Obama’s Obesity Campaign Should Include Ending Food stamps
by Big Dog on Jun 1, 2011 at 08:26 Political
While a record number of people are on food stamps the number of obese children is increasing. There is actually no food stamp program now as people receive debit cards to use taxpayer money to buy food and then use their own money to buy tobacco, liquor, and lottery tickets. While many people work two jobs to make ends meet others are living off the food welfare program and enjoying vacation time along the way. Hell, if you have no food expense then it is easy to go on vacation. And when one considers that a number of people on food welfare have children in school getting free or reduced breakfast and lunch (two meals a day provided by taxpayers that ends up in the trash) then the amount of food that can be used to barter increases.
Yes, the food welfare program is also a bartering system where people use their debit card to buy authorized items and then sell them to get some spending money. Those $150 kicks and $200 Tommy Jeans have to be paid for.
This program is under attack, as it should be, and there are plans to cut back on the record 40 MILLION people (up to 44 MILLION for the last few months) receiving food welfare, a number that skyrocketed under Barack O’Bama. It would seem the folks at the Department of Agriculture want the billions of dollars spent on food welfare to go to other things.
I agree. The program should be cut and there should be a definite criteria list used to qualify people. Folks who have cell phones (then again, poor people get them from the government too), cable TV, big screen TVs and several cars should be excluded or severely reduced. People on food welfare think they are entitled to it and have no shame in getting it even if they can afford food. One only needs to look at the story of the man who won several million in the lottery and still kept food welfare. He claimed that people would not make him feel bad about continuing to get the welfare.
And I don’t feel bad about taking it away.
We spend way too much money on food welfare (and all welfare) as we enslave people to government programs. I think that cutting food welfare is a great way to make people step up and accept responsibility for their own lives.
It also helps Mrs. Obama and her eat healthy and make fat kids get skinny program. Childhood obesity is a major problem (which means kids get more than enough to eat) so reduce or eliminate the food welfare for many families and they will have to cut back. The kids will be healthier and Mrs. Obama will feel good about herself.
Perhaps they could also reduce the kinds of items people can buy with food welfare. Reduce or eliminate meat and seafood and make them get more fruits and vegetables. No soft drinks or snacks and more healthy food.
This will help the budget and will help the Obama skinny kid initiative and will force people to get off food welfare if they want to be able to choose what they eat.
Get rid of food welfare for our children’s sake.
Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: food stamps, obamaville, obesity, scam, welfare
Never happen. Liberals are mentally as well as physically fat. Just look at that kook in the baseball hat that “posts” here!
The subject of importance here is food security in needy households but you have to construct elaborate fantasies to make your decision to gut this program sound rational.
You build a myth about fat, lazy, poor people with cell phones and expensive sneakers saving food costs to go on vacation but the reality is you’re calling for slashing a program in which the majority of the recipients are children in single parent homes or the elderly. Most have no income and zero countable resources. Only 10% get other forms of welfare.
Oh, and children are fat because they eat too much so cutting SNAP will help that? Get real. Eating too much is not the major cause of obesity. You’re in the medical field and you should know better.
The major cause of obesity IS eating too much. It is a calorie imbalance and while a lot has to do with eating unhealthy foods packed in calories, the fact is that eating too much coupled with not getting enough exercise is the cause of obesity.
I know people who work in the offices that give out the debit cards for food stamps and you are wrong. The majority of the folks who show up are young who are wearing great clothes and have expensive stuff like iphones. One worker told me her clients had nicer stuff than she does and she is not eligible for the debit cards they are.
The elderly? Perhaps and if that is so then we can agree that Social Security is a failure. It is there as a retirement plan and people should be able to live on it. If they can’t then it is time to scrap it and implement something that will have people eating right in their old age.
You discuss these folks getting food for their poor little cirren but those kids get two free meals a day during the school year. It is hard for me to see how they can’t afford food when their single parent is buying lottery tickets and booze while a smoke dangles from the lips.
