https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/13/well/eat/food-stamp-snap-soda.html?_r=0


No surprises here. In order to receive food stamps, one should have to pass a drug test, and only buy certain real foods.

"The United States Department of Agriculture, which oversees the $74 billion food stamp program called SNAP"

"20 cents of each dollar was spent on a broad category of junk foods that included “sweetened beverages, desserts, salty snacks, candy and sugar.” - or almost 15 BILLION.

Too bad they don't give out staples like they did when I was a youngster.You had darn well better know how to cook.

It irks me when I have to buy meat.I have to buy the cheap cuts and I see food stampers buying $9/pound steaks.

I have seen some small stores let them buy beer and butts. They charge it as food. It happens a lot in minority neighborhoods.

Quite the racket

I've seen em buy a couple of twelve packs of pop, go behind the 7-11 and dump the cans out down the sewer. The take the emptys right back into 7-11 to get the deposit back and buy beer with the money.

It's ridiculous what is going on. Think Warren Buffet, a major coke shareholder.

To top it off, we pay for their obesity via buying them pop and snacks, and then pay to treat their ailments via medicaid. Anybody else think the fix is in? This is just a big transfer of wealth from taxpayers to walmart, coke, and big pharma and the healthcare industry.

Poor people are just pawns in this. They are trapped in poverty so this cycle can continue. We need to ban all processed and sugary drinks from SNAP. Then, we need to tax the hell out of all sugary drinks, snack foods, and processed foods to take that money and directly fund medicaid and healthcare.

If you don't like the tax, don't eat that crap.

Exactly the way it is here. We buy the cheapest, on sale stuff. 50% of sales in my town are from food stamps. So, the local store jacks up the prices because they know the food stampers will pay for it. It completely skews supply/demand when 50% of the demand will pay for whatever due to food stamps.

I love Dr Pepper!!

Hey hanco ! Were these purchases done by nigs or by black folks ?

It's a common practice where I live. They buy beer, cigarettes, gas, etc. at 50 cents on the dollar with food stamps. The country stores ring it up as food and charge $10 for a $5 pack of cigarettes. They only do it with customers they know so they don't get caught.

It ain't the whole story.

They will go fill a shopping basket up with T-Bones and ribeyes, then trade them for beer and cigarettes.

Or a couple of bottle of Ripple.

You can't go down this road. So do we tax milk because it has too much fat? Are we only allowed to buy untaxed fat free milk?

It's a slippery slope indeed. No way will we ever cut services to those people though.

Something needs to change.

I agree 100% about the food stamp racket, and if someone else is paying for it, then you should eat what they serve you, or starve.....your choice. But, I don't like the idea of government telling people what they can eat and what they can't.

When I was a kid working in the local grocery store they came in books and the checkout person would separate what could be used with them. Today you get a credit card and I don't think it matters what you buy with them.

The computer sorts it out now. They get 2 balances,... what the food stamps pay for and what you have to pay for in cash.

How 'bout just put an end to SNAP...for ALL able-bodied people...altogether...?

You could still consume it, you'd just be taxed at a higher rate. Like booze.

I'm not a fan of new taxes, but something has to give.

Drug test too.

And not able to draw SNAP if they own 8 pitbulls, or have $3500 worth of tattoos.

They changed to Debit Cards so the people on food stamps wouldn't be so embarrassed in the stores using them. I personally don't care what they buy with them, because the money they receive is already wasted or gone anyway, regardless what they spend it on.

Its the pits now.

A friend of mine used to trade old skunky beer for commodities.

Some of that stuff was pretty good. Cant get commodity cheese any more. I loved that stuff.

My Grand mother in the 50 and the 60's used to receive these commodities , including big canes of peanut butter, spam I guess, blocks of cheese. Wasn't all that bad if you had nothing.

Yeah, those cans were called "luncheon loaf".

It was a mix between deviled ham and Spam.

The peanut butter was okay, if you remembered to stir the oil in.

Fuggers here can use their Oregon Trail Card at Starbucks, Dutch Bros, and Papa Murphy's Pizza! I've also witnessed firsthand, bums buying flats of water and going out to the parking lot and emptying the bottles to return them for the deposit to buy 40's.

