Food Stamps and the $41 Cake (1 Viewer)

[boots11234]

Im back. Glad I wasn't posting more or some really smart people might have told me how I should have spent my time instead. I bought my mom a klondike bar because I didn't think she deserved a cake. My brother got some hamburger meat. I felt bad wasting money on them like that because they're mentally ill and poor and don't deserve a moment's happiness. I told them that they should just eat gruel and wait to die but they didn't seem to like it. Or maybe they did. Like many of you, I don't spend any thought at all about actual poor people except how they're always stealing from the tax coffers. Then I rushed back to keep my post count up.

Fred you are making some excellent points in this thread and I honestly think you have some people rethinking their perspective (it wouldn't be the first time you have got me to reconsider my viewpoint) but I wish you wouldn't continue with this refrain. It wasn't a choice between a $41 cake and zero happiness for eternity. Go to any major super market and you will see literally dozens of options between zero happiness for eternity and a $41 cake. If that's how she thought it was best to achieve her goal that's fine, I honestly have no problem with it, her food income is fixed and hers to do with as she likes, but let's not pretend that there weren't other options between $41 ice cream cake and zero happiness.

The thing is, we don't know what's going on in this story. This may be the one big splurge for the year, or ever, for a single mom who fell on hard times and an underprivileged kid is going to get his big day. Or it could be the grafter that others want to see in this story. If we are talking about someone buying a forty dollar cake because its warm out and she likes ice cream, then she's not a sympathetic figure at all. But the assumptions made in the article and by many on this board are pretty myopic. Do I think the state should be in the business of buying fancy cakes for people? Of course not. Do I think someone poor - and by poor i dont mean lazy, but unable to work for whatever reason - is within their rights to use their money on a rare frivolity? I hope so. To be fair, there's a separate function for people like that, like the ssd my brother receives, because our society doesn't want to handle its mental health problems by locking them up in perpetuity and feeding them beans and water. The foodstamps really are intended for necessary food, regardless of whether they go to people on welfare or social security or low income laborers. But then, does it matter if he uses foodstamp dollars or ssd dollars?

According to the author of the article and many on this board, it seems like we can vilify these people for ever spending a dollar we think is unwise, and we can make assumptions about their intentions, and whether they can afford to shop around for better deals, and if they have a place to store or cook their own food. And that's tremendously insulting to the people who have spent their liftimes fighting an uphill battle to stay alive in a country that wishes they'd just go away.

I feel for you any your brothers situation but I still do not agree with you about tax payers not having a say in how their money is spent. Your brothers situation is an exception I believe not the norm and there is a dimensioning return of investment with welfare. Society cannot save everyone for various reasons and I don't believe we should try as there is only a fixed amount of dollars and many priorities. Also it is illegal to lock up people solely for mental health problems but sadly that would probably be best for those folks for reasons your own brother stated.

I'm not on these boards to know enough about particular people, but I am assuming you are a small-government advocate. I can't imagine the additional bureaucracy necessary to implement the bolded. If we as a country decide it is better to give poor people money for food than not (purely on an analytical basis), then we should also analyze what is the best WAY to give that money. I guess we could implement something like the WIC program, which gives money for only certain types of foods (and I am a huge fan of WIC), so maybe you are right; maybe it would work that way.But I repeat: We give poor people a *minimal* amount of food stamp money compared to some other government givaways (compare AFDC to the mortgage deduction, to Social Security). Yet we don't ask middle-income homeowners who get thousands in the form of mortgage deductions whether they are spending too much money on cake. Or SS recipients. It just seems unseemly here.

I don't believe the mortgage deduction is a give away. Letting people keep more of their own money is not a give away. It appears to me that you think the money is the governments in the first place and not the people who paid it in. I would classify a give away as the child credit given to people who paid in say 3000 dollars yet because of the number of children they have get a refund of 5000 dollars. Meaning they got back 2000 dollars they did not earn. Regarding your minimal amount comment, I think this article and the author would agree with you about that, I think he used this example to illustrate that even small amounts add up.

 

[Chaka]

My brother left a note in my car for me. He's been having a hard time interacting with me because I am constantly trying to get him to spend more wisely or save a little now that he's back from an extended stint of homelessness and imprisonment. I think he gets defensive about it because of how hard he had it the last few years. But in his situation, he doesn't get to call timeout and not be poor anymore. This is how life works every day:

So now you tell me: why don't I have a lot of big and tall sized clothes for myself? How could I have "blown" my money when I was living with mom for a couple months? How do I convince you I did. Y best to search for a place?"

I am having difficulty understanding what your brother is trying to convey in the bolded paragraph. Clearly the whole note is a powerful statement on the difficulties of being homeless and how much effort it takes to get out of that cycle. I think the bolded is the statement that ties the difficulty of being homeless with the debate we are having in this thread but I am not sure exactly how.I can even see it is an argument for why people who need food stamps shouldn't be buying $41 cakes regardless of context.

Are you able to clarify that for me?

Sure. I've been telling him the same things others have said in this thread. You need to try to save. You need to spend wisely. You need to get clothes and other necessities.He was homeless in california just a few short months ago, and after I got him back here, he really wasn't ready to jump back in to the day to day routine of living in an apartment and having a fridge. He was used to walking everywhere and being chased around the city by cops who repeatedly tazered him and hurt him. He was badly broken when he got back here, as many homeless mentally ill people are.

His letter to me, unrelated to this thread, was basically telling me that he didn't want me to judge him because he didn't save enough, or buy the right things, or find an apartment fast enough, because he had been living so insanely hand to mouth the last few years that he had very little concept of what to do when he got back.

is that an argument that he shouldn't buy 41 dollar cakes? Sure. I said as much myself. But its also some interesting perspective on why he might not have been able to afford a 1 dollar cake back when he was homeless, because he was robbed repeatedly, and had a lot of expenses that you and I don't think about. And more to the point, he's explaining why he didn't do a great job saving once he got back, because he's still in "take what you can get when you can get it" mode, in a very fight or flight, post traumatic stress mentality. Its a tough adjustment for him.

Its also hard for me. My initial reaction is that he should save, and he shouldnt ever get a pizza or eat takeout, especially if he's going to come back later and ask for money when he can't afford first month, last month and security. He had enough to cover it, in theory, if he had lived on bologna sandwiches and ramen noodles. So now I wonder if I should help him with those things or if im enabling him. Its not an easy question. Hence his letter to me.

Thank you. It is a tough situation you are in dealing with a sibling with mental health problems.Since we don't know the situation of the woman in question in the OP it is difficult to know if it really relates to your brother's situation but I appreciate your perspective and thank you for sharing a difficult situation with us.

 

[Sweet J]

While I still think that a $41 cake was a completely silly purchase, for anyone really but particularly in this specific instance, I think a lot of people who are looking at this mother in an extremely negative light should go back and tally their own expenses for the past year. How much #### have you purchased that you really could not (should not) afford? How much better shape would you be in financially if you made only intelligent, well considered, practical purchases?

People splurge and don't always make good decisions with their money, particularly when it comes to their children. So while I think she could have gotten the same return on a smaller investment it is kind of difficult to fault her for it too much.

Agreed but they key component of your post is "their money"; unfortunately when you get money from someone else you invite criticism.

If you wanted to dissect whose money is really "their money," then nobody's money is theirs. All of us have what we have, at some level, becuase of what we were given by the State. It just is. I know folks don't want to believe it. But it's there.

Would you expand on that a little bit?

I'm sure most people in this thread have seen the Elizabeth Warren quote. I was kind of going there, I guess.

 

[rick6668]

Im back. Glad I wasn't posting more or some really smart people might have told me how I should have spent my time instead. I bought my mom a klondike bar because I didn't think she deserved a cake. My brother got some hamburger meat. I felt bad wasting money on them like that because they're mentally ill and poor and don't deserve a moment's happiness. I told them that they should just eat gruel and wait to die but they didn't seem to like it. Or maybe they did. Like many of you, I don't spend any thought at all about actual poor people except how they're always stealing from the tax coffers. Then I rushed back to keep my post count up.

Fred you are making some excellent points in this thread and I honestly think you have some people rethinking their perspective (it wouldn't be the first time you have got me to reconsider my viewpoint) but I wish you wouldn't continue with this refrain. It wasn't a choice between a $41 cake and zero happiness for eternity. Go to any major super market and you will see literally dozens of options between zero happiness for eternity and a $41 cake. If that's how she thought it was best to achieve her goal that's fine, I honestly have no problem with it, her food income is fixed and hers to do with as she likes, but let's not pretend that there weren't other options between $41 ice cream cake and zero happiness.

The thing is, we don't know what's going on in this story. This may be the one big splurge for the year, or ever, for a single mom who fell on hard times and an underprivileged kid is going to get his big day. Or it could be the grafter that others want to see in this story. If we are talking about someone buying a forty dollar cake because its warm out and she likes ice cream, then she's not a sympathetic figure at all. But the assumptions made in the article and by many on this board are pretty myopic. Do I think the state should be in the business of buying fancy cakes for people? Of course not. Do I think someone poor - and by poor i dont mean lazy, but unable to work for whatever reason - is within their rights to use their money on a rare frivolity? I hope so. To be fair, there's a separate function for people like that, like the ssd my brother receives, because our society doesn't want to handle its mental health problems by locking them up in perpetuity and feeding them beans and water. The foodstamps really are intended for necessary food, regardless of whether they go to people on welfare or social security or low income laborers. But then, does it matter if he uses foodstamp dollars or ssd dollars?

