Trump Budget Swaps Food Stamps for '100 Percent American' Food

[Ken]

I'll split off the first part of this into a separate topic here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1079&p=27535#p27535

You’ll have to pick a side, Boot. Either the government does charity better than private citizens do, or not. You seem to be pretty against the food boxes because “government is wasteful and can’t do things well”, yet you still want government somehow distributing food?

No, I don't want government distributing food, but I sometimes do want government to pay for food when people cannot afford it. So I like the idea of having the government pay for food boxes like this, but I would rather let private companies provide the boxes because I think they have much better logistics for distributing groceries than the government does. And I don't want sweetheart deals, that invites fraud. So I would prefer to let Amazon, Aldi, Walmart, etc. provide boxes, let the government specify nutritional requirements for the boxes, let customers choose food that meets these requirements, and let the government pay for the boxes according to a sliding income scale.

In general, I really don't like letting the government own "the means of production", that's Marxism. But I think there are times that the government does need to step in to help the poor. When it does so, I think it's important to think about dependency, efficiency, fraud, etc.

I know this is an old thread. But we already have a private sector food distribution network in this country through grocery chains, mom and pop stores, farmers markets, and so forth. Setting up a massive nation-wide alternative food distribution network that will have to reach into every single community in the country would not only be hugely wasteful, it would actually undermine the small independent grocers and food producers that do exist in every community in the country. Small scale farmers markets, for example, which do mostly take food stamps (at least the ones around here).

The other problem is that dietary needs are not universal. Why send a 5 lb block of cheese to a family that has a lactose intolerant child, rather than letting them chose the food that is most appropriate.

This is the sort of thing that often happens in the third world after disasters. Guatemala had an absolutely devastating earthquake in 1977 that happened in November just at the end of a bumper harvest season. The disaster relief industry from the Europe and the US ramped up and immediately started pouring food aid into Guatemala. Enormous quantities of it. Which meant that all the Guatemalan farmers who had large stores of corn, rice, and beans stored up for market suddenly saw the price of market food staples plummet to near zero because there was so much free grain being handed out by relief agencies. So right when they needed income in order to rebuild their ruined homes, the entire agricultural economy was destroyed by the flood of outside food aid. Sending free food aid to Guatemala was the single most counterproductive thing that aid groups could possibly have done.

Sending boxes of food to poor folks across the country will tend to have the same effect on all the small scale groceries and local farmers who are already supplying food to those communities. I can't think of an idea better designed to bankrupt small rural groceries and small scale farmers in poor areas.

Should the SNAP program be more selective about the types of foods that people can buy? Perhaps. But that is largely the result of lobbying by the giant agribusiness lobby who wants to be able to sell junk food to poor people with food stamps. That could all be easily tightened up in the next farm bill if there was the will. But it would mean going against big ag.

[ohio jones]

Every CPS student qualifies to get $450 this month

I'd have to try really hard to spend that much on food; it's about twice my monthly average. Maybe a few more party subs would do it.

[temporal1]

Every CPS student qualifies to get $450 this month

I'd have to try really hard to spend that much on food; it's about twice my monthly average. Maybe a few more party subs would do it.

me, too.
about 30 years ago we received food stamps for a few weeks. we never had so much for food, before or after. nor was it needed. we were ashamed. we drove about an hour away to shop, to avoid being seen.

how will parents+teachers help children learn the value of a dollar, the value of work, when the less is done, the greater the reward. worse, the reward is so great, it would require specialized work to replace it? motivation is lost.

i suspect appleman’s words were spot-on: politics.

2018: Canada

I have a good friend and work colleague that used to manage a very large food bank that was largely funded by the government.

The abuses that he has described that go on in that industry (yes it has become an industry)
would make your hair curl and would make social conservatives out of all of you were you to hear them.

The abuses you hear about are not exaggerated in the least and as he explained the need for them is vastly exaggerated
for political reasons.

So much so that he could not continue conscientiously in that line of work.
And he leans politically left or at least he used to.

2021: Chicago

“1M Illinois schoolchildren to receive loaded debit cards for monthly food assistance through expanded P-EBT program”
“Every CPS student qualifies to get $450 this month”
https://abc7chicago.com/free-lunch-prog ... /10383890/

“Every” student means every student. No qualifying beyond enrollment in Chicago Public Schools.
Instructions are for the students/children to keep their cards: more $$ is forthcoming. The cards will be reloaded.

Politics. yes.
And, the big winners: tech companies selling smartphones for all, and NIKES, etc.
Does this smack of money laundering??

Relieving parents of their financial responsibility for life’s basics frees up household income for luxuries.

Remember, this is IN ADDITION to other 2020-2021 Economic Stimulus payments.

i grieve for families.
what hope for decent self-respecting families is there?

politicians are on the take. i guess they want to make sure everyone else is, too.
how nice to do so with Other Peoples’ Money? (more accurate to say, other peoples’ credit?)

Chicago should not lead anything. i wish the country would beware the long history of corruption.

