Why are food stamps such a bad thing?

[Heather MC]

By that I mean why do republicans hate them so much? Think about it, Food Stamp Recipients do not store the money in off-shore accounts hoarding it so no one else can get to it. They don't take the funds and only shop at farmers markets and local growers.

What they do is get that drop of money and go straight to Walmart, Safeway, Target, and hand it right over to the typical Corporate Masters that are actually running our Country. So why is that any different from Congress and the Senate voting to just hand Their Corporate Masters piles of money directly.

I don't know anyone on Food stamps who doesn't spend the money at Corporate Grocery Store. So what is all the fuss about? We are being lied to that's what. They want us to point the finger of blame at needy people, so while we are out lighting our pitch forks and shaking our fist in the direction of SNAP recipients.

Congress and the Senate come up with new ways to rob us blind. Our Government is making a big mistake taking away food from Needy Children and Elderly People. It's Wrong and it's a Lie Welfare is not hurting our Society. It contributes to it.

[DonCoquixote]

1. because

People beleive that their wealth is a result of their virtue, and that anyone poor is evil. That of course hides the fact that most rich people got their wealth by crooked means.

[Heather MC]

3. True Under every wealthy Person is

the bodies of everyone they stepped on to get "their" $$$$$$

[Brigid]

16. It is often said . . .

That every great family fortune has a crime behind it. Joe Kennedy started out as a bootlegger.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Because hard-working taxpayers are subsidizing a bunch of lazy ne'er-do-wells

who don't want to work. And those freeloaders aren't even white.

[Heather MC]

4. I am Black and i have to say

Most of the Food Stamp Users I know are White!
Not that there's anything wrong with that

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Of course that's true, over all.

But the teabaggers and their ilk don't think about that fact.

People who need help should get it, period, but that crowd likes to think some people don't "deserve" help.

[demwing]

6. THey don't see it as help

regardless of the circumstances, they see it as enabling irresponsibility.

The behavior is just plain, dumb meanness.

[penultimate]

31. That's pretty much how many of them see it...

You might occasionally come across one that understands that assistance has a place in our society, but they believe it needs to be fixed or done differently. At least with those ones you can have an interesting discussion about the subject, but most don't seem to fall under that category. It's depressing how near-sighted so many of them can be.

[demwing]

36. Welcome to DU!

Feel free to relax, kick your your shoes off, and pour yourself a frosty beverage.

[Heather MC]

8. "Deserve" what a funny word

Did People Deserve to have their employment options shipped to other countries.

Do people Deserve to get paid less than a living wage, even though the ones at the bottom work way harder than the ones at the top.

Do People Deserve to be force fed food that is filled with so many chemicals if you dropped it on the Ground neither a dog nor an ant would eat it.

Do people Deserve the cancer that ultimately comes from eating the nasty food.

Do People Like me Deserve to live in Fear that come Monday My Husband will not get paid, and My son my not get help for his ADHD.

Do we DESERVE having to be forced to live under the nutty beliefs of a hand full of wealthy old white men and their delusional women?

I could go on feel free to add to it.

I can think of few things THEY Deserve. I wish Atlas Shrugged was real and all the greedy rich folks would just disappear
Come on John Galt take them away! LOL

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. Sadly, that's the way the GOPers and teabaggers think of it.

You have to "deserve" help, and they get to decide whether you do.

And that's because they're heartless assholes.

[Heather MC]

15. Funny they always come to the same conclusion

you need to pull yourself up by your made in china bootstraps, and ask your parents for money to help start a business outsourcing jobs to China duh!!!

[SammyWinstonJack]

35. repugs on food stamps believe they have earned that benefit and of course the other person hasn't.

Much like SS/Medicare/Unemployment benefits they have earned and again, the other person hasn't.

Truly bizarre thinking on their part.

[madrchsod]

9. most of the food stamp users are white and...

many are in rural areas of this country.

[Niceguy1]

22. and that will change

As the racial make up of the country changes.

[madokie]

25. I'm white

well mostly white. Back in my day we didn't have food stamps rather they made the poor like we were, to have to go to the fair grounds once a month to get our Commodities. I always felt it was to way to shame us as much as it was they were trying to help us. At any rate it was well received by my family because without it our hunger would have been much worse.

