my libertarian-leaning republican friends answer to foodstamps

[iamthebandfanman]

Last edited Thu Nov 21, 2013, 10:22 PM - Edit history (2)

and drug testing.
was having a convo with an acquaintance about the consequences of drug testing people on assistance (and I brought up increased crime rate, folks in even worse health and still with their addiction, folks starving to feed their addiction.. and of course how the government should stay out of peoples bodies)...
he responded with the following , and I was just curious to see some of your reactions too it :

"No they should not starve. Food stamps should be replaced by a pallet of staple foods distributed weekly. Like beans, rice, vegetables, etc. Not a nebulous, semi-cash, tradeable commodity. In fact, the people receiving assistance should be responsible for distributing the foodstuffs, and if they show ability and/or ambition, they should be able to better themselves by promotion or advancement, to include competitive salary and benefits. Also politicians should be held accountable for every law that they pass, or has became law in the past. This includes insider trading laws, health care laws, perjury laws, defamation laws, etc. In fact if they break the law, the punishment should be more severe because they hold the public trust and represent not just themselves but the Citizens of their district or country. I personally am against any law passed that does not universally apply. (This practice creates a nobility and a peasantry class system that is appalling.)"

and yes, I know he misspelled tradable.. ill assume it was a typo on his part tho


EDIT: ive asked him to give me a detailed reply about where he thinks he lies on the political spectrum.. ill post an update when he replies
would hate to be mislabeling him.. so ill let him label himself


UPDATE :
he told me he considers himself a conservative republican, but that he does agree with some issues libertarians 'champion' (his words not mine lol )

[ScreamingMeemie]

1. I would send this back to him...

http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/modest.html

[gollygee]

2. At least your libertarian friends don't want them to starve

because the response I've gotten from libertarian tea party types is yeah, if they're too lazy to earn their own money, they can starve. Even when I say there aren't enough jobs for everyone so some people simply are going to be unable to work - and that lots of people on food stamps have jobs anyway because jobs don't pay enough to live in. They don't care.

People who get food stamps get very little, and there isn't very much fraud. We should be worrying about the issue of poverty rather than the tiny amount of fraud in food stamps.

[iamthebandfanman]

3. i know, right?

that's part of why I posted it.. seemed like a strange reply for a libertarian..

personally, I think hes just a republican who doesn't like to call himself a republican

[wercal]

14. The two aren't mutually exclusive

"We should be worrying about the issue of poverty rather than the tiny amount of fraud in food stamps."

Fixing fraud will free up more money to go to the legitimate recipients. Fixing fraud is good.

And its not a 'tiny' problem. From the USDA:

"In FY 2012, over 100 analysts and investigators reviewed over 15,000 stores and conducted nearly 4,500 undercover investigations. Close to 1,400 stores were permanently disqualified for trafficking and nearly 700 stores were sanctioned for other violations such as the sale of ineligible items."

So out of 19,500 reviews/investigations, 2,100 stores were committing fraud...or 10 percent! That's pretty high hit rate.

Fraud is very real with SNAP, and its funds get drained.

[gollygee]

21. Read this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024069968

There are things that are necessary to live that you can't buy with food stamps. Much of the "fraud" is desperate people who need things like toilet paper and soap. It isn't fun stuff.

[wercal]

25. You keep thinking in terms of somebody who is genuinely hungry

That is not what drives the bulk of the fraud. The fraud is driven by people who falsify applications, receive benefits, and sell them for cash.

Here's an article from yesterday, involving food stamps and WIC:

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/11/20/sources-more-than-a-dozen-nyc-stores-raided-in-food-stamp-fraud-investigation/

I hope you can understand how this scheme works. Read the article, it states that some of these stores didn't even sell groceries. The groceries on the shelves were a prop, and the store was a fence, to convert WIC and food stamps into cash.

Do you really believe that all these fake stores only dealt with people who needed soap and TP? The fraud is much bigger than that...and it hurts real SNAP users.

[gollygee]

27. That article is about WIC

not SNAP

[wercal]

38. Read it - its about both

[Gormy Cuss]

29. The fraud is small in terms of the national cost of SNAP

and it's decreasing because of better enforcement. Note the "stores" in that article were raided.