Any time you have a govt program you will have folks scamming the system.

With the commodity program you had folks selling or trading the commodities.

I knew we were going to hell in a hand basket when Wal Mart started advertising that you could cash your refund checks at the store.

I noticed today, that Scott Adams commented on 'fairness', saying that "fairness was a concept that was invented so that kids and idiots could participate in debates"

sadly, welfare fraud is color blind.

Yep. Around here it is rampant and mostly white. Of course the state is largely white. Skin color don't mean chit.

I used to think a government commodities store, like a food warehouse that gave out the staples, like beans, rice, flower etc....
Would solve many of these problems.

I no longer believe that. They would just trade the food for beer and cigarettes, drugs etc...

I now believe starvation is the answer. If they cannot be productive enough to feed themselves they should perish.

Harsh, but the way things are going they risk taking everyone down with them.

I seen white and blacks buying beer and butts with their Lone Star cards. Are we dumb or what? I see them use it in nice restaurants. They ain't much on tipping.

Lone Star cards? JFC, who came up with that stupid name?

Maybe the same person that came up with this dumbass name for this state's card?

http://dhss.alaska.gov/dpa/Pages/ebt/default.aspx

No matter what you call it, it's still welfare.

Shocking that the snack and beverage industry would oppose limitations because it would "impose unfair restrictions on poor Americans!" Gimme a friggin break. Also sad that with today's technology we don't wire card readers to automatically weed out junk items from the EBT purchase and make them put them back on the shelf.

Well at least they didn't call it the "Last Frontier card" or something that makes the welfarers seem like they're some sort of heroes. They ought to call it a Freeloader card so everytime they use it they are reminded of where they sit in the food chain. They ought to tie your right to vote with whether or not you are on public assistance.

What ever happened to Government cheese, powdered eggs and milk along with dried beans and rice.
A lot of poor folks made it through hard times with it.

Per usual- Follow the money trail back to see who the really BIG winners are.

(entire article on report here: http://www.eatdrinkpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/FoodStampsFollowtheMoneySimon.pdf )

Brief c&p summary of report findings -

Stopped in the Wal-Mart on the way home last night (cheapest beer in town).

Spanish chick in front of me (NO English at all). Basket full of food, drinks, steaks, crab. Out came the EBT card.

Thrilling.

Gotta pick your battles. Now, it's time to get control of the border, fix the health care disaster, and get some good jobs for people. One way to cut down on the scamming would be to put some teeth in the laws so merchants that abet the practice pay a big price for their part, just like they need to crack down on employers that hire illegals.

The real shame here is that the scammers are wasting money that could help genuinely needy and deserving people live better lives. Besides the government food program frauds, there are also people taking food from food banks and then selling it.

http://www.eatdrinkpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/FoodStampsFollowtheMoneySimon.pdf

Every so often some of the trash gets taken out!

http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2017/01/post_352.html

60-year-old woman, daughters go to prison after $722K in food stamps fraud

SHELBY, MI - A 60-year-old woman and her two adult daughters must serve prison terms and repay $722,149 in food stamp benefits they fraudulently obtained.

Cruz Gonzalez and her daughters Fabiola Garcia and Gisela Mendoza were convicted of a conspiracy to illegally exchange benefits for cash, cell phones, and other ineligible items at La Fortuna Carniceria in Oceana County's Shelby.

Gonzalez and Garcia were sentenced Wednesday, Jan. 11 in Grand Rapids by U.S. District Court Judge Gordon J. Quist,according to a press release from U.S. Attorney Patrick Miles. Mendoza was sentenced earlier, in November 2016.

The three were ordered to make restitution of the $722,149 and were sentenced to a variety of prison terms.

Mendoza in February 2008 signed SNAP paperwork indicating she was the sole proprietor of the store and her sister, Garcia, was the store manager, according to the federal indictment. The sisters and their mother allowed customers to redeem SNAP benefits for cash and other ineligible items, pocketing 50 percent of the SNAP money spent in such transactions.

While good, it's akin to taking out a drug dealer. You wouldn't have a problem if people didn't use drugs or didn't try to scam the system.

