Almalieque wrote:
Nothing was excluded. The average poor person will commit a crime before starving or to get out of "food insecurity".
Sigh. The whole range of things people will do between "commit a crime" and "starvation" is being excluded.
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No, because we want to have our citizens be able to produce something for society. If the only thing our citizens can do is eat, that doesn't really help us to advance.
Sure. But that requires that they work. So how does providing people with sufficient funds for shelter, food, transportation, health care, and potentially some extra luxuries actually increase the productive output of their own labors? It doesn't. It arguably does the opposite because someone can "get by" while performing less labor. Which means the total productivity is decreased, not increased.
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The point is food. The government is providing food.
Which is it? Is the government providing food, or freeing up someone from having to spend money on food instead of something else? You keep bouncing back and forth between these two.
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As a result the citizen doesn't have to make a choice between their rent and food.
Then if the net effect of the food stamps is that someone pays for rent and food instead of just food, didn't we provide them with rent and *not* food? So we should stop calling them food stamps and stop pretending that it's just about making sure people get enough to eat.
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It's not a difficult concept. When I give money to families, I would pay just enough to pay their rent and a little extra for food. This guaranteed a place for them to live. How they managed the money is on them, but I provided shelter.
Then sell me on providing people with rent money. Don't make an appeal to emotion on the grounds that someone will starve if we don't give them food stamps. I'm just asking that we be honest about what we're doing here.
I'll also point out that we do provide people with housing assistance in addition to food stamps. The issue isn't about that. It's about someone not having to choose between buying food and going out to the movies, or buying the latest xbox games, or maintaining a car that's far to expensive for them. At the point it moves beyond necessities and into luxuries, I think it's more than fair that we point this out and stop lying to ourselves about what we're doing.
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You're confusing the line. Food stamps is to cover down on food expenses, period. Rather or not it allows the individual to pay for a car is irrelevant. The hope is that it does, so the people can give back to society.
If it's so irrelevant if someone is really using the extra funds from food stamps to pay for his car, then why so much deception about it? The reality is that this is quite relevant to most people. Which is precisely why no one argues for food stamps on the grounds that people shouldn't have to choose between buying food and buying lottery tickets.