not right away but when people figure out that you don't get free money for more kids they will start choosing to not have kids they cannot afford. Also we should kill the anchor baby concept.

[acg1911]

I guess I'm odd-man out, here. Let me explain.

As a child of a blue collar father and a stay-at-home mother, I ate a few meals at the expense of taxpayers. My father, a welder and shipbuilder, became very ill with ulcerative colitis when I was a child. Loosing blood into the toilet makes it a little hard to have energy. Needless to say, my father could no longer work, bills stacked up, and things became pretty tough. As a result, I grew up poor. Five people in a 600 sq ft house, clothes from the thrift store etc. No cable, no A/C, not even a TV most of the time (I didn't have color TV until I got back from my first deployment and got married, and that was 1991). If it were not for food stamps and the aid of family and our church, we would have had a hard time with food. I felt shame when my mother used food stamps and shame when I used my subsidized school lunch card, but I was not hungry. Most times a pot of beans with cornbread is what we ate, not ribeyes or oysters. Now, I'm not advocating a food stamp lifestyle or buying non-staple food with food stamps, but I'd be pretty hypocritical to say we shouldn't help those who can't help themselves.

As gunowners, we sometimes pigeon-hole ourselves into political camps. I am not an advocate for a socialist state. I vote LP when available, but feeding children with my tax dollars is not something I get upset about. Upset about feeding the MIC, foreign aid to terrorist countries, wasting money on the space station, being mercs for the Saudis? Sure, but feeding the hungry is not a problem for me.

If you look at the real cost of food, accounting for farm subsidies, a pound of ground beef costs about $6 per pound. With that in mind, many of us have unwittingly had a meal or two at the expense of taxpayers.

I'm not trying to convert anyone to progressiveism. Just offering the perspective of a productive taxpayer who was once on the receiving end of socialism. Still am, if you consider the ground beef.

Or, maybe it's the Pabst talking.

[silencertalk]

I just saw a 3 year old who was helped by ObamaCare.

Well of course when you take money by force from the top 50% of earners and give it away to the remainder, some percentage of those people will be people who you don't mind helping. The question is - is healthcare and food a right? The answer is no. A right is something you have already, not something that you are given and costs other people money.

But as a fairly rich country, should we do it anyway? I would say yes, but with limits. Like no additional benefits when you have additional kids. And no illegal alien benefits except maybe emergency room but then only with deportation and a bill.

[doubloon]

..., became very ill with ulcerative colitis ...

This sounds like it is within the realm of disabled to me. I know I listed only a couple options but it was not meant to be an exhaustive list,only examples.

So you're not entirely the odd man.

[doubloon]

...
But as a fairly rich country, should we do it anyway? ...

Voluntarily only through charitable contributions.

I was talking to someone the other day who is retired and self insured. They told me the day Obamacare goes into effect their insurance company said their premiums would jump from ~$800 to ~$2200.

If this is true, the impact of this is much more broad than taking from the top 50% of the earners.

[silencertalk]

The is because ObamaCare has a minimum set of benefits that are more than what some people want. He should just see if it is cheaper to not enroll in the mandatory insurance.

[YugoRPK]

It is a complicated problem.

I am somewhere between f*k them all, let natural selection run it's course and helping those who truly need the help and are not taking on additional, unnecessary burdens like children or drugs.

I'm really not interested at all in being *forced* to help the malcontents or ne'er-do-wells who are the habitual leeches of society.

I'm more in the F--k them all crowd. If they are poor, female and half decent looking they can make internet porn or hook themselves out if they can't find a job. Otherwise starve to death until you get tired of starving and decide to work to keep yourself alive.