According to the author of the article and many on this board, it seems like we can vilify these people for ever spending a dollar we think is unwise, and we can make assumptions about their intentions, and whether they can afford to shop around for better deals, and if they have a place to store or cook their own food. And that's tremendously insulting to the people who have spent their liftimes fighting an uphill battle to stay alive in a country that wishes they'd just go away.

I feel for you any your brothers situation but I still do not agree with you about tax payers not having a say in how their money is spent. Your brothers situation is an exception I believe not the norm and there is a dimensioning return of investment with welfare. Society cannot save everyone for various reasons and I don't believe we should try as there is only a fixed amount of dollars and many priorities. Also it is illegal to lock up people solely for mental health problems but sadly that would probably be best for those folks for reasons your own brother stated.

I'm not on these boards to know enough about particular people, but I am assuming you are a small-government advocate. I can't imagine the additional bureaucracy necessary to implement the bolded. If we as a country decide it is better to give poor people money for food than not (purely on an analytical basis), then we should also analyze what is the best WAY to give that money. I guess we could implement something like the WIC program (giving money for only certain types of foods (and I am a huge fan of WIC), so maybe you are right; maybe it would work that way.But I repeat: We give poor people a *minimal* amount of food stamp money compared to some other government givaways (compare AFDC to the mortgage deduction, to Social Security). Yet we don't ask middle-income homeowners who get thousands in the form of mortgage deductions whether they are spending too much money on cake. Or SS recipients. It just seems unseemly here.

Apples to oranges and you know it.People that get mortgage deductions arent getting a handout. They get a tax deduction. Any "middle income" person taking a mortgage interest deduction isn't "getting thousands".

Tell you what. Take away the property taxes and the city assessment and I will happily give up my mortgage interest deduction. I will even write a check for an extra grand to any charity you want. Deal?

The mortgage deduction can absolutely be considered a hand out. What services are you providing for this reduction of taxes? And to say it's not worth 000's is bs too. The annual interest on my $280k 30 year mortgage at 5.25% lowered my total tax liability by several thoughsand dollars.

Then you would not be middle income. Perhaps my math is off(which is possible as I just did a quick comparison factoring standard deduction etc didnt consider other factors) but I dont see how your tax liability goes down several thousand dollars if you fall in the 40-60k salary range. I really don't see it in the 75k range either, but again just a quick calc. could be wrong.

How Much Are You Really Saving with the Mortgage Interest Deduction?

 

[Chaka]

While I still think that a $41 cake was a completely silly purchase, for anyone really but particularly in this specific instance, I think a lot of people who are looking at this mother in an extremely negative light should go back and tally their own expenses for the past year. How much #### have you purchased that you really could not (should not) afford? How much better shape would you be in financially if you made only intelligent, well considered, practical purchases?

Me making poor financial decisions with my money is my problemMe making poor financial decisions with your money is a much bigger problem. And the problem isn't this one isolated instance... but rather that this instance is most likely indicative of a trend of abuse of federal assistance.

But it is her money to spend as she sees fit. Buying the cake does not somehow increase the amount she will receive in the future. Are you arguing for ending all government food assistance for the sole reason that this woman is spending it on something you don't think she should be spending it on?I think she made a poor financial decision for herself and her family but I don't see how it impacts anything for the rest of us and I certainly don't think that is a reason for the rest of society to abandon her.

 

[cstu]

Im back. Glad I wasn't posting more or some really smart people might have told me how I should have spent my time instead. I bought my mom a klondike bar because I didn't think she deserved a cake. My brother got some hamburger meat. I felt bad wasting money on them like that because they're mentally ill and poor and don't deserve a moment's happiness. I told them that they should just eat gruel and wait to die but they didn't seem to like it. Or maybe they did. Like many of you, I don't spend any thought at all about actual poor people except how they're always stealing from the tax coffers. Then I rushed back to keep my post count up.

Fred you are making some excellent points in this thread and I honestly think you have some people rethinking their perspective (it wouldn't be the first time you have got me to reconsider my viewpoint) but I wish you wouldn't continue with this refrain. It wasn't a choice between a $41 cake and zero happiness for eternity. Go to any major super market and you will see literally dozens of options between zero happiness for eternity and a $41 cake. If that's how she thought it was best to achieve her goal that's fine, I honestly have no problem with it, her food income is fixed and hers to do with as she likes, but let's not pretend that there weren't other options between $41 ice cream cake and zero happiness.

The thing is, we don't know what's going on in this story. This may be the one big splurge for the year, or ever, for a single mom who fell on hard times and an underprivileged kid is going to get his big day. Or it could be the grafter that others want to see in this story. If we are talking about someone buying a forty dollar cake because its warm out and she likes ice cream, then she's not a sympathetic figure at all. But the assumptions made in the article and by many on this board are pretty myopic. Do I think the state should be in the business of buying fancy cakes for people? Of course not. Do I think someone poor - and by poor i dont mean lazy, but unable to work for whatever reason - is within their rights to use their money on a rare frivolity? I hope so. To be fair, there's a separate function for people like that, like the ssd my brother receives, because our society doesn't want to handle its mental health problems by locking them up in perpetuity and feeding them beans and water. The foodstamps really are intended for necessary food, regardless of whether they go to people on welfare or social security or low income laborers. But then, does it matter if he uses foodstamp dollars or ssd dollars?

According to the author of the article and many on this board, it seems like we can vilify these people for ever spending a dollar we think is unwise, and we can make assumptions about their intentions, and whether they can afford to shop around for better deals, and if they have a place to store or cook their own food. And that's tremendously insulting to the people who have spent their liftimes fighting an uphill battle to stay alive in a country that wishes they'd just go away.

I feel for you any your brothers situation but I still do not agree with you about tax payers not having a say in how their money is spent. Your brothers situation is an exception I believe not the norm and there is a dimensioning return of investment with welfare. Society cannot save everyone for various reasons and I don't believe we should try as there is only a fixed amount of dollars and many priorities. Also it is illegal to lock up people solely for mental health problems but sadly that would probably be best for those folks for reasons your own brother stated.

I'm not on these boards to know enough about particular people, but I am assuming you are a small-government advocate. I can't imagine the additional bureaucracy necessary to implement the bolded. If we as a country decide it is better to give poor people money for food than not (purely on an analytical basis), then we should also analyze what is the best WAY to give that money. I guess we could implement something like the WIC program (giving money for only certain types of foods (and I am a huge fan of WIC), so maybe you are right; maybe it would work that way.But I repeat: We give poor people a *minimal* amount of food stamp money compared to some other government givaways (compare AFDC to the mortgage deduction, to Social Security). Yet we don't ask middle-income homeowners who get thousands in the form of mortgage deductions whether they are spending too much money on cake. Or SS recipients. It just seems unseemly here.

Apples to oranges and you know it.People that get mortgage deductions arent getting a handout. They get a tax deduction. Any "middle income" person taking a mortgage interest deduction isn't "getting thousands".

Tell you what. Take away the property taxes and the city assessment and I will happily give up my mortgage interest deduction. I will even write a check for an extra grand to any charity you want. Deal?

The mortgage deduction can absolutely be considered a hand out. What services are you providing for this reduction of taxes? And to say it's not worth 000's is bs too. The annual interest on my $280k 30 year mortgage at 5.25% lowered my total tax liability by several thoughsand dollars.

Then you would not be middle income. Perhaps my math is off(which is possible as I just did a quick comparison factoring standard deduction etc didnt consider other factors) but I dont see how your tax liability goes down several thousand dollars if you fall in the 40-60k salary range. I really don't see it in the 75k range either, but again just a quick calc. could be wrong.

How Much Are You Really Saving with the Mortgage Interest Deduction?

That's why it's mainly a benefit for the rich. Do that calculation for a $1M house for someone in the 35% tax bracket and let me know the results.

 

[Sweet J]

I don't believe the mortgage deduction is a give away. Letting people keep more of their own money is not a give away. It appears to me that you think the money is the governments in the first place and not the people who paid it in. I would classify a give away as the child credit given to people who paid in say 3000 dollars yet because of the number of children they have get a refund of 5000 dollars. Meaning they got back 2000 dollars they did not earn. Regarding your minimal amount comment, I think this article and the author would agree with you about that, I think he used this example to illustrate that even small amounts add up.

I don't want to clog up this thread too much with unrelated stuff. Although I guess this is somewhat related, so I'll try: You and your neighbor both make 100k, and you own a house and your neighbor rents a house. Other than that, you both are almost identically situated. At the end of the year, you are going to have thousands more in your pocket than your neighbor (depending on the value of your house and the interest rate). That is a givaway. Now, there may be a great reason for this givaway, sure. But at the end of the day, you have more money in your pocket because of some policy the government made. Just like a welfare recipient has more money in his/her pocket because of a policy the government made.I think it is best to take the value judgments out of these things, and analyze what is best for the community, for the country. Do we want to give money to old people? Do we want to give money to people who own houses? Do we want to give money to foster parents? Do we want to give money to people who donate to charity? Do we want to give money to people who can't find a job? Do we want to give money to unmarried mothers?All of those questions need to be answered on a policy-wide basis. Is it a good idea to systematically pay money for these things? Asking whether a specific person "deserves" it, or whether someone is "taking advantage" of it, on an individual basis, misses the point -- we want to examine whether systematially, the program does more benefit than good for society as a whole.