Scammers should get the same sentence. I'm still for starvation.

If you can't make it, tough sheit. Family, church, community. Government needs to be the f*ck out of it.

I propose that only Nutraloaf & water for the adult recipients of a .guv sponsored feeding program. Payment cards, when scanned, would reject payment unless the Nutraloaf & water products were present for purchase.

For the kids, Nutraloaf & milk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutraloaf

Food cards are just the tip of the iceberg. I've been dealing with scammers for almost 17 years. It's called .gov assisted housing. You guys' heads would come off if you'd seen what I have.

I've gotten rid of all of them except one. For now, they stay. Only because they WORK and take care of the property.

I bet we could get a few bitching battleships back in service with the money!

I'd love to see battleships sailing again.

Not to mention seeing less of the parasites supported by welfare.

Saddlesore: If you are irked already this incident I observed first hand will just add to that.
A few years ago I traveled to Butte, Montana to do some pawn shop and gunshop cruising.
I came into town from the NW and passed a Safeway store on one of the main city streets.
I looked over as I was passing the store in slow traffic and here was a little ol man that I surmised was either a druggie or an alcoholic or both.
He was skin and bones, dirty and disheveled and was carrying two doubled up Safeway shopping bags one in each hand.
The bags were full and obviously heavy as he trundled along.
I didn't think to much about it until a short time later when I walked into a pawn shop on that same street and here was the druggie/alcoholic at the owners desk in the back of the shop and she was using a machine to add up the value of THE steaks the bum type was obviously selling her!
The owner had not noticed me as yet and I heard her say "$210.00 total how about I give you $100.00"?
My recollection of the numbers is a bit fuzzy but I do specifically remember her offering just under 50% of what was "paid" by the bum for the steaks - and I thought you cheap caniving bitch!
"Okay" says the bum.
Any way I simply came forward and walked directly at the two cretins staring a vengeful glare at both of them.
They scurried around like rats.
Now if said bum druggie/alcoholic had paid for those two big bags of steaks with hard earned dollars he would NOT have walked 6 city blocks and sold them for less than 50% of what he had just paid for them!
Would he?
You can bet your ass he used food stamps (or what ever the program is called these days!) to buy that food then sold them for drug/alcohol money.
Yeah, your and my money was being wasted there on a druggie - PERIOD!
It would serve society better to simply burn that money instead of making it available to certain welfare abusers!
Drug and alcohol testing should be MANDATORY for all food stamp and welfare users.
It would eliminate 50%+ of the abused money right then and there.
I dealt with welfare, S.S.I. and food stamp abusers professionally for nearly 30 years and the sad thing is how many "people" abuse these systems to obtain drugs, alcohol, for gambling, for whoring etc etc etc.
Sickens me.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Forgive me if I don't hyperventilate.

I followed the links back to original sources.

SNAP holders buy 260% more infant formula and 300% more frozen chicken than non-SNAP shoppers. They buy 140% more frozen, single serving economy meals. 130% more convenience meals and popsicles. 120% more frozen meat and canned pasta. 110% more baby food and juice boxes. They buy 75% more dry dinner mixes (i.e., Hamburger Helper) and Ramen Noodles.

Non-SNAP shoppers buy twice as much berries, nuts, baking goods, apple, tropical fruits, vegetable salads, deli meat, salad mix, citrus and yogurt.

In a nation of 317 million people there will be abusers.

-BUT-

It is hard for me to look at those aggregate numbers and get excited. Dare I say, "Fake News"?

Poor people will always exist. Barking up the wrong tree for pointing the finger at poor people acting like poor people.

Poor people are big business. The poverty pimps like walmart, coke, non-profits etc are raping the public blind. Like I said before, poor folks are just pawns. That is why they are kept in poverty. The pimps will sign them up for every program available, and then take YOUR money and put it in their pockets. That's how it works.

A poor family with lots of kids with problems are worth millions to a school districts, non-profits, local food stores, etc. They remain poor, but everybody profits off them.

