Thread: Republicans hope Trump amenable to food stamp restrictions

Republicans hope Trump amenable to food stamp restrictions

By marina villeneuve, associated press
AUGUSTA, Maine — Apr 8, 2017, 10:36 AM ET

Sunny Larson, Zak McCutcheonThe Associated Press

In this Monday, March 27, 2017 photo Sunny Larson, left, and Zak McCutcheon pick produce while gathering provisions to take home at the Augusta Food Bank in Augusta, Maine. Republican Gov. Paul LePage says his call to ban the use of food stamps for soda and candy is backed by science and a desire to reduce obesity and diabetes in the nation's oldest state. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Maine resident Zak McCutcheon says he likes soda but acknowledges he'd drink less of it if his governor convinced Republican President Donald Trump to put restrictions on the approximately $200 a month he receives in food stamps. He thinks it may even make recipients healthier and less overweight.

"If I was more restricted to what I could buy, I would become more of a veggie eater," said McCutcheon, who recently perused grapes and packages of pre-chopped vegetables at an Augusta food bank with his pregnant girlfriend.

But another one of Maine's 180,000 food stamp recipients, Samantha Watson, said she believes a ban from using food stamps on soda and candy won't make low-income people any healthier. It would take more than that to change eating habits, she said, since food stamps cover only a fraction of the monthly grocery bill for herself and her 3-year-old daughter.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage and fellow Republicans in two other states are now renewing their efforts to restrict food stamps in the hopes that Trump will be more amenable than the previous administration.

In 2011, former Democratic President Barack Obama's administration rejected then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's soda ban for food stamp recipients and in June, he raised "significant" concerns with LePage's proposal, saying there'd be no meaningful way to evaluate whether the ban changed the way recipients bought sweets.

While Trump's budget proposal doesn't include food stamp changes, his choice for secretary of agriculture, Sonny Perdue, of Georgia, has signaled support for overhauling the $71 billion Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which administers food stamps to 44 million recipients.

LePage is optimistic the new administration will approve his revived proposal, which he says is backed by common sense and a desire to reduce high rates of obesity and diabetes, the latter of which afflicted his mother.

The governor's efforts in Maine have inspired legislators in Tennessee and Arkansas, who say they won't give up trying to restrict food stamp purchases.

"We don't allow people to buy alcohol and cigarettes with welfare dollars, why should we allow people to buy junk food that leads to just as many health problems?'" said Tennessee Rep. Sheila Butt, a Republican, who hopes Trump will give states more power over the state-run SNAP program.

A study of one leading U.S. grocery retailer released in November by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that in 2011, 20 cents of every dollar spent on food stamps went to sweetened beverages, desserts, salty snacks, candy and sugar. SNAP households spent about 5 cents per dollar on soft drinks and 2 cents per dollar on candy, similar to the spending habits of households not receiving SNAP benefits.

Last summer, LePage threatened to cease Maine's administration of the food stamp program after the USDA raised questions about Maine's proposed ban. The governor's renewed request would divert federal funds away from nutrition education — which amounted to $4.3 million in the last fiscal year — and toward food banks, schools and other community agencies to distribute healthy foods.

Jim Hanna, the executive director at Cumberland County Food Security Council, said poor people have enough issues to manage without being told what to eat and drink, and that a soda or candy tax would be a better approach than eliminating the state's SNAP education program.

"It seems very contradictory to, on the one hand, limit people's access to foods that have negative nutrition content and then to limit access to information to support them to make better choices about nutrition," Hanna said.

The debate over restrictions goes back to the 1940s, when the then-orange food stamps couldn't buy soft drinks, and the 1960s and 1970s, when concern over bureaucracy and figuring out just what counts as junk food hindered attempts to exclude soft drinks.

There's been little change over the ensuing years, although the USDA will soon require stores that accept food stamps to stock more fruits, vegetables and other healthy food. The agency's also providing farmers market with free equipment to accept SNAP debit cards, and supporting programs that provide "bonus dollars" for purchases at farmers markets.

Critics from major medical groups to food policy experts say the existing program promotes chronic illness and amounts to public subsidies for powerful junk food conglomerates that lobby against restrictions. The Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents companies like Coca-Cola, calls the restrictions a "bureaucratic mess."

Still others wonder what impact the restrictions might have on SNAP long term. Tatiana Andreyeva, a University of Connecticut professor and director of economic initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, fears that proposals such as LePage's could be the first step to the program's decimation.