[catnhatnh]

40. I read that story.

It reported that several of the stores were guilty of 20,000 fraudulent transactions per month. Now-do you suspect 20K people just happened to wander down to the local market each month and debased the honest merchant struggling to make a living or that a greedy crook set up a front and enlisted desperate poor people to help him steal massive amounts from the government??? I question why the investigation took three years.

[wercal]

41. If you read the article, its very clear. The store owners were the ones arrested

But why on earth does it matter who commits the fraud. Doesn't matter who steals from the program...the money is still stolen.

[iamthebandfanman]

45. then maybe

the process of screening people should be more thorough...
maybe there needs to be more enforcement of fraud..
but cutting SNAP or requiring people to be drug tested will CHANGE NOTHING and only make more folks desperate...

if they ever do require drug testing for benefits/assistance.. I don't think the punishment should be getting kicked out of the program.. rather maybe guide people to counciling for their addiction instead of saying 'sorry youre sick, have fun finding something to eat druggie'

I think everyone understand that there is fraud in the system.. anytime any one creates a great idea that benefits folks, someone is going to come along and try to exploit it... people are humans after all, and greed - lust - and the want for control are traits we all contain within us. aint human nature a piece of work?

I don't think that means you punish everyone and/or violate their bodies.

[wercal]

46. I don't recall advocating drug testing

[Gormy Cuss]

26. That type of fraud is why many vendors were only sanctioned.

A slap on the wrist and a second chance is the penalty for those retailers.

TP, soap, diapers.... not food yet all are necessary.

[Gormy Cuss]

24. USDA estimate is a 1% trafficking/fraud rate, substantial down from 20 years ago when it was 4%.

Finding evidence of trafficking/other illegal use in 10% of the investigations is probably a tribute to how good the fraud detection mechanisms have become. Electronic data allows investigators to flag patterns that seem suspicious and one would hope that the algorithms are efficient at identifying a high percent of the bad actors.

And for recipients, >99% are eligible (IOW, less than a 1 % fraudulent receipt) and >96% of payments issued to recipients are accurate in terms of eligibility (some recipients receive more than they are due but some receive less because of errors.)

[iamthebandfanman]

12. not everyone with an EBT card

gets 'EBT Cash"..

most only get the 'EBT Food Stamps' option, which gives you zero cash and can only be spent on unprepared food.

[Orrex]

5. He's advocating for socialist distribution of basic foodstuffs?

Interesting position for a libertarian to advocate.

[booley]

9. maybe he's a socialist libertarian?

From what the OP'er says, probably not.

But I think a lot of people don't realize that the first people to call themselves libertarians and who make up the bulk of said people in the word today.. are socialists.

In other words, a lot of people oppose capitalism on Libertarian grounds

I have right wing libertarian friends, one of whom teaches economics at a college, who never heard the name Mikhail Bakunin until I mentioned it to them.

[iamthebandfanman]

10. as i told someone else

I think he just uses the mantle to run from the fact hes just your average right leaning republican.
its not a very 'hip' thing to be these days after all

[Orrex]

15. Good call

I've known "Libertarians" for decades, along with "I'm conservative, but I'm not a Republican" types, and it's always the same. Straight-ticket voters who lack the moral courage to admit that they're Republicans. The easy test is to ask them who they voted for in 12, in 08, in 04, etc. They always have a laundry list of reasons why they voted Red, but they insist that they weren't thrilled about it.

Blah blah blah.

[Jackpine Radical]

34. Let them vote Red, I say!

[maxsolomon]

6. And he misused palette for its homonym.

pallets are for loading cargo on - forklifts pick them up.

artists array their paint on a palette.

and everything after "also, ..." is utterly superfluous to his stupid government cheese plan.

i dislike libertarians, can you tell?

[WinkyDink]

23. I think he wrote what he meant.

[maxsolomon]

33. If so, that's substantially more food than a SNAP card can buy.

Just googlin', a pallet of rice is 384 4lb. bags., 3/4 of a ton of rice.

[Wounded Bear]

7. So food is not a "tradable commodity"........?

is he smoking? If people will trade their food stamps for crack, they'll trade their food for it.