[madrchsod]

7. i`m on food stamps for another two months...

it`s the way the program works.

if they don't like it change it but they would rather just kill it off.

[Heather MC]

10. The Program is a Win win

You get to get Money for Food for you and your Family
and The Corporations get the money. Which is what the Republicans always fight for

I don't see the problem. I guess they want to cut out the middle man which in this case is....

Take those last to months worth of Food stamps and Give Mitt Romney a call see if he can hook you up with his Off Shore Investor Guy.

[madamesilverspurs]

12. The program began to help farmers.

Hence, it's inclusion in the Farm Bill.

History here: http://www.snaptohealth.org/snap/the-history-of-snap/

The nutrition benefits to the poor, however, cannot be disputed. Poor families, many of whom have at least one adult working at least one job, would not have reliable food without the program. The benefit for communities is also well recorded.

The stories of food stamp recipients purchasing lobster, booze and cigarettes are anecdotal at best. The current denigration of SNAP beneficiaries is just more of the same "blame the poor" mantra that, sadly, has come to be one of the most recognizable features of today's GOP.

Full disclosure: I've relied on the program for years, due to disabilities. With the price of everything going up, I just received notice that my benefit is being reduced by $25 a month, down to $3.19 per day. Ain't no lobster in my future.

[Heather MC]

18. Thank you for the Full Disclosure, We should never feel like getting help is a bad thing

I would rather every dime I pay in Taxes went to help others who need it, than those who "Greed it"

When I was a Kid my Family was always just a few hundred bucks above the limit to qualify for Welfare. trust me that sucked ass. Many times we had Mayonnaise Sandwiches for dinner. Or one meal the entire day.

Lobster was never on our menu although years later I discovered I was allergic to Lobster so it was probably for the best LOL

[Incitatus]

13. Some are just selfish assholes.

Some may believe programs for the poor are the reason for economic troubles, completely ignoring that 1% controls about 40% of the wealth and many of them evade taxes or pay lower effective rates than a lot of working class people.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

14. racism, protestant work ethic, supply side jesus, lack of empathy etc.

[csziggy]

19. A little more than "protestant work ethic" maybe

One history of the US I read discussed how the Protestant variants included sects that believed in Calvinism precepts. One of those was ""Unconditional election" asserts that God has chosen from eternity those whom he will bring to himself not based on foreseen virtue, merit, or faith in those people; rather, his choice is unconditionally grounded in his mercy alone. God has chosen from eternity to extend mercy to those he has chosen and to withhold mercy from those not chosen." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism#Five_points_of_Calvinism) Some of the groups that settled this country believed as a part of that predeterminism was that their god showed his favor to his pre-selected favorites by giving them material success.

People who their god had not selected to receive his "holy favor" were not "blessed" with successful lives. By this set of beliefs, if you were not part of the lucky gene pool destined for material and eternal bounty, you were inherently sinful and unloved by their god.

This attitude explains a LOT about the attitudes of some of these Christians who do not want to help those who need assistance.

[Heather MC]

27. Glad I am not Christian.

It is unfortunate people use an ancient text to set the barometer of their moral compass. By that logic we should still be chopping off the hands of thieves, and chopping off the hands of wives who grab their husband's crotch to prevent them from fighting another man. SMH

[csziggy]

33. Oh - this interpretation only dates back to Calvin, not to the Bible

Calvinism (also called the Reformed tradition or the Reformed faith) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice of John Calvin and other Reformation-era theologians. Calvinists broke with the Roman Catholic church but differed with Lutherans on the real presence of Christ in the Lord's supper, theories of worship, and the use of God's law for believers, among other things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism

Near the end of the book, Calvin describes and defends the doctrine of predestination, a doctrine advanced by Augustine in opposition to the teachings of Pelagius. Fellow theologians who followed the Augustinian tradition on this point included Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther,[88] though Calvin's formulation of the doctrine went further than the tradition that went before him.[89] The principle, in Calvin's words, is that "All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin#Theology

Calvinists agree that God is sovereign, and will save all those whom he has purposed to save, and damn those he has purposed to damn. Calvinist theologians however, along with the majority of Christian theologians from other traditions, believe that Scripture clearly indicates that not all will, in fact, be saved. They point to another characteristic of a sovereign God: his divine justice. Calvinists contend that God extends mercy and grace to whom he will according to his plan (Romans 8), and administers justice (which, by its very nature is the punishment for sin, and thus in every way good and holy in concordance with the character of God) to all others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_predestination#Universalist

[Spitfire of ATJ]

21. Funny how those with the classic "protestant work ethic" claim God wants you to work...

....and HATES sloth as one of the 7 deadly sins but they all dream of being rich so they'll never have to work again.