"It's very easy to jump from a restriction on sugary beverages to let's just cut benefits," she said.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/r...tions-46672888

"If I was more restricted to what I could buy, I would become more of a veggie eater," said McCutcheon, who recently perused grapes and packages of pre-chopped vegetables at an Augusta food bank with his pregnant girlfriend."

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On food stamps...can't feed themselves but CHOSE to have a baby they cannot feed. Disgusting.

End these breed and feed programs. Get on birth control.

I've thought about this for a really long time and my conclusion is we should dispense with the federal food stamp and free school lunch programs altogether. I would support a nutrition supplement addition for qualifying parties who are on 100% Social Security Disability and Medicare recipients eligible for Medicaid who are 65 and older, (early retirees would not be eligible) and this would be a simple add-on financial benefit to their monthly social security checks for themselves, not family members.

States, cities, counties, churches and charities need to be addressing starvation in their communities due to lack of work, hours and jobs, not the federal government. Charities alone collect over $1.4 trillion a year in tax-exempt revenue and tax-deductible contributions. If that band of thieves can't come up with $70 billion out of $1.4 trillion a year to feed the hungry and starving in our country, then to hell with them, pass the FairTax and shut them down. If state, county and city governments who are closest to the situation and needs of their constituents can't find $70 billion a year out of their combined budgets to feed the hungry in their working age and physically able population, then to hell with them, cut all their federal funding, too. And churches .... oh my God, have you all dropped your balls. You build these massive facilities, fund world-travel, build fancy schools, invest in income-producing properties, buy art and finery, buy stocks and invest in portfolios through your CHURCH, yet drive your new Mercedes around the poor sections of your community on your way to Nieman-Marcus, the Country Club and Chamber meetings all the whole wailing for more free trade and "welcoming" illegal aliens and immigrants we can't possibly sustain and who create the poverty that generates this starvation among our own citizens. You people aren't even feeding your own parents and family members.

Start phasing it out and end these shameful programs by 2019. Take care of the poor disabled and elderly through SSA without additional general revenue appropriations. If a minor payroll tax increase is needed to achieve this, then I totally support it. But I don't think it will be necessary. Adequate nutrition should be part of a good Medicare program for those who can't afford proper nutrition, because their SS benefit is too small and they are without other retirement income, will go a long ways toward reducing the cost of medical benefits under Medicare and should easily pay for itself many times over.

For everyone else, the solutions to your hunger problems are work, family planning, wages, and good jobs. Very simple.

Originally Posted by Beezer

"If I was more restricted to what I could buy, I would become more of a veggie eater," said McCutcheon, who recently perused grapes and packages of pre-chopped vegetables at an Augusta food bank with his pregnant girlfriend."

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On food stamps...can't feed themselves but CHOSE to have a baby they cannot feed. Disgusting.

End these breed and feed programs. Get on birth control.

Yeah, I saw that. It's why I've made up my mind once and for all on this issue.

The problem with restricting food stamps away from junk food is deciding what qualifies as junk food. There are breakfast cereals out there that have as much sugar as candy does. Even ketchup has enough sugar in it to compete with candy as does many salad dressings and barbecue sauce.

Surrendering public assistance to labor markets and church charity forgets that many people who are working are not escaping poverty and that many church charities are not really interested in helping anyone who is not a believer in their religion. And aren't many churches receiving government money? If churches ever start receiving government money from privatizing the public system under Trump, they will be getting even more. Church charities are not really good at supplying food. Mostly it is canned goods and pasta, not exactly survival fare.

Oh I'm not suggesting the program be diverted or privatized to these awful "charity frauds". I'm suggesting the federal government get out of it altogether and put the $71 billion back into general revenue to do something else with it like pay for tax cuts, build some new roads, clean up some polluted sites, invest in infrastructure, build the wall, redevelop the poor areas of our inner cities, pay down the debt or ... give it back to taxpayers.

You're right. So far the church programs are lousy, BECAUSE what they do is take the old stuff or stuff they didn't want out of their own cupboards and haul it down to the church pantry, then take a tax deduction for it.

