BearMtnHIB wrote: [Eliminate the program. Turn this function over to the private sector where it can be properly managed.
So I guess you haven't heard that JP Morgan, that fine upstanding PRIVATE SECTOR institution that played such an important role in crashing our economy, has been entrusted with running the food stamp program?
What I mean by that is getting the Federal government out of it - and the state government too for that matter. I think these kinds of charity are better left to local groups.
My example of a local food bank is one way- they can keep a much closer eye on where the food is going, question if it is really needed etc. This person I know who went to a food bank was even asked to show her income. They were able to talk with her one on one.
Yes- as a libertarian I don't want government to be involved in charity work- we see why now with all the fraud taking place. How much better would things be if the fraud went away- and people didn't ask for help because it was the easy thing to do.
BearMtnHIB wrote: What I mean by that is getting the Federal government out of it - and the state government too for that matter. I think these kinds of charity are better left to local groups.
There are more than 40,000,000 current recipients of food stamps. Cutting them all off would totally overwhelm private charities and food banks, which by the way are ALREADY struggling to keep their doors open.
So your "plan" would basically leave millions starving to death. But in a strange way, I almost agree with you that it might be a good idea. So long as people don't see the poverty, they can ignore it or assume it's all a bunch of "welfare queens" and cheats. Maybe if people actually had to see starving children begging outside of the Conifer King Soopers, and bread lines stretching for blocks and blocks at our local food banks, people might get out of the fantasy-land they live in and realize that hunger is a very real possibility, even in the relative affluence of the 285 corridor.
You don't think that relying on charity would create inequities in the ditrribution of food to those who genuinely need it. In hard times food banks do run low on supplies. Who will feed the people if the food bank is near empty in some locations? In rural areas it may be a very long drive to get food supplies if there is no local food bank, definitly a hardship on those who cannot travel easily. It sounds good to say....let the churches and local charities handle feeding the poor, but the truth of the matter is they can barely keep up with the needs they address now, dump everyone who uses food stamps on them and they will be overwhelmed, and people will go hungry, and children will suffer.
edited to add....you and I are on the same wavelength AV.
By the way I do think the lottery winner who refuses to give up his food stamp benefits is a total weasel.
But there are always going to be people who benefit by playing the "loopholes", whether it be a giant corporation that manages to legally pay no taxes on huge profits or a guy like this.
The great president Ronald Reagan - in one of his first moves as president, cut the food stamp program in half. Two years later- he cut it in half again.
Guess what most of those people did- they got jobs. The poverty rate dropped over the next two years.
That's a fact. One of my school assignments at the time involved going to a welfare office and observing the way it worked- and I can tell you that he made it way harder to get on welfare.
Now I'm not saying dump all 40 million at once, but make it harder right away. cut 20% per year for 5 years until the program goes away.
The great president Ronald Reagan - in one of his first moves as president, cut the food stamp program in half. Two years later- he cut it in half again.
Guess what most of those people did- they got jobs. The poverty rate dropped over the next two years.
He cut programs alright, although not as successfuly as you seem to "remember". Nor did people just run out and get jobs. Both unemployment and the poverty rate INCREASED by about a third under Reagan, at the same time the deficit TRIPLED. Here are some other little facts:
Lots more reminders of what the Reagan years were REALLY like, not what the Right now CLAIMS they were like, can be found here:
Yeah, that's how I remember it... That's one of the reasons that by Raygun's second term I tore up my Republican registration card and put "the dark side" behind me.