They're kinda "single issue" on that too.

Think about it.

Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride.

They can find a virtue in all of the others and are proud of their wrath and envious of the greedy as they describe something deep fried as "better than sex"..

[SheilaT]

17. I'm old enough to remember before food stamps, when

there was a program to get surplus food to needy families. I think it was originally designed to take care of certain specific food surpluses. At some point someone must have said, "Wouldn't it be better to simply give poor people a kind of stipend they can spend pretty much as they like?" and so food stamps were born.

I'm not sure if it started with Reagan, but he was certainly the champion of the notion that most who get welfare or food stamps are undeserving cheaters. Most undeserving cheaters I've known are much higher up on the food chain. People who retire from the military, then get a government job they retire from, making full use of every benefit that goes with those and look down their noses at the "undeserving poor."

I've been fairly poor a couple of times in my life. Never homeless, never seriously hungry. But poor enough that I constantly marvel at how much I have. I have often, even in relatively affluent times, thought about what I'd do if my personal financial situation crashed. (One is that I'd get a job at a restaurant or a fast food place to get at least one meal a day.) I'm where I am NOT because I'm a better person, but because I've gotten breaks, even had advantages, that many others don't.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

20. They resent that they have to work at a job they HATE only to have the gubmunt take,...

....from them so "some people" (guess what color?) can lounge around all day and not work.

[tecelote]

23. You're absolutely right. But...

Welfare and food stamps are needed by many because they are single mothers of four or they lost their job when the company moved labor overseas. Real needs.

The abuse of food stamps and welfare is not by the people anywhere near the levels claimed.

The abuse is by the corporations that pay so little that employed people need food stamps and welfare to live.

It's a subsidy so Walmart investors can make a killing.

[B Calm]

24. +1

[Heather MC]

28. Walmart just Forced the Mayor of DC to veto a bill

That would have made minimum wage $12/hr
They are sick and depraved.

[sendero]

26. You have to listen closely to their talking points..

... to understand their latest strategy and their plan for getting there.

They are busy now explaining how CHURCHES are providing for the hungry and that it is a CHURCH function to do so, not the government's. Implicit in that belief are two things. First, while they decry "government dependency", second they are fine with "Church Dependency". In fact, that is what they want. If you need to eat you need to proclaim belief in their god (who they clearly don't actually believe in themselves, or they wouldn't be the way they are), and submit to their power structure.

God forbid that a person who needs assistance be "free".

All of this is couched in terms of the budget but we waste hundreds of billions of dollars on bullshit so that dog won't hunt.

[Heather MC]

29. I think if we taught

Gardening and small farming in schools and armed people with the knowledge to feed themselves we would be better off as a country.


We are way to dependent on a corporate feeding food structure. If that system breaks down. Most people have no Idea how to create an alternative food source. Particlarly city dwellers.

[Bay Boy]

30. I can give one egregious example of abuse...

...in my area a man won a million dollar lottery and continued using food stamps. Local news quoted him along the lines of "I earned them"
This maybe one of the very few examples of abuse.

[Romulox]

32. Guys, food stamps are just another Federal subsidy to Big Ag. We all get that, right? nt

[etherealtruth]

34. They are not

Right wing nut jobs simply use it in their rallying cries in order to convince low wage earners and middle wage earners that the "other" is getting something for nothing.

Ronald Reagan perfected (perverted) this with his "Welfare Queen" (stirring the basest prejudices) ... never mind that at that time and now the face of the program was actually white poor and rural (in great numbers). It did serve the purposerallying lower end wage earners to vote against their own self interest

[RedCappedBandit]

37. Because food stamps give people power

The more power poor people have, the less able the wealthy are to exploit them. Taking the people's power away keeps them desperate.