But believe me, these church people know how to eat so they know how to feed. They feed at funerals for their own members, they feed at events, they know how to feed, they just haven't applied their skills or money to feeding the hungry. They can do it, they know how to do it and they certainly have the resources to do it and do it well. Take the Baptist Men who feed thousands of victims of natural disasters, all over the country. Believe me, church people know all about good food and how to feed. It's just time they put their knowledge and skill to actually feeding the hungry on a regular basis, and do it with their own church money, not government money.

At the same time, they could help the citizens they get to know find jobs and solve the problem. They can also just hand out their charity money to the poor who could them go buy the food. Or they can deliver groceries to them every week.

I have every confidence that together states, cities, counties, charities and churches can figure it out. They've all got some very high-priced staff that are perfectly capable of coming up with a food program to feed the hungry until they find a job and can feed themselves. It's time the federal government got OUT of the feeding business. It's too political, and for many on the food stamp and free school program, it's not a safety net, it's a lifestyle.

Way back when ---- one of the deciding factors for food that could be purchased by food stamps was the amount of sugar contained in the food.

Also, you could not purchased imported food. We'd all starve now, wouldn't we?

I think we should go back to the commodity program. Cut out so much subsidies to farmers, buy their surplus, process it and hand it out.

It is surprising what the people getting commodities had to eat. Granted, it was all canned or dried. There was cheese.

I walked into a man's garage that got commodities and there were shelves floor to ceiling around the garage filled with everything. There were the dry staples, all kinds of canned meats - fish, etc. There was every kind of fruit and veggie - including every kind of fruit and vegetable juice. There were nuts, just everything. That's where I tasted macadamia nuts for the first time.

If we are going to subsidize farmers, let's make it work two ways. I realize food stamps are a subsidy to farmers, as is the free lunch program, but let's make it where the subsidy benefits the farmer and the person getting free food.

Yes, canned meat and veggies are not always that great - but it's better than cereal, pop tart, soda and chips.

This is why the federal government needs to get completely out of the food and nutrition business. It's way too political. Everyone has some different idea of how it should be done when it shouldn't be done at all. When people are hungry, short of a drought or famine, it's because they don't have enough money, or they're scamming taxpayers. If they want to scam a charity, have at it, charities will figure it out. If they want to scam a church, have at it, churches will figure it out. If they want to scam a state, have at it, states will figure it out. The federal government however has absolutely no way to figure it out. Too far removed from the ground and the people.

For the people who are hungry and starving from lack of income, they need money, which means if they are able-bodied and able to work, they need a job. That means they need industry. States, cities and counties are responsible for industrial development. If you don't have enough jobs in your town, fire your mayor. If you don't have enough jobs in your state, fire your governor and state legislatures, because they are the people running your companies and employers out of town with property taxes, storm water fees, income taxes and a bundle of other anti-industry programs. They might also be responsible for stealing your job and handing it to an illegal alien or unneeded refugee, asylum-seeker, visa worker or green card resident.

We shouldn't be subsidizing farmers except to protect the American ownership of the farms. I'm sure this whole agricultural subsidy program is going to get a good long hard look by the Trump Administration and get some serious wrinkles in it ironed out. We probably still need it, probably more now that ever before, but I think in different ways than the laws and regulations of the past. It's a new day and a very different world now, and to protect American Owned Farms, we need a new set of laws, regulations and subsidies than what we've had in the past, because those aren't working. We're losing farms by the thousands every day, so it's going in the wrong direction and must be fixed or we won't have enough food production to support our own population let alone other countries, so this is a major national security issue that needs immediate resolution.

Originally Posted by Judy

This is why the federal government needs to get completely out of the food and nutrition business. It's way too political. Everyone has some different idea of how it should be done when it shouldn't be done at all. ...

That's not exactly true. Food quality and nutrition are medical issues and subject to medical standards and so as long as we have medical standards that are enforced by law, then so also the government should observe nutritional and food quality standards. Food quality, especially safe meat, is one of our government's most important quality of life law enforcement issues.

The problems here is that our medical establishment is slipping pretty badly and medical standards are declining. Witness the quackery of "medical marijuana" and "transgender surgery". There is also declining standards of food quality due to more and more food being shipped from places with poor or no enforced quality standards, like Asia and South and Central America.

Originally Posted by Judy

... When people are hungry, short of a drought or famine, it's because they don't have enough money, or they're scamming taxpayers. If they want to scam a charity, have at it, charities will figure it out. If they want to scam a church, have at it, churches will figure it out. If they want to scam a state, have at it, states will figure it out. The federal government however has absolutely no way to figure it out. Too far removed from the ground and the people. ...