Get out in the real world once in a while and see who is abusing the system. Need I remind you how many in California were using gubmint debit cards at casinos? How about after Katrina when they were at strip clubs.
People will spend more and unwisely when it is not theirs and they are not accountable.
Cutting SNAP would be a great start. And these folks should be audited. If they go on vacation, out of the program. If they can afford any luxuries, out of the program. I am tired of coddling people who can take care of themselves.
And it is not my fault someone is a single parent. It is not my kid so why should I pay for it? If I have to pay then sterilize them so they can’t have more.
“The major cause of obesity IS eating too much.”
The calorie imbalance is not eating too much but too much of the wrong food. Your solution to obese children is to starve them? Make note that you have no data to make a connection between children with SNAP and obesity. You just wanted to get in another insult on those you can’t stand so you can feel even more sure they don’t deserve your pennies.
“I know people who work in the offices that give out the debit cards for food stamps and you are wrong.”
And this anecdotal nonsense somehow counters the yearly data driven survey of SNAP recipients?
“Need I remind you how many in California were using gubmint debit cards at casinos? How about after Katrina when they were at strip clubs.”
Need I remind you how 90% of recipients aren’t on other forms of welfare? We’re talking about two completely separate groups of people.
“I am tired of coddling people who can take care of themselves.”
Yes, you’re tired of the children and the elderly. When will they learn to take care of themselves? Plus, you’ve got no time to spend tax pennies helping children in our country. You’d rather spend that on wars that kill children in other countries…
You want to save money let’s just combine all forms of welfare and nutritional assistance programs into one giant program that gives people money on a debit card each month to spend on what they need. We can still limit who qualifies but make no restrictions on what the money can be spent on.
People get up in arms about what recipients spend these dollars on but they don’t understand that the restrictions and enforcement costs us big time. Sure, some people are going to get their card and buy booze and smokes but most are going to feed and clothe their families. You’re going to find now and again somebody who might buy expensive sea food but what does it matter if we’ve managed costs and reduced bureaucracy while at the same time benefiting those who need it the most?
In all your complaints about the program you’ve left out any idea that this is a program that single parents, children and the elderly desperately need.
There you go again talking about spending money on war. Need I remind you that war and the military is authjorized in our Constitution. The welfare you crave is not. I would also tell you that I would rather not have war. You see, those of us who have to fight it pray for peace because we have to bear the burden of the alternative.
However, that does not negate the reality that military spending is authorized and welfare is not. Promote the general welfare is not provide welfare.
Adam, it does not matter what the food is the calories are the issue. If you eat snack food all day but stop when you have reached the number of calories you need to maintain your weight then you will not gain weight, period. If you eat the healthiest food on the planet but eat too much of it and the calories taken in are more than you need to maintain your weight then you will gain, period. A calorie is a measurement of heat and the calorie does not know if it came from a good food or a bad food. A calorie is a calorie no matter what. If you eat 1000 calories from fat (and that is all you eat) each day you will not gain weight and if you eat 3500 calories from fruits and vegetables each day you will likely gain weight (assuming that you burn more than 1000 and fewer than 3500 a day). Fact, and you can look it up.
I think we should reduce the amount of money spent and make strict requirements. Your bogus argument about the elderly and the children is, as usual, a straw man. If they qualify then they will get it. Boo hoo hoo Adam says, by having standards you will take awy from the elderly and the chirren.
BS! If they have a true need then they will qualify and get it. If the elderly couple is goinf on a cruise each year then they don’t need it.
And a large portion of the elderly are doing fine. As usual though, play the victim game while ignoring reality. The difference between you and me, I want to eliminate those who do not need it. You want to pretend everyone needs it and that there is very little abuse.
Oh, and my ancedotal evidence is just as good as your survey. The survey asks the people who are getting free money (free to them) how things are going. If they say that it is of no help and they don’t need it they won’t get it so they have to say they need it to survive.