 

[bostonfred]

Since we don't know the situation of the woman in question in the OP it is difficult to know if it really relates to your brother's situation but I appreciate your perspective and thank you for sharing a difficult situation with us.

Thanks. One of the things that bothers me most in this thread is how many people assumed that she wasnt in a situation like my mother or brother, and that the mother, whose child made it sound like a forty one dollar expense was far from the norm, is just constantly siphoning off the system. I agree - we don't know. But the characterization of the poor as a bunch of thieves and sponges doesn't help anyone.

 

[parasaurolophus]

While I still think that a $41 cake was a completely silly purchase, for anyone really but particularly in this specific instance, I think a lot of people who are looking at this mother in an extremely negative light should go back and tally their own expenses for the past year. How much #### have you purchased that you really could not (should not) afford? How much better shape would you be in financially if you made only intelligent, well considered, practical purchases?

Me making poor financial decisions with my money is my problemMe making poor financial decisions with your money is a much bigger problem. And the problem isn't this one isolated instance... but rather that this instance is most likely indicative of a trend of abuse of federal assistance.

But it is her money to spend as she sees fit. Buying the cake does not somehow increase the amount she will receive in the future. Are you arguing for ending all government food assistance for the sole reason that this woman is spending it on something you don't think she should be spending it on?I think she made a poor financial decision for herself and her family but I don't see how it impacts anything for the rest of us and I certainly don't think that is a reason for the rest of society to abandon her.

If she can simply absorb a 41 dollar cake and move on then she gets too much each month. If the 41 dollar cake causes a hardship and she runs out then her child goes hungry or she goes and gets more help from somewhere else.Neither of these scenarios should be desirable.

 

[Chaka]

While I still think that a $41 cake was a completely silly purchase, for anyone really but particularly in this specific instance, I think a lot of people who are looking at this mother in an extremely negative light should go back and tally their own expenses for the past year. How much #### have you purchased that you really could not (should not) afford? How much better shape would you be in financially if you made only intelligent, well considered, practical purchases?

Me making poor financial decisions with my money is my problemMe making poor financial decisions with your money is a much bigger problem. And the problem isn't this one isolated instance... but rather that this instance is most likely indicative of a trend of abuse of federal assistance.

But it is her money to spend as she sees fit. Buying the cake does not somehow increase the amount she will receive in the future. Are you arguing for ending all government food assistance for the sole reason that this woman is spending it on something you don't think she should be spending it on?I think she made a poor financial decision for herself and her family but I don't see how it impacts anything for the rest of us and I certainly don't think that is a reason for the rest of society to abandon her.

If she can simply absorb a 41 dollar cake and move on then she gets too much each month. If the 41 dollar cake causes a hardship and she runs out then her child goes hungry or she goes and gets more help from somewhere else.Neither of these scenarios should be desirable.

What if she buys a $41 cake and sacrifices her own meals for a couple days/week to make up the difference and her child never goes hungry?

 

[Wrighteous Ray]

What if she cuts the $41 cake into slices, and then sells those slices to people for a total of $50? Does that change anyone's answer?

Now what if the people she sells the slices to are also on assistance?

Oh yeah, and she spends her $9 ice cream cake profit on two pints of ice cream, which she consumes herself.

 

[Jackstraw]

Some people are not going to be happy until we have a full on caste system and shanty towns. Then we'll get articles about why we need to bulldoze the shanty towns.

But it's always been like this throughout history.

Dudes are stealing billions with a single swipe of the pen but $41 cakes are clearly the problem. Pfffft.

 

[Chaka]

Some people are not going to be happy until we have a full on caste system and shanty towns. Then we'll get articles about why we need to bulldoze the shanty towns. But it's always been like this throughout history. Dudes are stealing billions with a single swipe of the pen but $41 cakes are clearly the problem. Pfffft.

Some people won't be happy until every penny of earnings go into a large pool that gets evenly distributed regardless of the contributions, or lack thereof, one makes to society.

 

[cosjobs]

Since we don't know the situation of the woman in question in the OP it is difficult to know if it really relates to your brother's situation but I appreciate your perspective and thank you for sharing a difficult situation with us.

Thanks. One of the things that bothers me most in this thread is how many people assumed that she wasnt in a situation like my mother or brother, and that the mother, whose child made it sound like a forty one dollar expense was far from the norm, is just constantly siphoning off the system. I agree - we don't know. But the characterization of the poor as a bunch of thieves and sponges doesn't help anyone.

check your PMs

 

[Sweet J]

Some people are not going to be happy until we have a full on caste system and shanty towns. Then we'll get articles about why we need to bulldoze the shanty towns. But it's always been like this throughout history. Dudes are stealing billions with a single swipe of the pen but $41 cakes are clearly the problem. Pfffft.

Some people won't be happy until every penny of earnings go into a large pool that gets evenly distributed regardless of the contributions, or lack thereof, one makes to society.

This is problematic thinking, though. Should we really decide whether to "redistribute" based on a person's contribution to society?For example, we all know that communism is a bad idea. Not becuase it is "morally" wrong, but because of the results. So the question should be whether or not it is a good idea to redistribute to the poor, the sick. And I would give the same analysis to "redistributing" to the wealthy. There may be a good idea to do that, as well (tax breaks for football stadiums!!).

 

[Tuco]

If you can't make ends meet, you shouldn't splurge on extravagant items. That is considered to be financially irresponsible (this is about more than a $41 cake).

How many threads have we seen over the years where someone lends money to someone else, only to find that those people spent that money on non-necessity items or entertainment? Same principle, but we are all the ones "lending" the money in this case.

 

[boots11234]

I don't believe the mortgage deduction is a give away. Letting people keep more of their own money is not a give away. It appears to me that you think the money is the governments in the first place and not the people who paid it in. I would classify a give away as the child credit given to people who paid in say 3000 dollars yet because of the number of children they have get a refund of 5000 dollars. Meaning they got back 2000 dollars they did not earn. Regarding your minimal amount comment, I think this article and the author would agree with you about that, I think he used this example to illustrate that even small amounts add up.

I don't want to clog up this thread too much with unrelated stuff. Although I guess this is somewhat related, so I'll try: You and your neighbor both make 100k, and you own a house and your neighbor rents a house. Other than that, you both are almost identically situated. At the end of the year, you are going to have thousands more in your pocket than your neighbor (depending on the value of your house and the interest rate). That is a givaway. Now, there may be a great reason for this givaway, sure. But at the end of the day, you have more money in your pocket because of some policy the government made. Just like a welfare recipient has more money in his/her pocket because of a policy the government made.I think it is best to take the value judgments out of these things, and analyze what is best for the community, for the country. Do we want to give money to old people? Do we want to give money to people who own houses? Do we want to give money to foster parents? Do we want to give money to people who donate to charity? Do we want to give money to people who can't find a job? Do we want to give money to unmarried mothers?All of those questions need to be answered on a policy-wide basis. Is it a good idea to systematically pay money for these things? Asking whether a specific person "deserves" it, or whether someone is "taking advantage" of it, on an individual basis, misses the point -- we want to examine whether systematially, the program does more benefit than good for society as a whole.

I don't think your example is a good one. A good goal to have is home ownership for qualified people, I believe. The person who owns is more vested then the person who rents. For whatever reason the renter chose to rent, the owner chose to buy. Government chooses to encourage home ownership thus the tax break. Should government choose to do that is another thread. I classify a giveaway as giving someone something that they did not earn.

 

[pittstownkiller]

I read the article and came away with only one thought: a family on food stamps should probably not be buying a $41 cake; that's it. I am sure that there are scenarios that can be thought up that somehow mitigates the cakes costs but in a general view it seems imprudent. The thought that we are all sucking on the teat of government is laughable; there are obviously people that pay into the system and people who don't. The government, in itself, does not generate an income except by taxes, fees, and fines. BTW, I have had a sister, cousins, and nieces, on assistance and I feel for their needs but being poor and being able to eat due to an assistance plan, is the benefit, not being able to eat as well as everyone else is because you're poor. If there was little to no ramification of being poor, what would be the impetus to try to leave that life?

 

[Wrighteous Ray]

I read the article and came away with only one thought: a family on food stamps should probably not be buying a $41 cake; that's it.

When I read the article I had lots of thoughts. Like, "wow, that author is really awesome at dividing numbers."

 

[Arsenal of Doom]

While I still think that a $41 cake was a completely silly purchase, for anyone really but particularly in this specific instance, I think a lot of people who are looking at this mother in an extremely negative light should go back and tally their own expenses for the past year. How much #### have you purchased that you really could not (should not) afford? How much better shape would you be in financially if you made only intelligent, well considered, practical purchases?