Libertarians seem to lack understanding of human nature and addictive behaviors. But then, they're pretty immature and naive in general.

[TroglodyteScholar]

16. One thing you can be sure of with anyone who self-identifies as "libertarian..."

...is that they simply haven't thought things through. Ideology and "how it oughtta be" is plenty for them. Actual planning and predicting outcomes...well, those things involve too much nuance.


Edit: I also think the idea he puts forth isn't even remotely libertarian. He's just trying to save face and not seem like the complete asshole that his worldview dictates.

[JHB]

22. A habit which, very annoyingly, they accuse liberals of

I have on several occasions heroically reined in an impulse to strangle someone lecturing me about how I was only thinking about point "a", but they were looking ahead to point "e", when in fact on that scale I was somewhere between "n" and "y".

[Wounded Bear]

30. Classic projection....

or as a child would say...."You just don't understand."

Uh, yes, I do understand. Libertarians, and conservatives in general, have weak empathy for others. Usually, they cannot contemplate themselves in any situation other than where they are, and tend to believe all their successes are solely based on their own merits and decisions. It's the whole poutrage over the "He didn't build that" misrepresentation re-enacted daily.

[bluedeathray]

8. Actually, your friend's suggestion

Addresses several issues that arise from the use of food stamps.

Their purpose is to feed the poor. Friend's solution does that pretty effectively.

And:

1. Cuts corporate profit from "debit card" fees.
2. Removes a negotiable note from our economy.
3. Creates jobs. Which might have a net zero effect because it also:
4. Decreases bureaucracy to administer feeding the poor.

I would only add that perhaps we ought to examine taking food stamps out of the federal budget, and making it a state program.

We'll never have an optimum solution to any of our problems if we don't try stuff, correct course, and drive on.

[upaloopa]

31. No it doesn't do anything effectively.

It duplicates an already existing non tax funded supply chain.

[bluedeathray]

35. Taxes don't support food stamps and distribution?

Or were you referring to some other supply chain? The OP plainly states having the poor work at distribution.

[upaloopa]

32. Taking it out of the Federal Government lets

wing nut states to deny food like they deny health care.
I think you live in the conservative fantasy bubble.

[bluedeathray]

36. Your willingness to attempt to pigeonhole people

Without studying possible solutions, or offer thoughtful solutions of your own, make you appear small minded.

Or do you think that the current system is just dandy?

[upaloopa]

42. I don't value your opinion I don't care how I look to you

and I stick by what I said
Right wing ideology is not a solution to the problems we face. It is being a lemming to repeat them here. It takes no critical thinking to regurgitate talking points and say you are offering solutions.

[bluedeathray]

47. Right, as I said, small minded.

And dedicated to labeling things against your ideology.

Similar to people who label some changes "Socialism", or "Communism", or Fascism, or "Right Wing Regurgitation".

Excluding possible solutions that don't toe the party line. No matter what your political ilk.

America is being effectively played by our masters. Pitting us against each other.

Critical thinking? Yeah right. You're still not debating facts, or offering solutions. Your criticism of me personally shows the weakness of your position.

[Tanuki]

37. +1000 We would go back to a not-so recent time of rampant malnutrition

in places like Mississippi and West Virginia. There was a famous CBS documentary on "Hunger in America" in 1968 that shocked the public into re-establishing the federal food stamp program.
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe50s/money_09.html

..."In 1960, John F. Kennedy was campaigning for the Democratic Party's nomination for President and West Virginia was a key battleground primary. Kennedy campaigned tirelessly and talked with hundreds of poor coal miners and workers. As Ted Sorensen, Kennedy's speech writer, says in his book Kennedy –

"He was appalled by the pitiful conditions he saw, by the children of poverty, by the families living on surplus lard and corn meal, by the waste of human resources… He called for better housing and better schools and better food distribution… He held up a skimpy surplus food package and cited real-life cases of distress."

Kennedy won that primary, his party's nomination and the Presidency all the slimmest of margins. He never forgot his experience in West Virginia.