Sort of like global warming scientists. Theyt keep saying there is global warming so they can keep getting grant money. If they said it did not exist they would stop getting the money.
But nice try.
“Need I remind you that war and the military is authorized in our Constitution. The welfare you crave is not.”
And yet there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent spending on entitlements. It has been upheld by the courts time and again. This argument is meaningless. I’m sure you don’t want to go to war but it’s always worth reminding you what you prefer spending money on.
“Adam, it does not matter what the food is the calories are the issue.”
I agree. I’m well aware of how calories work. I think you’ve lost track of the argument you made. You suggested that kids are obese so they clearly get more than enough to eat. That is what I object to. When considering why a child is obese it’s important to factor in what the child is eating and not how much the child is eating.
“Your bogus argument about the elderly and the children is, as usual, a straw man. If they qualify then they will get it.”
They’re not talking about changing standards. They’re talking about reducing the budget. Somebody has to lose money somewhere. Who do you think that is? Magically only those who don’t need it as bad will lose it and those who do need it for real will still keep getting the same amounts? This must be the same magic that helps tax cuts increase revenues.
“Boo hoo hoo Adam says, by having standards you will take awy from the elderly and the chirren.”
I keep forgetting that for right wingers like yourself, baby talk qualifies as refutation of valid arguments.
“Oh, and my anecdotal evidence is just as good as your survey. ”
You’re not that clear on the definition of anecdotal, are you?
“If they say that it is of no help and they don’t need it they won’t get it so they have to say they need it to survive.”
So you theory is everybody is fine and the program does no good but the folks involved in study of the program want to keep the program going so they just make it up as they go? And you base this on what? Do you know the methodology of the studies?
Are you on drugs? I know what ancedotal evidence is and I know that if you ask people who get something for nothing if they like it they will say yes so they keep getting it.
You want to keep everyone on food welfare when it is obvious that a large number of them do not need the program and that there is little or no oversight so our money is wasted. If we have tight standards and hold people to them then those who actually have a need will get the need met (even if they have to eat ground beef instead of filet mignon) and those who do not need it will be removed. That is what bothers you. People will be kicked off the teat.
It bugs you that a standard should apply and that some folks who do not need the help will not get it. You want more and more people on the teat.
But tell me, why do I have to pay for them to eat? Courts have upheld them? Get real, has anyone challenged them to any degree? And when it comes to defending the country, yes I will pay for war all the time.
I will tell you an ugly truth. The defense budget is smaller than the social programs budget. Defense is about 21% and social programs about 60%. We spend a hell of a lot more on social programs than we do on defense.
But I can help. Make everyone on food welfare who is qualified join the military and they will get fed off that government program.
They will just have to earn their keep.
The calories a child gets is his parent’s responsibility. Obesity is a problem because children eat too many calories and do not get enough exercise. Cutting off the food welfare from those who do not need it will help keep them from eating too much (two meals in school and all that SNAP money is way too much). Let’s make them all work cleaning the roads to earn the food cards.
“I know what anecdotal evidence is and I know that if you ask people who get something for nothing if they like it they will say yes so they keep getting it.”
If you look at the yearly study of participation in SNAP you won’t find them asking people if they like it. It’s a survey of who participates, how they participate, and their economic or family conditions. If you think that means there is bias in the numbers I’m citing then just point it out.
“You want to keep everyone on food welfare when it is obvious that a large number of them do not need the program and that there is little or no oversight so our money is wasted.”
Yes, it’s obvious that they don’t need it because you have a friend who saw some people with nice clothes getting SNAP? Case closed.
“Make everyone on food welfare who is qualified join the military and they will get fed off that government program.”
We generally frown on a military comprised of young children or old people, don’t we? I haven’t been in the military so I’m not 100% sure.
“We spend a hell of a lot more on social programs than we do on defense.”
