Anyone else find it odd that the date on the receipt is two days after the Super Bowl? Why not buy it for a Super Bowl party? Or was that the day of the month they receive their stamps.
I think I misunderstood. I have stated the voting based on how you want your taxes spent is fine. I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with voting to put in parameters that infringe on a person's ability to budget themselves because people don't like the way the guy budgets.
Your taxes are this guy's budget. We already have stipulations on how food stamps can be spent. So are you saying you want them to be able to spend it on anything?
My taxes are food stamps. If spends his whole allotment in one day on ding dongs, and has to beg for the rest of the month, or if he spreads out some bargain buying at the grocery store, the same money is still spent. My tax money is gone either way. How he budgets it is up to him.
It's not far fetched to say that there is a small percentage who doesn't "budget" and lives off check by check or stamp by stamp. Maybe you're implying that, but your wording appears to defend people who abuse or disregard the system by giving them the benefit of the doubt when clearly there is none.
Way to invoke the idea of liberty. My idea of liberty includes not being oppressed by entitlement programs that force me to support people who live their lives on my tax money in a way I disagree with. Yes that's right, the middle class and wealthier tax payers are oppressed by the poor. They pay more in taxes and receive much less back. See I can do it too.
We're officially going in circles now. You're obviously cool with having no control over how your taxes are purposed in the realm of food stamps. That's your choice to surrender that power, so be it. Hopefully the majority of us are concerned with making sure are taxes aren't wasted, though.
I'm going to stop short of name calling, but sufficive to say that attitude is ridiculous in my opinion. It's like saying 'the government can spend all my tax dollars in Iraq, they already got my money'. It's true, they could. But I'd personally rather see them spend it on infrastructure and education, you know, useful stuff.
Exactly...most won't agree with his purchase as they see it as "beating" the system, but if I was on foodstamps, I'd do the same thing...granted, that won't feed a family for a week, but one night, they'll eat like kings...
I think it's a matter of degree. I do like some control or say in what my tax dollars go towards. I just stop shy of telling someone how they have to budget their allowance. At what point to you take all decision making out of their hands, and just hand them bags of whatever groceries someone else fills is right for the person's family? If they say food stamps aren't allowed to be used on liquor or fast food, that's fine with me. I would approve that. But at some point the guy has to take some responsibility for how he budgets and live with the decisions he made.
They do that. The money allocated to defense is often spent on weapons systems that won't get any or a lot of use. I would rather the money in defense be spent on counter-terrorism, and since the role of our military now seems to be a lot of nation building security they should be trained more for that instead of WWII type massive battles. Yet I don't get a say in that. The Defense Department has the money and spend it how they see fit. I will also say that there is a difference in overseeing how a govt. agency spends its money and how a private citizen budgets their's.
It could or could not be. We don't know the circumstances behind the guy being on food stamps. But even if he got on food stamps by not taking responsibility for his choices it doesn't mean we should continue to allow that irresponsibility.
Why is it considered wasteful? Did he just throw the steak and lobster away? If it was eaten by him and his family then I don't think it can be considered wasteful and remember, we do not know who this food is for, we're only assuming. As stated earlier in this thread, I think there should be stipulations on food stamps and what it can be spent on, similarly to WIC but there should also be a little leeway, say $100 or so out of your allotment that would allow you to buy certain, higher end products because as also stated the processed, non-nutritional foods are usually the cheapest. My sister is on food stamps and she has to buy Hamburger Helper, Mac and Cheese, canned goods etc. but occasionaly can purchase a bag of shrimp or something a little more expensive to feed her and her children which I don't think is wrong at all. My main problem is, as noted earlier, those who use it to fund activities like cookouts, trading the value for cash, etc.
Because... Giving assistance (or too much assistance) to someone who does not need it qualifies as wasteful, IMO.
Again, this may be a one time thing, just like with my sister. She isn't able to afford to buy higher end items all the time but occasionally she can splurge, I guess you would say and buy something higher priced. Look at the receipt date. February 8 is right around the time people start to get their tax refunds back. How do we not know that had something to do with the splurge here and they're not doing this every single month but were allowed to because they're refund supplemented their groceries for a month? Would it have been better if they bought regular groceries with stamps and high end products with cash? Either way, the refund windfall would allow them more flexibility to spend than usual. Like I said, I am in favor of change but I can not judge this person as being wasteful on one single purchase because there are too many ifs. To add another, if we had a record of purchases associated with this account over an extended period of time it might be different but alas we do not.
So are you saying that one shouldn't be able to buy steak with food stamps? I think you will be wasting more tax money by creating rules and laws around what can be bought and not. Could this person be allowed to purchase grade C steak? How are you going to determine what is ok and what is not?
Give them more food stamps so they don't have to rob...that or just make lobster cheaper. Problem solved.