Me making poor financial decisions with my money is my problemMe making poor financial decisions with your money is a much bigger problem. And the problem isn't this one isolated instance... but rather that this instance is most likely indicative of a trend of abuse of federal assistance.

But it is her money to spend as she sees fit. Buying the cake does not somehow increase the amount she will receive in the future. Are you arguing for ending all government food assistance for the sole reason that this woman is spending it on something you don't think she should be spending it on?I think she made a poor financial decision for herself and her family but I don't see how it impacts anything for the rest of us and I certainly don't think that is a reason for the rest of society to abandon her.

If she can simply absorb a 41 dollar cake and move on then she gets too much each month. If the 41 dollar cake causes a hardship and she runs out then her child goes hungry or she goes and gets more help from somewhere else.Neither of these scenarios should be desirable.

What if she buys a $41 cake and sacrifices her own meals for a couple days/week to make up the difference and her child never goes hungry?

Right. Food stamp money is fungible, and in every case is one part of a larger budget. As you and others have articulately pointed out, the net cost to taxpayers is the same whether someone uses the food stamp money on cake or vegetables (on the food stamp side at least, there is a whole other discussion about food policy in general and health care).Without being able to analyze the entire budget of this hypothetical woman and her child, you shouldn't make any value assessment. Maybe the kid saved up for the cake and the mother just used the card to pay as a convenience? Maybe the mother saved in other ways as you suggest? I have no doubt that many people use food stamp funds on food choices that aren't smart. The data are actually available for this, and by and large the money is used in a similar way between socioeconomic groups. That is to say that people on SNAP tend to buy the same things as both people in a similar range that don't qualify for SNAP and those that do but aren't enrolled. There is some variance as you move up and compare against higher income brackets as access to more fresh food and probably better knowledge about healthy food comes into play. Even there, the differences aren't huge.

 

[pittstownkiller]

I read the article and came away with only one thought: a family on food stamps should probably not be buying a $41 cake; that's it.

When I read the article I had lots of thoughts. Like, "wow, that author is really awesome at dividing numbers."

That is a point of view I would not of taken away from that article. My post had to deal with that I wasn't left with a feeling that food stamps was a program that should be abandoned because of waste, after reading that article.

 

[[icon]]

Dudes are stealing billions with a single swipe of the pen but $41 cakes are clearly the problem. Pfffft.

Wow. If that's what you're reading into my posts then you've got much bigger issues than can be addressed on a message board. Help. You need it.

 

[Wrighteous Ray]

I read the article and came away with only one thought: a family on food stamps should probably not be buying a $41 cake; that's it.

When I read the article I had lots of thoughts. Like, "wow, that author is really awesome at dividing numbers."

That is a point of view I would not of taken away from that article. My post had to deal with that I wasn't left with a feeling that food stamps was a program that should be abandoned because of waste, after reading that article.

I'm not sure how you could have glossed over this amazing nugget:

WSJ

I quickly calculated that the woman's cake was eight times more expensive than the kind I make at home to celebrate birthdays.

 

[Slapdash]

Im back. Glad I wasn't posting more or some really smart people might have told me how I should have spent my time instead. I bought my mom a klondike bar because I didn't think she deserved a cake. My brother got some hamburger meat. I felt bad wasting money on them like that because they're mentally ill and poor and don't deserve a moment's happiness. I told them that they should just eat gruel and wait to die but they didn't seem to like it. Or maybe they did. Like many of you, I don't spend any thought at all about actual poor people except how they're always stealing from the tax coffers. Then I rushed back to keep my post count up.

Fred you are making some excellent points in this thread and I honestly think you have some people rethinking their perspective (it wouldn't be the first time you have got me to reconsider my viewpoint) but I wish you wouldn't continue with this refrain. It wasn't a choice between a $41 cake and zero happiness for eternity. Go to any major super market and you will see literally dozens of options between zero happiness for eternity and a $41 cake. If that's how she thought it was best to achieve her goal that's fine, I honestly have no problem with it, her food income is fixed and hers to do with as she likes, but let's not pretend that there weren't other options between $41 ice cream cake and zero happiness.

The thing is, we don't know what's going on in this story. This may be the one big splurge for the year, or ever, for a single mom who fell on hard times and an underprivileged kid is going to get his big day. Or it could be the grafter that others want to see in this story. If we are talking about someone buying a forty dollar cake because its warm out and she likes ice cream, then she's not a sympathetic figure at all. But the assumptions made in the article and by many on this board are pretty myopic. Do I think the state should be in the business of buying fancy cakes for people? Of course not. Do I think someone poor - and by poor i dont mean lazy, but unable to work for whatever reason - is within their rights to use their money on a rare frivolity? I hope so. To be fair, there's a separate function for people like that, like the ssd my brother receives, because our society doesn't want to handle its mental health problems by locking them up in perpetuity and feeding them beans and water. The foodstamps really are intended for necessary food, regardless of whether they go to people on welfare or social security or low income laborers. But then, does it matter if he uses foodstamp dollars or ssd dollars?

According to the author of the article and many on this board, it seems like we can vilify these people for ever spending a dollar we think is unwise, and we can make assumptions about their intentions, and whether they can afford to shop around for better deals, and if they have a place to store or cook their own food. And that's tremendously insulting to the people who have spent their liftimes fighting an uphill battle to stay alive in a country that wishes they'd just go away.

I feel for you any your brothers situation but I still do not agree with you about tax payers not having a say in how their money is spent. Your brothers situation is an exception I believe not the norm and there is a dimensioning return of investment with welfare. Society cannot save everyone for various reasons and I don't believe we should try as there is only a fixed amount of dollars and many priorities. Also it is illegal to lock up people solely for mental health problems but sadly that would probably be best for those folks for reasons your own brother stated.

I'm not on these boards to know enough about particular people, but I am assuming you are a small-government advocate. I can't imagine the additional bureaucracy necessary to implement the bolded. If we as a country decide it is better to give poor people money for food than not (purely on an analytical basis), then we should also analyze what is the best WAY to give that money. I guess we could implement something like the WIC program, which gives money for only certain types of foods (and I am a huge fan of WIC), so maybe you are right; maybe it would work that way.But I repeat: We give poor people a *minimal* amount of food stamp money compared to some other government givaways (compare AFDC to the mortgage deduction, to Social Security). Yet we don't ask middle-income homeowners who get thousands in the form of mortgage deductions whether they are spending too much money on cake. Or SS recipients. It just seems unseemly here.

I don't believe the mortgage deduction is a give away. Letting people keep more of their own money is not a give away. It appears to me that you think the money is the governments in the first place and not the people who paid it in. I would classify a give away as the child credit given to people who paid in say 3000 dollars yet because of the number of children they have get a refund of 5000 dollars. Meaning they got back 2000 dollars they did not earn. Regarding your minimal amount comment, I think this article and the author would agree with you about that, I think he used this example to illustrate that even small amounts add up.

Well, technically, it is.

 

[Tuco]

I don't believe the mortgage deduction is a give away. Letting people keep more of their own money is not a give away. It appears to me that you think the money is the governments in the first place and not the people who paid it in. I would classify a give away as the child credit given to people who paid in say 3000 dollars yet because of the number of children they have get a refund of 5000 dollars. Meaning they got back 2000 dollars they did not earn. Regarding your minimal amount comment, I think this article and the author would agree with you about that, I think he used this example to illustrate that even small amounts add up.

I don't want to clog up this thread too much with unrelated stuff. Although I guess this is somewhat related, so I'll try: You and your neighbor both make 100k, and you own a house and your neighbor rents a house. Other than that, you both are almost identically situated. At the end of the year, you are going to have thousands more in your pocket than your neighbor (depending on the value of your house and the interest rate). That is a givaway. Now, there may be a great reason for this givaway, sure. But at the end of the day, you have more money in your pocket because of some policy the government made. Just like a welfare recipient has more money in his/her pocket because of a policy the government made.I think it is best to take the value judgments out of these things, and analyze what is best for the community, for the country. Do we want to give money to old people? Do we want to give money to people who own houses? Do we want to give money to foster parents? Do we want to give money to people who donate to charity? Do we want to give money to people who can't find a job? Do we want to give money to unmarried mothers?All of those questions need to be answered on a policy-wide basis. Is it a good idea to systematically pay money for these things? Asking whether a specific person "deserves" it, or whether someone is "taking advantage" of it, on an individual basis, misses the point -- we want to examine whether systematially, the program does more benefit than good for society as a whole.

I don't think your example is a good one. A good goal to have is home ownership for qualified people, I believe. The person who owns is more vested then the person who rents. For whatever reason the renter chose to rent, the owner chose to buy. Government chooses to encourage home ownership thus the tax break. Should government choose to do that is another thread. I classify a giveaway as giving someone something that they did not earn.

The person who owns the home is required to pay property taxes, raised by the government when they feel it's necessary. As a homeowner, I would have no problem if they took away the interest deduction...on one condition, they become more responsible with the money they collect.

 

[[icon]]

I could be wrong here but to ME, I feel that living off government assistance isn't a desirable end goal. To ME, government assistance should be a temporary (in most cases) crutch to aid someone in moving UP the socioeconomic ladder and becoming able to provide for themselves and their families. To ME, THAT is what the primary goal should be for most government assistance. I'm a firm believer in "Hand a man a fish, teach a man to fish" philosophy.