Good point Calvin. This is only one part. I know a lady very well that works at a doctors office. It is not in the"core " neither. One case , a young lady comes in. She has a sore wrist, worker remembers her from yesterday and thinks to herself how bad can it hurt , it's Thursday morning and you've been in here 3 times tis week. Obamacare people are real bad. Come in for everything. It is disgusting what they come in for. I went in 2 yrs ago cause of kidney stones . I realize I can't skip but it was borderline emergency. All those people ahead of me sitting on their iPhones while I am damn near screaming.

Docrocket should pipe in , he sees it all the time.

There probably has never been a government run program that has been abused anymore than the food stamp program. When I first went to work as a rural mail carrier back in the early 80's, food stamps were sent by certified mail, meaning they had to be signed for. I know, without a doubt, that some of the people getting them honestly needed the help, as I saw it firsthand. However, a good many of them were people that simply didn't want to work. My cousin's first job out of college was with the local food stamp office. She didn't least very long, because they kept getting on her for not signing enough people up. I've gotten pissed off more times than I can count seeing people using food stamps to purchase crap instead of good food. Some of you want to see such things as soda and junk food taxed so high, that they become too expensive to purchase. I don't, and I'll tell you why. It won't stop anything, as there will ways to get around it. Also, it's none of government's damn business what I eat.....NONE. I smoked for about 25 years, quitting over 20 years ago. I knew it wasn't good for me, but it was my choice. Not one single time did I ever get too high on tobacco, and cause a wreck that killed or injured some innocent person. Not once did I smoke too many cigarettes and start a fight or kill some one while I was under the influence. I also didn't spend all my paycheck down at the local cigarette store, and not have money to pay the rent. Yet.....do-gooders and the government decided that tobacco was bad for you and took away the right of people to smoke where they wanted to, even on private property. Now, I'm glad I quit smoking, I'm glad I don't have to smell smoke when I'm out in public, and I wouldn't urge anyone to use tobacco. But, I also don't the government sticking their damn noses into my personal life and telling me what's bad for me, like they did with tobacco. They took away a person's right to smoke in many privately owned places, and still allow people to buy alcohol, pay for abortions, give away millions of benefits to the lazy and "disabled", and are not held accountable for anything they do. I don't want them restricting my right to drink a Coke or Pepsi, without first having to take out a loan to purchase it.

While I agree with much of what you said - the difference mainly was that YOU paid for your cigarettes, not we taxpayers.

Terrible post.

I am fine with you having the "right" to be obese, IF you pay for 100% of associated medical costs. Have you looked at the costs associated with being obese/morbidly obese?

But, don't make your "choices" and expect folks who don't make those choices to pay for it. Whether through .gov medical or through an insurance pool.

A tax would simply take some of the burden off of tax payers who choose to be healthy, and put it on those who chug back soda, eat take out daily, and don't do a lick of exercise.

There would be much less fat folks if they actually had to pay for their medical issues.

I'm with you, but in a Christian way. Food stamps are just charity, hijacked by the government.

The government needs to get out of the charity business and return it to the churches where it belongs.

Food stamps are, and always were, about buying the vote.

So, you're okay with the more government intervention in our lives? Since we're going to start taxing all the stuff that we shouldn't be doing, let's begin with alcohol. The medical costs associated with people who drink too much are outrageous, so let's tax it to a point where people can't afford to drink it. Look at all the people that are killed or hurt in automobile accidents each year, so let's tax them to. What about people who sit on their ass and watch too much TV, let's tax the living snot out of TV. There's probably no better food for you than beans, with all that good fiber and protein. But, people who eat a lot of beans, fart quite a lot, and too much gas can cause the "greenhouse effect" to be worse. Better tax them too, while we're at it. I could keep naming things that are "bad" for us, but I'm tired of typing. The bottom line is that are many, many things that are not good for you, but it is neither the job nor the responsibility of government to "tax" us for doing them.

In north Louisiana I stopped in a small store to buy a bag of chips for the road. At the checkout counter there were three black ladies fairly well dressed, with 3 shopping carts full of chicken. Each one used her food stamp card to pay for her cart of chicken, probably maxing the cards out. In the parking lot they were loading all that chicken in a newer Suburban. I don't know what they were going to do with that much chicken, but I noticed on the drive out of town, there was a fried chicken restaurant on the darker side of the railroad tracks.