The state of Maine wants to do just that. To ban food stamp recipients under the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) from purchasing specific unhealthy items, state officials have to get approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The state requested a waiver Monday from the federal agency, Maine’s top human services official, Mary Mayhew, told The Daily Signal.
“We believe that this is a commonsense reform to actually focus on nutrition and healthier choices within the food stamp...Read More HERE
3 comments:
It's a start. But it should be limited to a list of 50 items that it CAN buy, including staples. Only chicken as a meat. No name brands. No one would go hungry but the program would cost a lot less.
Unfortunately, welfare recipients are quite resourceful. Back in the days of handing out commodities (like the infamous government cheese), recipients would sell their cheese, canned chicken etc for cash they could spend on whatever they wanted.
Same with restrictions on food stamps. They sell the stamps, or buy what theyre allowed to buy & sell that.
Neither do the stamps/EBT preclude fraud. I recall one day, standing in line to buy some bologna to make sandwiches I could take to work with me, and I was behind this guy paying with food stamps. He had among other things some of the biggest T-bone steaks I had ever seen, bigger than I could afford on a workingman's salary. He also had dog food & booze. The clerk separated those as not allowed under food stamps. He paid for his lavish groceries with food stamps and then pulled out the biggest roll of cash I had ever seen anyone carry to pay for his dog food & booze.
Besides, the liberals will say you're stigmatizing the poor by not letting them shop for junk food like normal folk do. I guess that's considered a micro aggression these days?
Normally don't like government regulation, but can support this one. Would also support ban on steaks and shrimp, not to mention Russian Caviar!
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