HEre in Memphis I'd wager we have over 50% of the population on food stamps. The result is more of my tax dollars go to feeding these people instead of going to schools (Which are terrible due to budget cuts, roads (which are terrible due to budget cuts, etc). I realize that part of this money is federal, but the same problem translates on that scale as well.

I might be a big jaded, but in MY experience, I see crap like this $41 cake as a very real problem that I run into every time I go shopping. I look into my cart and I see store brands... I see ingredients for a salad... etc. Then I look at the woman in front of me swiping an EBT card and she's got name brand items..... she's got premade salads... etc. Why should I be buying store brand bread for myself but name brand bread for her? I have no problem with helping those who help themselves.... but when I see someone making decisions that guarantee they will need help for their entire lives, I have a very real problem with being content with continuing to give that help.

Sure... she may be spending that money how she sees fit.... and it doesn't cost me any more each month. However in 5 years she will STILL be needing that assistance rather than possibly being able to provide for herself if she just made smarter decisions.

I see many people in rural kentucky where my GF's sisters' family lives. On her brother in law's side not a single person works. Why work when they can make just as much money living off the government? If her brother in law gets promoted, he actually LOSES money because they fall off aid lists. He doesn't care and does it because he doesn't want to live on food stamps... and he WANTS to move up the ladder so he can someday provide a nice life for his wife and kids. For the VAST Majority of the people I've met up there, that is NOT the case. They're content to collect checks and do nothing because the flawed system enables them to do just that.

WE have incentivized laziness..... we have incentivized dependence. The system, while good in intent and is designed to fill a necessary need, is broken.

 

[Tuco]

Im back. Glad I wasn't posting more or some really smart people might have told me how I should have spent my time instead. I bought my mom a klondike bar because I didn't think she deserved a cake. My brother got some hamburger meat. I felt bad wasting money on them like that because they're mentally ill and poor and don't deserve a moment's happiness. I told them that they should just eat gruel and wait to die but they didn't seem to like it. Or maybe they did. Like many of you, I don't spend any thought at all about actual poor people except how they're always stealing from the tax coffers. Then I rushed back to keep my post count up.

Fred you are making some excellent points in this thread and I honestly think you have some people rethinking their perspective (it wouldn't be the first time you have got me to reconsider my viewpoint) but I wish you wouldn't continue with this refrain. It wasn't a choice between a $41 cake and zero happiness for eternity. Go to any major super market and you will see literally dozens of options between zero happiness for eternity and a $41 cake. If that's how she thought it was best to achieve her goal that's fine, I honestly have no problem with it, her food income is fixed and hers to do with as she likes, but let's not pretend that there weren't other options between $41 ice cream cake and zero happiness.

The thing is, we don't know what's going on in this story. This may be the one big splurge for the year, or ever, for a single mom who fell on hard times and an underprivileged kid is going to get his big day. Or it could be the grafter that others want to see in this story. If we are talking about someone buying a forty dollar cake because its warm out and she likes ice cream, then she's not a sympathetic figure at all. But the assumptions made in the article and by many on this board are pretty myopic. Do I think the state should be in the business of buying fancy cakes for people? Of course not. Do I think someone poor - and by poor i dont mean lazy, but unable to work for whatever reason - is within their rights to use their money on a rare frivolity? I hope so. To be fair, there's a separate function for people like that, like the ssd my brother receives, because our society doesn't want to handle its mental health problems by locking them up in perpetuity and feeding them beans and water. The foodstamps really are intended for necessary food, regardless of whether they go to people on welfare or social security or low income laborers. But then, does it matter if he uses foodstamp dollars or ssd dollars?

According to the author of the article and many on this board, it seems like we can vilify these people for ever spending a dollar we think is unwise, and we can make assumptions about their intentions, and whether they can afford to shop around for better deals, and if they have a place to store or cook their own food. And that's tremendously insulting to the people who have spent their liftimes fighting an uphill battle to stay alive in a country that wishes they'd just go away.

I feel for you any your brothers situation but I still do not agree with you about tax payers not having a say in how their money is spent. Your brothers situation is an exception I believe not the norm and there is a dimensioning return of investment with welfare. Society cannot save everyone for various reasons and I don't believe we should try as there is only a fixed amount of dollars and many priorities. Also it is illegal to lock up people solely for mental health problems but sadly that would probably be best for those folks for reasons your own brother stated.

I'm not on these boards to know enough about particular people, but I am assuming you are a small-government advocate. I can't imagine the additional bureaucracy necessary to implement the bolded. If we as a country decide it is better to give poor people money for food than not (purely on an analytical basis), then we should also analyze what is the best WAY to give that money. I guess we could implement something like the WIC program, which gives money for only certain types of foods (and I am a huge fan of WIC), so maybe you are right; maybe it would work that way.But I repeat: We give poor people a *minimal* amount of food stamp money compared to some other government givaways (compare AFDC to the mortgage deduction, to Social Security). Yet we don't ask middle-income homeowners who get thousands in the form of mortgage deductions whether they are spending too much money on cake. Or SS recipients. It just seems unseemly here.

I don't believe the mortgage deduction is a give away. Letting people keep more of their own money is not a give away. It appears to me that you think the money is the governments in the first place and not the people who paid it in. I would classify a give away as the child credit given to people who paid in say 3000 dollars yet because of the number of children they have get a refund of 5000 dollars. Meaning they got back 2000 dollars they did not earn. Regarding your minimal amount comment, I think this article and the author would agree with you about that, I think he used this example to illustrate that even small amounts add up.

Well, technically, it is.

 

[plymkr]

I get so disgusted every time I see someone with a cart full of steaks and seafood pay with a food stamp card and then load it up in their Lexus. Happens more often than youd think.

Or Range Rover, I saw that the other day. I once saw a guy at the store buy about $200 of Chocolate milk, Steaks,Shrimp, and even lobster tails. His EBT/Snap card wouldn't work, so he pulled out a wad of cash, handed over a couple of hundred dollar bills then loaded it all into his Hummer. There are alot of people working the system, its ridiculous, & as a taxpayer, I'm pissed about it.

 

[pittstownkiller]

I read the article and came away with only one thought: a family on food stamps should probably not be buying a $41 cake; that's it.

When I read the article I had lots of thoughts. Like, "wow, that author is really awesome at dividing numbers."

That is a point of view I would not of taken away from that article. My post had to deal with that I wasn't left with a feeling that food stamps was a program that should be abandoned because of waste, after reading that article.

I'm not sure how you could have glossed over this amazing nugget:

WSJ

I quickly calculated that the woman's cake was eight times more expensive than the kind I make at home to celebrate birthdays.

I must admit that I thought $27 was a little pricey for a 9" round ice cream cake that I bought but you only live once.

 

[Warrior]

Im back. Glad I wasn't posting more or some really smart people might have told me how I should have spent my time instead. I bought my mom a klondike bar because I didn't think she deserved a cake. My brother got some hamburger meat. I felt bad wasting money on them like that because they're mentally ill and poor and don't deserve a moment's happiness. I told them that they should just eat gruel and wait to die but they didn't seem to like it. Or maybe they did. Like many of you, I don't spend any thought at all about actual poor people except how they're always stealing from the tax coffers. Then I rushed back to keep my post count up.

Fred you are making some excellent points in this thread and I honestly think you have some people rethinking their perspective (it wouldn't be the first time you have got me to reconsider my viewpoint) but I wish you wouldn't continue with this refrain. It wasn't a choice between a $41 cake and zero happiness for eternity. Go to any major super market and you will see literally dozens of options between zero happiness for eternity and a $41 cake. If that's how she thought it was best to achieve her goal that's fine, I honestly have no problem with it, her food income is fixed and hers to do with as she likes, but let's not pretend that there weren't other options between $41 ice cream cake and zero happiness.

The thing is, we don't know what's going on in this story. This may be the one big splurge for the year, or ever, for a single mom who fell on hard times and an underprivileged kid is going to get his big day. Or it could be the grafter that others want to see in this story. If we are talking about someone buying a forty dollar cake because its warm out and she likes ice cream, then she's not a sympathetic figure at all. But the assumptions made in the article and by many on this board are pretty myopic. Do I think the state should be in the business of buying fancy cakes for people? Of course not. Do I think someone poor - and by poor i dont mean lazy, but unable to work for whatever reason - is within their rights to use their money on a rare frivolity? I hope so. To be fair, there's a separate function for people like that, like the ssd my brother receives, because our society doesn't want to handle its mental health problems by locking them up in perpetuity and feeding them beans and water. The foodstamps really are intended for necessary food, regardless of whether they go to people on welfare or social security or low income laborers. But then, does it matter if he uses foodstamp dollars or ssd dollars?

According to the author of the article and many on this board, it seems like we can vilify these people for ever spending a dollar we think is unwise, and we can make assumptions about their intentions, and whether they can afford to shop around for better deals, and if they have a place to store or cook their own food. And that's tremendously insulting to the people who have spent their liftimes fighting an uphill battle to stay alive in a country that wishes they'd just go away.