Kennedy was inaugurated in January 1961, and he promised an optimistic future despite the fact that there was a troubling recession going on and surplus farm products piling up in government storage bins. Not content to wait for Congress, his first Executive Order in February (among many other things) re-instituted a "pilot" food stamp program based on the Depression-era model.

After Kennedy's assassination, President Johnson requested Congress to make the program permanent. They did in 1964. Congress estimated that the program might serve only four million people, but it grew quickly.
......

But despite the phenomenal growth, the need proved to be greater. In 1968, CBS news aired a documentary titled "Hunger in America" that found severe cases of malnutrition in kids. That program caught the attention of Democratic Sen. George McGovern and Republican Sen. Bob Dole. They got the Senate to form a special committee to study the system. Gradually they pushed through reforms.

In 1974, Food Stamps became a nationwide program, and by July of that year 14 million people a month were participating.

Finally, in 1977, a major revision was pushed through with the support of President Jimmie Carter. The 1977 program finally allowed the poorest of the poor to be given food stamps instead of having to pay for them. The program greatly expanded the number of people who were eligible while still cracking down on fraud.

Over the years, the program has been re-authorized, expanded and contracted depending on the political powers and the state of the economy. Supporters of the Food Stamp Program include a mixture of farm lobbying groups, labor unions and advocates for the poor. "........

[Johonny]

11. So they want to create a brand new Government agency designed to distribute food to the poor

by the poor. That's very Libertarian of them? Seems much less cost effective than just handing people a thing that lets them utilize the vast commercial free market food distribution centers we have now. After all what mechanism but the government would you hold politicians accountable. You could you the free market. Hey they guys a crook perhaps I won't vote for them over and over again and let the normal legal system handle any crimes, or they could create a government legal bureaucracy designed only at hold up government accountability and enforcing the law on politicians, judging them and punish bad politicians. What could go wrong with that type of agency?

I suggest perhaps they aren't very Libertarian.

[JHB]

17. Is he willing to pay higher taxes for that?

The logistics of that sort of operation are much more complicated (and more expensive) than simply tapping into the existing distribution systems (the market) the way food stamps do.

And my guess he's thinking of urban areas where many people could have access to a distribution point. Suburban and rural areas obviously have much lower population density so there's have to be places all over. Even if you put one in, say, every post office (plus more money to make that conversion), what about people who have no way to get to it? Will letter carriers deliver groceries too?

And wouldn't a government-run grocery system compete with local grocers?

It sounds like he didn't exactly think this through. But then... libertarian.

[treestar]

18. Politicians are held accountable

They can lose the next election. How odd for a "libertarian" to abandon all voter responsibility, i.e., the idea of self government.

All laws "universally apply?" What bullshit is that?

I don't mind his idea about the poor distributing the food. That sounds like they could get together and get involved more easily.

[nyquil_man]

19. It seems like circular logic to me.

A person is poor and qualifies for assistance. Under this system, they're responsible for distributing the foodstuffs. If they excel at distributing the foodstuffs, they qualify for a "competitive salary." Once their salary is high enough, they no longer qualify for assistance. However, because their salary is tied entirely to their receiving assistance, they now no longer receive the salary which disqualified them in the first place.

[Tanuki]

20. Handing out specific commodities was tried decades ago and was replaced by food stamps and

then by the current SNAP/EBT. Huge scale distribution of actual food items creates massive supply chain and other logistical issues (acquisition, storage, transport, distribution, accounting, etc.) and is inefficient and redundant. As others have noted, your libertarian friend erroneously assumes that food stamp recipients are not working full-time, disabled, elderly, children, etc. , and that this hare-brained idea would generate enough jobs with "competitive salary and benefits" to accommodate all those who "show ability and/or ambition" and would wish to "better themselves by promotion or advancement".

[upaloopa]

28. Food spoils EBT cards don't

[TampaAnimusVortex]

39. Not all food spoils easily... Soylent is coming...

http://www.examiner.com/article/soylent-most-green-replacement-for-food

[grasswire]

43. why did your friend not consider cutting corporate welfare?

And loopholes here and there?

And subsides to people who already have enough resources?

His viewpoint is prejudiced and restrictive.

[EOTE]

44. I always thought the libertarian alternative to food stamps was not food stamps. nt