Also not true. Part of the distribution of public assistance is a fairly sophisticated bureaucracy that insures that people who receive public assistance actually need and only receive what they actually need. Some people who are employed and working regularly have not escaped poverty and are eligible for public assistance and they have to report their employment and what income they do get from that work. All this is readily backed up with administrative consequences and law enforcement.

Originally Posted by Judy

... For the people who are hungry and starving from lack of income, they need money, which means if they are able-bodied and able to work, they need a job. That means they need industry. States, cities and counties are responsible for industrial development. If you don't have enough jobs in your town, fire your mayor. If you don't have enough jobs in your state, fire your governor and state legislatures, because they are the people running your companies and employers out of town with property taxes, storm water fees, income taxes and a bundle of other anti-industry programs. They might also be responsible for stealing your job and handing it to an illegal alien or unneeded refugee, asylum-seeker, visa worker or green card resident. ...

What you are talking about here is the labor market and surrendering the problem of poverty to the labor market. But clearly the labor market is not a completely reliable way to confront poverty. It is inevitable even in a labor market that favors labor that there be those people who cannot get employment through no fault of their own even though they are able and willing to work. This is what public assistance is for.

Originally Posted by Judy

... We shouldn't be subsidizing farmers except to protect the American ownership of the farms. I'm sure this whole agricultural subsidy program is going to get a good long hard look by the Trump Administration and get some serious wrinkles in it ironed out. We probably still need it, probably more now that ever before, but I think in different ways than the laws and regulations of the past. It's a new day and a very different world now, and to protect American Owned Farms, we need a new set of laws, regulations and subsidies than what we've had in the past, because those aren't working. We're losing farms by the thousands every day, so it's going in the wrong direction and must be fixed or we won't have enough food production to support our own population let alone other countries, so this is a major national security issue that needs immediate resolution.

This is a commonly held misconception about food stamps heavily perpetuated here in the agriculturally oriented state of California. And it is propped by a lot of propaganda and administrative programs that advance food stamps into farmer's markets and other direct outlets from farmers. But fresh vegetables are only a small part of a healthy diet. Meat and carbohydrates are the more fundamental parts and this means food processors of some kind with farmers not directly involved. Food stamps have very little to do with farmers and everything to do with grocers and other food outlets like Walmart's.

So is the bottom-line for you that you want to continue a federally-funded food stamp and free school lunch program that costs combined over $80 billion a year when we have "charities" that take in $1.4 trillion a year but find ways to spend their "charity" on things other than feeding the hungry in the United States?

I don't think handing out money for food by the federal government on a continual basis, emergencies yes, natural disasters yes, major economic depressions or great recessions yes, but every day all day every month all year for generations, isn't solve the problem, it's perpetuating it.

To solve this problem, you have to put in place an accountability at the source of the problems of poverty that lead to the need for food assistance. That accountability has to be at the state and local levels, with oversight by the federal government, in my opinion.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one, pkskyali. I realize the 501 C 3's don't want to have to do something as messy with their "charity" as feeding the poor. Just as they've no interest in healing the sick or housing the homeless. But at some point, those who want a charity status need to provide charity. At some point those who want to wail about "states rights" need to put their money where their mouths are and deal with their own residents who need food, medical care and a roof over their heads. The federal government isn't the right entity to do this for any group other than those on Social Security Disability (100%) and low-income Social Security Retirement.

I for one am fed up with overweight women using EBT cards with a bunch of bone-thin children following them out the door. I for one am fed up with well-dressed women with a well-dressed man with gold bracelets hauling their EBT booty to a Cadillac Escapade parked in the handicapped parking space. I for one am fed up with foreign speaking individuals with 2 large grocery carts using EBT cards to purchase groceries and using a big wad of cash to pay for the other stuff the EBT card doesn't buy while Americans paying with their own money dig for change to pay their bill for a hand-basket of goods.

There are hungry people in our country who need help, unfortunately, they aren't getting it while others who don't need it are. And the issue isn't about buying soda pop or candy. The issue is far greater than that.

Too many people with opinions on this subject are too far removed from what's happening on the ground with this program. And doctors would be top of the list. They have no clue. In fact, our medical profession has been so downgraded through J-1 Visas, I'm not sure who is even speaking on behalf of the medical profession any more, but I don't think it's American Doctors.