I feel for you any your brothers situation but I still do not agree with you about tax payers not having a say in how their money is spent. Your brothers situation is an exception I believe not the norm and there is a dimensioning return of investment with welfare. Society cannot save everyone for various reasons and I don't believe we should try as there is only a fixed amount of dollars and many priorities. Also it is illegal to lock up people solely for mental health problems but sadly that would probably be best for those folks for reasons your own brother stated.

I'm not on these boards to know enough about particular people, but I am assuming you are a small-government advocate. I can't imagine the additional bureaucracy necessary to implement the bolded. If we as a country decide it is better to give poor people money for food than not (purely on an analytical basis), then we should also analyze what is the best WAY to give that money. I guess we could implement something like the WIC program, which gives money for only certain types of foods (and I am a huge fan of WIC), so maybe you are right; maybe it would work that way.But I repeat: We give poor people a *minimal* amount of food stamp money compared to some other government givaways (compare AFDC to the mortgage deduction, to Social Security). Yet we don't ask middle-income homeowners who get thousands in the form of mortgage deductions whether they are spending too much money on cake. Or SS recipients. It just seems unseemly here.

I don't believe the mortgage deduction is a give away. Letting people keep more of their own money is not a give away. It appears to me that you think the money is the governments in the first place and not the people who paid it in. I would classify a give away as the child credit given to people who paid in say 3000 dollars yet because of the number of children they have get a refund of 5000 dollars. Meaning they got back 2000 dollars they did not earn. Regarding your minimal amount comment, I think this article and the author would agree with you about that, I think he used this example to illustrate that even small amounts add up.

Well, technically, it is.

FYI - you don't own your money. Ever read the words printed on it before?That's why you go to jail if you burn/destroy "your" dollar bills.

HTH

 

[Jackstraw]

We collectively lost 16 trillion in wealth during this recession due to epic greed in the financial sector. But I'm sure the problem is $41 ice cream cakes. About 390 billion of them or so by my count.

Classic misdirection.

Poor people could cart fee crap out of stores in wheelbarrows and never touch the amount stolen from us with pen and paper.

Plus has anyone offered anything beyond an anectdote in this thread to tell us what the scope of the problem with food stamps is? Or are we just going by our fee fees?

My conservative brother in laws story is he saw a fat black lady buy a quicktrip sammich one time with a snap card. Case closed for him. All deadbeats. Everyone of them.

PS: No one has ever done a minute in jail for any of it. Put somebody from JP morgan in jail and then lets talk about food stamps.

 

[Warrior]

We collectively lost 16 trillion in wealth during this recession due to epic greed in the financial sector. But I'm sure the problem is $41 ice cream cakes. About 390 billion of them or so by my count.

Classic misdirection.

Poor people could cart fee crap out of stores in wheelbarrows and never touch the amount stolen from us with pen and paper.

Plus has anyone offered anything beyond an anectdote in this thread to tell us what the scope of the problem with food stamps is? Or are we just going by our fee fees?

My conservative brother in laws story is he saw a fat black lady buy a quicktrip sammich one time with a snap card. Case closed for him. All deadbeats. Everyone of them.

Sort of like how the case is closed for you? Epic greed in the financial sector, right? All criminals, every one of them. Classic case of mis-direction. The hypocrisy displayed here is sickening. Sweeping generalities to describe how idiotic those are who make sweeping generalities. Keep up the good work.

 

[Arsenal of Doom]

We collectively lost 16 trillion in wealth during this recession due to epic greed in the financial sector. But I'm sure the problem is $41 ice cream cakes. About 390 billion of them or so by my count.

Classic misdirection.

Poor people could cart fee crap out of stores in wheelbarrows and never touch the amount stolen from us with pen and paper.

Plus has anyone offered anything beyond an anectdote in this thread to tell us what the scope of the problem with food stamps is? Or are we just going by our fee fees?

My conservative brother in laws story is he saw a fat black lady buy a quicktrip sammich one time with a snap card. Case closed for him. All deadbeats. Everyone of them.

PS: No one has ever done a minute in jail for any of it. Put somebody from JP morgan in jail and then lets talk about food stamps.

The estimate for fraud in the SNAP program overall is around 750 Million per year, which works out to around 1% of the total program cost. Of course the issue in the OP isn't really fraud, it's a broader question of what food those funds should or shouldn't be applied to.

 

[parasaurolophus]

While I still think that a $41 cake was a completely silly purchase, for anyone really but particularly in this specific instance, I think a lot of people who are looking at this mother in an extremely negative light should go back and tally their own expenses for the past year. How much #### have you purchased that you really could not (should not) afford? How much better shape would you be in financially if you made only intelligent, well considered, practical purchases?

Me making poor financial decisions with my money is my problemMe making poor financial decisions with your money is a much bigger problem. And the problem isn't this one isolated instance... but rather that this instance is most likely indicative of a trend of abuse of federal assistance.

But it is her money to spend as she sees fit. Buying the cake does not somehow increase the amount she will receive in the future. Are you arguing for ending all government food assistance for the sole reason that this woman is spending it on something you don't think she should be spending it on?I think she made a poor financial decision for herself and her family but I don't see how it impacts anything for the rest of us and I certainly don't think that is a reason for the rest of society to abandon her.

If she can simply absorb a 41 dollar cake and move on then she gets too much each month. If the 41 dollar cake causes a hardship and she runs out then her child goes hungry or she goes and gets more help from somewhere else.Neither of these scenarios should be desirable.

What if she buys a $41 cake and sacrifices her own meals for a couple days/week to make up the difference and her child never goes hungry?

So then she is malnourished?

 

[Jackstraw]

We collectively lost 16 trillion in wealth during this recession due to epic greed in the financial sector. But I'm sure the problem is $41 ice cream cakes. About 390 billion of them or so by my count.

Classic misdirection.

Poor people could cart fee crap out of stores in wheelbarrows and never touch the amount stolen from us with pen and paper.

Plus has anyone offered anything beyond an anectdote in this thread to tell us what the scope of the problem with food stamps is? Or are we just going by our fee fees?

My conservative brother in laws story is he saw a fat black lady buy a quicktrip sammich one time with a snap card. Case closed for him. All deadbeats. Everyone of them.

Sort of like how the case is closed for you? Epic greed in the financial sector, right? All criminals, every one of them. Classic case of mis-direction. The hypocrisy displayed here is sickening. Sweeping generalities to describe how idiotic those are who make sweeping generalities. Keep up the good work.

No epic greed in the financial sector? Is that even a controversial statement? The only sweeping statement I made was no one ever did a minute of jail time and its totally true. If the WSJ were as worried about it's own industry as it was in screwing poor people we'd be a LOT better off. But we wouldn't want them to commit journalism.

Let the good times roll and screw the poor!

 

[parasaurolophus]

We collectively lost 16 trillion in wealth during this recession due to epic greed in the financial sector. But I'm sure the problem is $41 ice cream cakes. About 390 billion of them or so by my count.

Classic misdirection.

Poor people could cart fee crap out of stores in wheelbarrows and never touch the amount stolen from us with pen and paper.

Plus has anyone offered anything beyond an anectdote in this thread to tell us what the scope of the problem with food stamps is? Or are we just going by our fee fees?

My conservative brother in laws story is he saw a fat black lady buy a quicktrip sammich one time with a snap card. Case closed for him. All deadbeats. Everyone of them.

Sort of like how the case is closed for you? Epic greed in the financial sector, right? All criminals, every one of them. Classic case of mis-direction. The hypocrisy displayed here is sickening. Sweeping generalities to describe how idiotic those are who make sweeping generalities. Keep up the good work.

Why can't they both be bad scenarios? Why would we have to pick one only? I used to really get upset about assault, but I decided murder is far worse. Unless they stop murders I am not going to get upset about assault.

 

[Chaka]

We collectively lost 16 trillion in wealth during this recession due to epic greed in the financial sector. But I'm sure the problem is $41 ice cream cakes. About 390 billion of them or so by my count. Classic misdirection.

Actually you are the one misdirecting here. No one in here is defending the financial sector but you are posting as if they were. People do this all the time, they pass off, or tend to ignore, a legitimate problem as being no big deal because it isn't as bad as some other problem. WFC!?!? That logic snowballs until you have an overwhelming number of small problems that crush systems every bit as much as the big problems (death by a million paper cuts).The financial sector needs to be dealt with in a big way but that doesn't mean we should ignore any of the multitude of smaller problems that are also bleeding our system.Is SNAP one of those problems? I am not so sure, or at least I have yet to see a legitimate argument for it in here.

 

[Chaka]

While I still think that a $41 cake was a completely silly purchase, for anyone really but particularly in this specific instance, I think a lot of people who are looking at this mother in an extremely negative light should go back and tally their own expenses for the past year. How much #### have you purchased that you really could not (should not) afford? How much better shape would you be in financially if you made only intelligent, well considered, practical purchases?

Me making poor financial decisions with my money is my problemMe making poor financial decisions with your money is a much bigger problem.

And the problem isn't this one isolated instance... but rather that this instance is most likely indicative of a trend of abuse of federal assistance.