[justme]

This is the sort of thing that often happens in the third world after disasters. Guatemala had an absolutely devastating earthquake in 1977 that happened in November just at the end of a bumper harvest season. The disaster relief industry from the Europe and the US ramped up and immediately started pouring food aid into Guatemala. Enormous quantities of it. Which meant that all the Guatemalan farmers who had large stores of corn, rice, and beans stored up for market suddenly saw the price of market food staples plummet to near zero because there was so much free grain being handed out by relief agencies. So right when they needed income in order to rebuild their ruined homes, the entire agricultural economy was destroyed by the flood of outside food aid. Sending free food aid to Guatemala was the single most counterproductive thing that aid groups could possibly have done.

Sending boxes of food to poor folks across the country will tend to have the same effect on all the small scale groceries and local farmers who are already supplying food to those communities. I can't think of an idea better designed to bankrupt small rural groceries and small scale farmers in poor areas.

interesting.
there's a lot of free food being given out in the area. regularly i see the posts on fb. farm to families, i think is one, blessings, might be another. and it looks like good programs. people are being helped during covid.

but after reading your above posting, maybe not?

[temporal1]

interesting.
there's a lot of free food being given out in the area. regularly i see the posts on fb. farm to families, i think is one, blessings, might be another. and it looks like good programs. people are being helped during covid.

but after reading your above posting, maybe not?

it depends. if done thoughtfully+well, it could enhance economics through trying times.

for these kinds of questions, who better to ask than mike, the OP, and appleman?
appleman is in Canada, but i sure respect his overall grasp of business and politics, regardless.

[Ken]

interesting.
there's a lot of free food being given out in the area. regularly i see the posts on fb. farm to families, i think is one, blessings, might be another. and it looks like good programs. people are being helped during covid.

but after reading your above posting, maybe not?

Here is a news story from the time about how much of a disaster international food aid was for Guatemala after the 1976 earthquake: https://www.nytimes.com/1977/11/06/arch ... quake.html

GUATEMALA. CITY—Foreign‐aid experts believe that emergency food suplies donated by the United States after the earthquake here last year were entirely unnecessary and had the effect of hurting the very farmers they were intended to help.

The experts recalled that when the earthquake struck on Feb. 4, 1976, taking 24,000 lives and leaving 1.2 million people homeless, Guatemala had just harvested its largest grain crop in many years. The food was undamaged and within days was recovered from the rubble of devastated homes, they said.

Though the Government insisted that it needed no additional food from abroad, the United States, under pressure from two American voluntary organizations, CARE and Catholic Relief Services, united sent 27,00 taons of grain to be donated to rural victims of the quake.

“The general effect was that we knocked the bottom out of the grain market in the country for 9 to 12 months,” said Kenneth Brown, director of Catholic Relief Services in Guatemala. “The decision to bring in food was taken on the basis of incomplete and inaccurate information.”

read the whole thing if you are interested.

I would hate to see government food aid in the US similarly knock the legs out from under the many thousands of small independent groceries, small scale farmers, farmers markets, and other private market food sources.

NOTE: I'm talking about big Federal programs to bring large-scale agribusiness products for distribution in poor and communities. Which is what a national program would be. I'm not at all talking about small local programs where farmers themselves are distributing surplus food in their own communities. That's entirely different and welcome.

[temporal1]

read the whole thing if you are interested.

I would hate to see government food aid in the US similarly knock the legs out from under the many thousands of small independent groceries, small scale farmers, farmers markets, and other private market food sources.

NOTE:
I'm talking about big Federal programs to bring large-scale agribusiness products for distribution in poor and communities. Which is what a national program would be.

I'm not at all talking about small local programs where farmers themselves are distributing surplus food in their own communities.

That's entirely different and welcome.

important “note.”
what we actually have, unlike 1976 Guatemala, are policies that have knocked the legs out from under millions+millions of people for a gov mandated response to a pandemic. there are winners+losers, some are out for good. the gov is trying to bolster-up a lot, at tremendous cost. no one knows where/when it will end, nor how things will unfold after it ends.

giant social engineering experiments with politically-motivated underpinnings.
we’re all on very shaky ground. trying to pretend we’re not.

[Josh]

Food stamps and other schemes like in Chicago are a way for government to give money to big agribusiness.

[temporal1]

Food stamps and other schemes like in Chicago are a way for government to give money to big agribusiness.

i cannot imagine the enormity of big ag lobbies. i’m pretty sure it’s similar in Canada. so, yes.
however, present politics also throw crumbs to local farmers, suppliers, markets.

mike and appleman and others with first-person experience would have valuable input.

i sense, tho, this new Chicago move (which is not framed as a 1-time gesture) -
would directly and quickly benefit other giant corporations, like Apple and Nike - freeing up household money for luxuries.
$450 is a nice down payment on flashy tech devices.

$450 - PER CPS STUDENT.
those without any children must have crafted this brain child.

Pirating the Public Treasury - to buy votes.

[Josh]

In fairness, without all these subsidies etc our economy would grind to a halt.