Correct. Yet, some social programs are more effective than others. SNAP has a high stimulative impact on the economy while also providing for nutritional assistance to children and the elderly. It’s win-win for sane people. For you it’s just another reason for you to hate poor people.
“Cutting off the food welfare from those who do not need it will help keep them from eating too much…”
And how do you decide who needs it? You want to end the program. Don’t go back now and pretend you want to end it just for the abusers. You want millions of children and elderly to go hungry so you can keep more of your tax pennies.
I don’t hate poor people, I hate people who game the system. As far as stimulative impact, get real. it is like taking water out of the deep end of a pool and adding it to a shallow end hoping to raise the shallow end. The money is taken from those who EARN it (and it belongs to them) and given to others. There is little oversight and these programs waste billions of dollars. Hell, they advertise for people to join them. As Ogre said, they measure success by how many people they get on the program.
““Make everyone on food welfare who is qualified join the military and they will get fed off that government program.”
We generally frown on a military comprised of young children or old people, don’t we? I haven’t been in the military so I’m not 100% sure.”
Didn’t you answer this by quoting me? QUALIFIED is the operative word. There are plenty of people who are not too young or too old who can join. Pay attention.
Wow, you want to know how I decide who needs it. It is my money so why do YOU get to decide how it is spent but I don’t get to decide who needs it? There are plenty of ways to qualify (or disqualify) people for the programs based on TRUE need. As usual, you have trouble comprehending. I never said I wanted to end it and am not going back on anything. From those who do not need it is another qualifier (something you have trouble understanding). If Bill Gates applied, should he be approved? If you answer NO then you admit there is a way to qualify people. Now we just need to set those standards.
You have no problem qualifying who should pay more taxes figuring you get to say how much people need of their own money and how much they can afford to pay. Yet you have trouble with the concept of qualifications for handouts.
Tax cuts do increase revenues. However, you can’t cut taxes and INCREASE spending. Tax increases do not increase revenue, that is for sure. When we have tax increases the rich find ways to shelter (and since the Congress writes tax laws to protect their rich friends…) their money. If tax increases solved debt problems then we would have no debt since the tax rates for much of the last century were very high, particularly on the rich.
Cutting taxes increases revenue. Now, if Congress continues on out of control spending then the increased revenue gets spent foolishly on things like food welfare for people who have 2 million dollars in lottery winnings.
You are funny, baby talk qualifies as refutation. No, the words show that you are a cry baby.There is no refuting an argument with a liberal because liberals use emotion to think. That is why they always argue that the elderly and children will suffer when that is never the case. It is why they scream racist all the time. They have no logical argument other than it is some right (though it never is) or that it is for the good of the children.
Hell, the war on poverty was supposed to end poverty. 13 TRILLION dollars later and the same percent of the population is in poverty and the black population is enslaved by Democrats, held captive by social programs and those designed to ruin the black family (as LBJ designed it to).
“There is no refuting an argument with a liberal because liberals use emotion to think.”
No emotion in this argument, just the facts.
Fact: You want to end SNAP as a program.
Fact: The majority of participants in SNAP are children or the elderly.
Conclusion: You don’t care that millions of children and elderly are starving due to no fault of their own and are given valuable dollars to aid their nutrition each month.
“Hell, the war on poverty was supposed to end poverty.”
We have reduced poverty greatly since the time of LBJ but economic growth decreases poverty better and we haven’t seen much of that over the years either.
When you start with a false premise all of your conclusions are false. I never said I wanted to end SNAP. I said that food welfare needed to be reigned in and strict qualification guidelines established to determine who is eligible. Therefore your entire argument is, in fact, false.
The poverty rate is virtually unchanged since LBJ’s Great Society made us not so great.
“The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.” –American statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852)
From The Patriot Post
In a free society, one ruled by the Constitution, there would be no welfare — and there would be a MUCH smaller number of the “poor.”
You have to realize right now that success in the area of welfare is measured by the number of people who get free stuff. So if MORE people sign up, then the people running the program claim that’s success.