But it is her money to spend as she sees fit. Buying the cake does not somehow increase the amount she will receive in the future. Are you arguing for ending all government food assistance for the sole reason that this woman is spending it on something you don't think she should be spending it on?I think she made a poor financial decision for herself and her family but I don't see how it impacts anything for the rest of us and I certainly don't think that is a reason for the rest of society to abandon her.

If she can simply absorb a 41 dollar cake and move on then she gets too much each month. If the 41 dollar cake causes a hardship and she runs out then her child goes hungry or she goes and gets more help from somewhere else.Neither of these scenarios should be desirable.

What if she buys a $41 cake and sacrifices her own meals for a couple days/week to make up the difference and her child never goes hungry?

So then she is malnourished?

I have no idea. There are a lot of strong arguments to be made for the benefits of intermittent fasting so perhaps she is better off and her child is being abused by being overfed. However I don't think that is the point you were trying to make with your two scenario outrage.If she is denying only herself to buy her son this cake are you still outraged?

 

[Jackstraw]

We collectively lost 16 trillion in wealth during this recession due to epic greed in the financial sector. But I'm sure the problem is $41 ice cream cakes. About 390 billion of them or so by my count. Classic misdirection.

Actually you are the one misdirecting here. No one in here is defending the financial sector but you are posting as if they were. People do this all the time, they pass off, or tend to ignore, a legitimate problem as being no big deal because it isn't as bad as some other problem. WFC!?!? That logic snowballs until you have an overwhelming number of small problems that crush systems every bit as much as the big problems (death by a million paper cuts).The financial sector needs to be dealt with in a big way but that doesn't mean we should ignore any of the multitude of smaller problems that are also bleeding our system.Is SNAP one of those problems? I am not so sure, or at least I have yet to see a legitimate argument for it in here.

The reason I dialed in on the financial sector is the origin of the article. The WSJ is the first one to stir up class resentment when they ought to be issuing mea culpa's for ignoring the obvious dangers in the financial sector that should be in their wheelhouse. A one percent fraud rate and some poor buying decisions are more important than the worst financial crisis since the great depression, to the paper of record on financial issues. I guess the balls is takes to put out that garbage in that light is what blows me away. It's an agenda dressed up as concern trolling. Might there be legitimate issues regarding the snap program? Maybe. But thats not what an editorial in the WSJ is trying to do. This isn't journalism.

 

[Jackstraw]

While I still think that a $41 cake was a completely silly purchase, for anyone really but particularly in this specific instance, I think a lot of people who are looking at this mother in an extremely negative light should go back and tally their own expenses for the past year. How much #### have you purchased that you really could not (should not) afford? How much better shape would you be in financially if you made only intelligent, well considered, practical purchases?

Me making poor financial decisions with my money is my problemMe making poor financial decisions with your money is a much bigger problem.

And the problem isn't this one isolated instance... but rather that this instance is most likely indicative of a trend of abuse of federal assistance.

But it is her money to spend as she sees fit. Buying the cake does not somehow increase the amount she will receive in the future. Are you arguing for ending all government food assistance for the sole reason that this woman is spending it on something you don't think she should be spending it on?I think she made a poor financial decision for herself and her family but I don't see how it impacts anything for the rest of us and I certainly don't think that is a reason for the rest of society to abandon her.

If she can simply absorb a 41 dollar cake and move on then she gets too much each month. If the 41 dollar cake causes a hardship and she runs out then her child goes hungry or she goes and gets more help from somewhere else.Neither of these scenarios should be desirable.

What if she buys a $41 cake and sacrifices her own meals for a couple days/week to make up the difference and her child never goes hungry?

So then she is malnourished?

I have no idea. There are a lot of strong arguments to be made for the benefits of intermittent fasting so perhaps she is better off and her child is being abused by being overfed. However I don't think that is the point you were trying to make with your two scenario outrage.If she is denying only herself to buy her son this cake are you still outraged?

I heard some "poor" people have refigerators and flat screen Teevees. Poor indeed. What these lucky duckies need is a good taste of Indian/Chinese style poverty and they'll turn into god fearing worker bees just like that.

 

[Chaka]

We collectively lost 16 trillion in wealth during this recession due to epic greed in the financial sector. But I'm sure the problem is $41 ice cream cakes. About 390 billion of them or so by my count. Classic misdirection.

Actually you are the one misdirecting here. No one in here is defending the financial sector but you are posting as if they were. People do this all the time, they pass off, or tend to ignore, a legitimate problem as being no big deal because it isn't as bad as some other problem. WFC!?!? That logic snowballs until you have an overwhelming number of small problems that crush systems every bit as much as the big problems (death by a million paper cuts).The financial sector needs to be dealt with in a big way but that doesn't mean we should ignore any of the multitude of smaller problems that are also bleeding our system.Is SNAP one of those problems? I am not so sure, or at least I have yet to see a legitimate argument for it in here.

The reason I dialed in on the financial sector is the origin of the article. The WSJ is the first one to stir up class resentment when they ought to be issuing mea culpa's for ignoring the obvious dangers in the financial sector that should be in their wheelhouse. A one percent fraud rate and some poor buying decisions are more important than the worst financial crisis since the great depression, to the paper of record on financial issues. I guess the balls is takes to put out that garbage in that light is what blows me away. It's an agenda dressed up as concern trolling. Might there be legitimate issues regarding the snap program? Maybe. But thats not what an editorial in the WSJ is trying to do. This isn't journalism.

I am not sure what the WSJ was supposed to do that the SEC or the Fed failed to do but I don't think that the SNAP program article was anything more than a single, small editorial piece in the paper. I don't think it represents any kind of shift or agenda.And I must say that you seem to have an anti-financial sector agenda of your own.

 

[Sweet J]

I always thought that chaka and jackstraw were the same person. Huh.

 

[dino259]

I could be wrong here but to ME, I feel that living off government assistance isn't a desirable end goal. To ME, government assistance should be a temporary (in most cases) crutch to aid someone in moving UP the socioeconomic ladder and becoming able to provide for themselves and their families. To ME, THAT is what the primary goal should be for most government assistance. I'm a firm believer in "Hand a man a fish, teach a man to fish" philosophy. HEre in Memphis I'd wager we have over 50% of the population on food stamps. The result is more of my tax dollars go to feeding these people instead of going to schools (Which are terrible due to budget cuts, roads (which are terrible due to budget cuts, etc). I realize that part of this money is federal, but the same problem translates on that scale as well. I might be a big jaded, but in MY experience, I see crap like this $41 cake as a very real problem that I run into every time I go shopping. I look into my cart and I see store brands... I see ingredients for a salad... etc. Then I look at the woman in front of me swiping an EBT card and she's got name brand items..... she's got premade salads... etc. Why should I be buying store brand bread for myself but name brand bread for her? I have no problem with helping those who help themselves.... but when I see someone making decisions that guarantee they will need help for their entire lives, I have a very real problem with being content with continuing to give that help. Sure... she may be spending that money how she sees fit.... and it doesn't cost me any more each month. However in 5 years she will STILL be needing that assistance rather than possibly being able to provide for herself if she just made smarter decisions. I see many people in rural kentucky where my GF's sisters' family lives. On her brother in law's side not a single person works. Why work when they can make just as much money living off the government? If her brother in law gets promoted, he actually LOSES money because they fall off aid lists. He doesn't care and does it because he doesn't want to live on food stamps... and he WANTS to move up the ladder so he can someday provide a nice life for his wife and kids. For the VAST Majority of the people I've met up there, that is NOT the case. They're content to collect checks and do nothing because the flawed system enables them to do just that. WE have incentivized laziness..... we have incentivized dependence. The system, while good in intent and is designed to fill a necessary need, is broken.

It used to be embarrasing to be on government assistance. It is supposed to be assistance...Assistance to get back on your own two feet. Yes, there are situation out there where that is not possible, but there are plenty of examples of the above where it is just laziness.

 

[Tuco]

Im back. Glad I wasn't posting more or some really smart people might have told me how I should have spent my time instead. I bought my mom a klondike bar because I didn't think she deserved a cake. My brother got some hamburger meat. I felt bad wasting money on them like that because they're mentally ill and poor and don't deserve a moment's happiness. I told them that they should just eat gruel and wait to die but they didn't seem to like it. Or maybe they did. Like many of you, I don't spend any thought at all about actual poor people except how they're always stealing from the tax coffers. Then I rushed back to keep my post count up.

Fred you are making some excellent points in this thread and I honestly think you have some people rethinking their perspective (it wouldn't be the first time you have got me to reconsider my viewpoint) but I wish you wouldn't continue with this refrain. It wasn't a choice between a $41 cake and zero happiness for eternity. Go to any major super market and you will see literally dozens of options between zero happiness for eternity and a $41 cake. If that's how she thought it was best to achieve her goal that's fine, I honestly have no problem with it, her food income is fixed and hers to do with as she likes, but let's not pretend that there weren't other options between $41 ice cream cake and zero happiness.

