Gov Scott Walker's Limits on food stamp choices would cost #Wisconsin taxpayers millions of dollars!

[riversedge]

Wisconsin in the hole with its finances and Walker wants to drug test food stamp recipients--and put them on a WIC diet--a diet for women and infants program! The man's ideology has taken over his brain--if he has one!

@ScottWalker's Limits on food stamp choices would cost #Wisconsin taxpayers millions of dollars!! http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/limits-on-food-stamp-choices-would-cost-state-millions-of-dollars-b99495676z1-302814621.html … #wipolitics #p2


Limits on food stamp choices would cost state millions of dollars
By Patrick Marley of the Journal Sentinel
May 6, 2015




Madison— A GOP plan to limit how food stamps can be used to encourage people to eat more healthy options would cost millions of dollars — a hit to taxpayers that will make it tougher to pass the measure.

Details on the cost of the proposal were released Wednesday, the same day lawmakers learned they would not draw any more money over the next two years than earlier projections had shown. Republicans who control the Legislature were hoping for additional money to flow into the state so they could bring down cuts GOP Gov. Scott Walker has proposed for public schools and the University of Wisconsin System.

With no new money available, Republicans would have to eventually cut other programs or raise taxes to pay for their bill.

The bill would bar people from buying crab, lobster or other shellfish using food stamps and would require that two-thirds of their food stamp allocation go toward beef, pork, poultry, produce, potatoes, dairy products or food available under the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program.

The bill is costly because the state would have to pay to install new software in grocery stores to make sure people adhered to the limits when they used the electronic-swipe cards to access food stamp benefits.

Precise details were not available, but the fiscal estimate says the bill would cost "several million dollars" and left open the possibility it could be even higher than that...

[Scuba]

1. Well sure, but it will win Wanker some more teabilly votes.

[HereSince1628]

2. The effort has been floated repeatedly over the last few years as fighting obesity...

and poor nutrition. It's varying forms from narrowing what percentage of non-program food can be purchased to bans on foods that are not tax-exempt (in WI candy, high cal. beverages) to defined exclusions.

In WI as across the US, obesity is inversely correlated to poverty, especially for women and pre-teen boys, the following is a good read on SNAP, obesity and poverty: http://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=ukcpr_papers

It is somewhat difficult to get a handle on where the WI legislature is coming from with this current proposal. Some of this may be concern with promoting healthy eating, but the prevalence of that attitude is much obscured by the availability of restricting SNAP as a cudgel to be invoked against racial stereotypes of "the lazy takers" who are "too dumb" to make healthy choices. And a broad view of the WI tea-party republicans suggests they are motivated by class prejudice that leans on calvinist notions about laziness and poverty for support.

It seems rather likely that this proposal provides a protected opportunity for the application of discipline from the resentful and jealous bully-state. And the legislature will do this because the application of the stick is not only deemed an appropriate educational technique, but it is also gratifying to apply 'tough love' in the current bully climate of the state. This twisted double success in pushing values of yeoman calvinism is likely see as worth the cost.

The data on SNAP and WIC re obesity suggest the programs provide real health gains, especially for pregnant women, and birth weights of babies. Those health gains represent cost savings across many health issues. The failure of SNAP to reduce obesity in boys and women undoubtedly are multifactorial, but one of the factors is very likely that SNAP funding -isn't great enough- to increase household 'income' into a cultural domain that produces reductions in obesity.

[riversedge]

3. Thanks--need

to leave for work will read later