Instead, people should be free to help one another instead of forced to give away their earnings. Then, individuals could make determinations of who they wanted to help. If you didn’t want to give food to the guy with an iphone, you could choose not to. It’s worked for hundreds of years and works every time it’s tried.
The reason we have so many “needy” in this country today is because do-gooders want to feel good about themselves by giving OTHER people’s money to “help” (and never their own money).
I believe the Webster quote summed it up that way.
“I never said I wanted to end SNAP.”
Really? The title of this post is “Obama’s Obesity Campaign Should Include Ending Food stamps” and at the end of the post you wrote “Get rid of food welfare for our children’s sake.”
So how can you keep saying you haven’t called for ending SNAP?
“The poverty rate is virtually unchanged since LBJ’s Great Society made us not so great.”
Poverty is much lower than the time of LBJ but you are correct that it is mostly unchanged for several decades. It rises and falls depending on the economic conditions of the United States. The idea that every single poor person in the US needs to be gone or the “war on poverty” failed is similar to your other statements above. You set unrealistic expectations or goals that were not part of the picture to start with and then when these things miss those new goals you call them a failure. You do this all the time.
You want the stimulus to magically have created 9 million jobs in 2 years to be a success. You want the bailout to turn a loser company from bankrupt to a profit on our investment in just 2 years. You want the war on poverty to end all poverty. You certainly call legislation preventing crime a failure since it didn’t stop all crime period. It’s a pattern with you.
Remember, Adam- the road to hell is paved with good intentions-(and worked on by union labor, I am sure).
Yes, that is the title. often a title is part of something and conveys a message to draw attention. The article then calls for the ending of the program for folks who do not qualify or who abuse it. The end calls for ending a program for families that can obviously live without it.
Poverty is about the same percent, not much lower. Then again, the way they measure things and keep changing the standards we might never know.
“As far as stimulative impact, get real.”
Where the money comes from has little to do with how stimulative a dollar is. SNAP funds go out quickly each month and get spent quickly. That’s the definition of stimulative for the economy.
“It is my money so why do YOU get to decide how it is spent but I don’t get to decide who needs it?”
I get the same say as you do as far as opinion goes. A system is set up to determine illegibility that is independent of the compassion I feel for hungry Americans or the selfishness you feel for your tax pennies.
“Yet you have trouble with the concept of qualifications for handouts.”
I have no problem with it. But you’re citing legislation that will trim the budget slightly off the requested increase despite millions more people being on assistance right now. You’re also calling for ending the program all together. You can say you want to change qualifications but we both know you’d just move the goal post again soon. Your side won’t settle until all of these programs are gone and millions are in bread lines waiting on the magical free market to make everything better. It never has before of course, but it will this time, you’re sure…
Trim the budget slightly here, trim it there and soon we have real savings.
This might surprise you but the only time we had breadlines in this country was the Great Depression (a liberal boondoggle) and we had no food welfare all those years. How do you suppose this country survived for so long without all these programs that you claim are necessary when they were never necessary before? They came about because racist liberals and elitists wanted to control people, not because they were any good.
“Poverty is about the same percent, not much lower.”
Look at a graph of poverty rates and you’ll see it was in steady decline at the time of LBJ and continued for several years and then has increased and decreased mostly related to recessions ever since. Poverty is generally about 10% lower than it was in the 1960’s.
“The end calls for ending a program for families that can obviously live without it.”
And I still object to this on many levels. You lecture me on how calories work but then continue to insist families with obese children don’t need SNAP because they clearly eat enough. Of course you don’t know anything about the connection of SNAP to obese children but you’ll keep on twisting the knife.
“This might surprise you but the only time we had breadlines in this country was the Great Depression…”
The problem is our country has changed. We’re much more urban than rural now and this was beginning around and a bit before the time of the Great Depression. We’re much more dependent on shopping than farming our own food, etc.