The thing is, we don't know what's going on in this story. This may be the one big splurge for the year, or ever, for a single mom who fell on hard times and an underprivileged kid is going to get his big day. Or it could be the grafter that others want to see in this story. If we are talking about someone buying a forty dollar cake because its warm out and she likes ice cream, then she's not a sympathetic figure at all. But the assumptions made in the article and by many on this board are pretty myopic. Do I think the state should be in the business of buying fancy cakes for people? Of course not. Do I think someone poor - and by poor i dont mean lazy, but unable to work for whatever reason - is within their rights to use their money on a rare frivolity? I hope so. To be fair, there's a separate function for people like that, like the ssd my brother receives, because our society doesn't want to handle its mental health problems by locking them up in perpetuity and feeding them beans and water. The foodstamps really are intended for necessary food, regardless of whether they go to people on welfare or social security or low income laborers. But then, does it matter if he uses foodstamp dollars or ssd dollars?

According to the author of the article and many on this board, it seems like we can vilify these people for ever spending a dollar we think is unwise, and we can make assumptions about their intentions, and whether they can afford to shop around for better deals, and if they have a place to store or cook their own food. And that's tremendously insulting to the people who have spent their liftimes fighting an uphill battle to stay alive in a country that wishes they'd just go away.

I feel for you any your brothers situation but I still do not agree with you about tax payers not having a say in how their money is spent. Your brothers situation is an exception I believe not the norm and there is a dimensioning return of investment with welfare. Society cannot save everyone for various reasons and I don't believe we should try as there is only a fixed amount of dollars and many priorities. Also it is illegal to lock up people solely for mental health problems but sadly that would probably be best for those folks for reasons your own brother stated.

I'm not on these boards to know enough about particular people, but I am assuming you are a small-government advocate. I can't imagine the additional bureaucracy necessary to implement the bolded. If we as a country decide it is better to give poor people money for food than not (purely on an analytical basis), then we should also analyze what is the best WAY to give that money. I guess we could implement something like the WIC program, which gives money for only certain types of foods (and I am a huge fan of WIC), so maybe you are right; maybe it would work that way.But I repeat: We give poor people a *minimal* amount of food stamp money compared to some other government givaways (compare AFDC to the mortgage deduction, to Social Security). Yet we don't ask middle-income homeowners who get thousands in the form of mortgage deductions whether they are spending too much money on cake. Or SS recipients. It just seems unseemly here.

I don't believe the mortgage deduction is a give away. Letting people keep more of their own money is not a give away. It appears to me that you think the money is the governments in the first place and not the people who paid it in. I would classify a give away as the child credit given to people who paid in say 3000 dollars yet because of the number of children they have get a refund of 5000 dollars. Meaning they got back 2000 dollars they did not earn. Regarding your minimal amount comment, I think this article and the author would agree with you about that, I think he used this example to illustrate that even small amounts add up.

Well, technically, it is.

FYI - you don't own your money. Ever read the words printed on it before?That's why you go to jail if you burn/destroy "your" dollar bills.

HTH

 

[Chaka]

I always thought that chaka and jackstraw were the same person. Huh.

What? You have never had an argument with yourself?

 

[parasaurolophus]

While I still think that a $41 cake was a completely silly purchase, for anyone really but particularly in this specific instance, I think a lot of people who are looking at this mother in an extremely negative light should go back and tally their own expenses for the past year. How much #### have you purchased that you really could not (should not) afford? How much better shape would you be in financially if you made only intelligent, well considered, practical purchases?

Me making poor financial decisions with my money is my problemMe making poor financial decisions with your money is a much bigger problem.

And the problem isn't this one isolated instance... but rather that this instance is most likely indicative of a trend of abuse of federal assistance.

But it is her money to spend as she sees fit. Buying the cake does not somehow increase the amount she will receive in the future. Are you arguing for ending all government food assistance for the sole reason that this woman is spending it on something you don't think she should be spending it on?I think she made a poor financial decision for herself and her family but I don't see how it impacts anything for the rest of us and I certainly don't think that is a reason for the rest of society to abandon her.

If she can simply absorb a 41 dollar cake and move on then she gets too much each month. If the 41 dollar cake causes a hardship and she runs out then her child goes hungry or she goes and gets more help from somewhere else.Neither of these scenarios should be desirable.

What if she buys a $41 cake and sacrifices her own meals for a couple days/week to make up the difference and her child never goes hungry?

So then she is malnourished?

I have no idea. There are a lot of strong arguments to be made for the benefits of intermittent fasting so perhaps she is better off and her child is being abused by being overfed. However I don't think that is the point you were trying to make with your two scenario outrage.If she is denying only herself to buy her son this cake are you still outraged?

I still disagree no matter what fictitious scenario that you throw at me.If she can afford to waste 41 dollars on a cake she is receiving too much money. If she can't afford to waste the money and sacrifices nutrition for herself or anybody else then she is making a poor decision with money that is not hers and was not intended for that purpose.

I have zero issues with extremely strict standards regarding any public assistance. Whether it be welfare, social security disability, or whatever other forms.

On a side note, I like the way you have approached this thread.

 

[Jackstraw]

I always thought that chaka and jackstraw were the same person. Huh.

I I ever figure out how to do an alias it will be Buck Longshank.

 

[Chaka]

I always thought that chaka and jackstraw were the same person. Huh.

I I ever figure out how to do an alias it will be Buck Longshank.

I told you us never to give out our real name in the FFA!We're screwed now.

 

[Chaka]

While I still think that a $41 cake was a completely silly purchase, for anyone really but particularly in this specific instance, I think a lot of people who are looking at this mother in an extremely negative light should go back and tally their own expenses for the past year. How much #### have you purchased that you really could not (should not) afford? How much better shape would you be in financially if you made only intelligent, well considered, practical purchases?

Me making poor financial decisions with my money is my problemMe making poor financial decisions with your money is a much bigger problem.

And the problem isn't this one isolated instance... but rather that this instance is most likely indicative of a trend of abuse of federal assistance.

But it is her money to spend as she sees fit. Buying the cake does not somehow increase the amount she will receive in the future. Are you arguing for ending all government food assistance for the sole reason that this woman is spending it on something you don't think she should be spending it on?I think she made a poor financial decision for herself and her family but I don't see how it impacts anything for the rest of us and I certainly don't think that is a reason for the rest of society to abandon her.

If she can simply absorb a 41 dollar cake and move on then she gets too much each month. If the 41 dollar cake causes a hardship and she runs out then her child goes hungry or she goes and gets more help from somewhere else.Neither of these scenarios should be desirable.

What if she buys a $41 cake and sacrifices her own meals for a couple days/week to make up the difference and her child never goes hungry?

So then she is malnourished?

I have no idea. There are a lot of strong arguments to be made for the benefits of intermittent fasting so perhaps she is better off and her child is being abused by being overfed. However I don't think that is the point you were trying to make with your two scenario outrage.If she is denying only herself to buy her son this cake are you still outraged?

I still disagree no matter what fictitious scenario that you throw at me.If she can afford to waste 41 dollars on a cake she is receiving too much money. If she can't afford to waste the money and sacrifices nutrition for herself or anybody else then she is making a poor decision with money that is not hers and was not intended for that purpose.

I have zero issues with extremely strict standards regarding any public assistance. Whether it be welfare, social security disability, or whatever other forms.

On a side note, I like the way you have approached this thread.

Thanks, it's a tough issue and, as with most things, I see positive arguments on both sides.I still contend that it is her money and that is exactly what it was intended for. The current set up seems to be designed around giving the consumer as much choice as possible (some would argue this increases dignity). It also likely requires the least amount of manpower to regulate. I am not certain how you even begin to approach regulating what everyone on food assistance chooses to purchase with those dollars. You would probably have to eliminate the system as it stands and start a food rationing program where people just pick up allotments of foodstuffs to last them a predetermined period of time. But you run into trouble with food allergies and restrictions. It also feels like too much regulation and government involvement for my taste and psychologically brings up images of food lines in Russia. I know it is not the same thing but it wouldn't play well in the news.

 

[humpback]

We collectively lost 16 trillion in wealth during this recession due to epic greed in the financial sector. But I'm sure the problem is $41 ice cream cakes. About 390 billion of them or so by my count. Classic misdirection.

Actually you are the one misdirecting here. No one in here is defending the financial sector but you are posting as if they were. People do this all the time, they pass off, or tend to ignore, a legitimate problem as being no big deal because it isn't as bad as some other problem. WFC!?!? That logic snowballs until you have an overwhelming number of small problems that crush systems every bit as much as the big problems (death by a million paper cuts).The financial sector needs to be dealt with in a big way but that doesn't mean we should ignore any of the multitude of smaller problems that are also bleeding our system.Is SNAP one of those problems? I am not so sure, or at least I have yet to see a legitimate argument for it in here.

The reason I dialed in on the financial sector is the origin of the article. The WSJ is the first one to stir up class resentment when they ought to be issuing mea culpa's for ignoring the obvious dangers in the financial sector that should be in their wheelhouse. A one percent fraud rate and some poor buying decisions are more important than the worst financial crisis since the great depression, to the paper of record on financial issues. I guess the balls is takes to put out that garbage in that light is what blows me away. It's an agenda dressed up as concern trolling. Might there be legitimate issues regarding the snap program? Maybe. But thats not what an editorial in the WSJ is trying to do. This isn't journalism.

This is one opinion piece in the paper. I'm pretty sure there have been far more articles written in the WSJ about the financial crisis.