“They came about because racist liberals and elitists wanted to control people, not because they were any good.”
The racists have consistently been on the conservative side of things all throughout our history. Parties and labels change but your side never ceases to set up camp on the wrong side of the tracks.
The chart shows that when the Great Society took place, mid 1960s, the rates were unchanged and now even more people are in poverty, a trend that has gone up despite spending trillions of dollars. It shows what I have been saying. In fact, it shows that it is worse than I have been saying.
People were not even allowed to grow their own food back then as FDR made them destroy crops under the Interstate Commerce provision. people growing their own affected prices and big gubmint could not have that.
As for racism, the liberals have always been the racists. Conservatives offer chances, Liberals offer subserviance.
“In fact, it shows that it is worse than I have been saying.”
How so? You said the rate was unchanged. You may be looking at the number in poverty. That number has gone up with population. The rate was about 20% in 1964 and declined to a low of almost 10% by 1973. Since then it’s been hovering between 10% and 15% depending on the economy.
“People were not even allowed to grow their own food back then…”
The point still stands. We’re not the same country we were when we were founded. Every century of our history has brought changes and differences. One problem conservatives have is they seem to want to pretend that the way we did things in the 1800’s apply today still when we know better.
“As for racism, the liberals have always been the racists.”
Right. Except of course in the case of slavery, voting rights for blacks, segregation, interracial marriage, or the southern strategy. Conservatives did a fine job with those. But you know liberals promote social policies you pretend are racist so we’re much, much worse…
Right, it does not show it worse or better, just the same, as I said. The rate was has remained between 12 and 15% since 1965 and that is after spending 12 or 13 trillion dollars on it. A few percentage points is not a big deal. If the program worked as intended then the rate would have dropped.
The myth of conservative racism? Not that again.
Liberalism and Conservatism have had different meanings and different beliefs over the years. Modern Conservatism is attributed to Edmund Burke and is believed to be a combination of Classic liberalism and Conservatism.
Liberalism is subdefined because it has has many manifestations with progressive being the most recent. Liberalism in one form or anohter has been at the heart of most racism and conservatism in one form or another has not.
There are racists in both ideologies but liberals have more of them. Their policies are steeped in racist beliefs that the non whites are not capable of fending for themselves and need help of their superior, white, liberal masters. Since 96% of white Americans opposed interracial marriage in the 1950s, it is hard to say that one ideology or another was opposed or in favor.
But it is true that the Conservative Republicans who ended slavery and passed the 13th and 14th Amendments were responsible for the laws that led to the end of the ban. The Civil Rights Acts, all introduced by Republicans and supported by more of the conservatives were responsible for helping to end the laws banning such marriages.
Yes, party names have remained the same for a long time and ideologies have changed but it is true the definitions of those ideologies have changed as well. It is tough to say that a conservative or liberal from 250 years ago believed the same as those of the last 100 years. But the same ideologies, no matter what they were called, were responsible for ending slavery and enacting civil rights and they were all the lineage of the modern conservative.
And yes, liberal spromote social policies that are racist. The goal is to enslave minorities. Refer to LBJ
Yeah, about the myth of the Southern Strategy
“A few percentage points is not a big deal.”
That’s like saying a few percentage points of unemployment isn’t a big deal. It’s a huge deal. We’re talking about literally millions of people.
The Great Society comprised more than just a war on poverty of course but the war on poverty was not a total waste though we know still the most effective attack on poverty is strong economic growth. We haven’t been able to sustain such growth for many years at a time and this explains why for instance poverty dropped greatly again in the 1990’s but then hasn’t been that low since due to the recessions.
“But the same ideologies, no matter what they were called, were responsible for ending slavery and enacting civil rights and they were all the lineage of the modern conservative.”
That is complete nonsense and I have no idea how you come to such a conclusion based on any reading of actual history.
Adam, you must have a one track liberal brain, that operates soley off Al Gores carbon footprints, which is burn it and let is go up in smoke.