I'll tell you what, if some in society want people off food stamps, then get Taco Bell to pay decent wages and pay for health care. Otherwise I don't give a fuck that I pay taxes for food stamps I don't use. Poverty should not be a death sentence through starvation.

Remember that the next time you donate to a charity that sends food overseas to a third world country. If it is not ok for other country's poor to starve, why should that be ok here?

Maybe we should have more factories, more innovation and free higher education and less Taco Bells. That would take away the need for food stamps.

Especially about the higher education, Brian. It seems like in order to make any good money, you need a college or trade degree. But in order to get a degree, you need money to start with. So for those of us without well-off parents who will just pay for our degree, it's like a catch-22. It just keeps the wealthy wealthy, and the poor poor. I'm all for free higher education. Of course some Repubs (who probably got their college education handed to them by mommy and daddy) will call that "socialism", but I don't really give a crap.

You are the second person in two days who has managed to make me feel slightly better about myself right at this point. Sometimes I just need to know that I am not the only one who feels this way.

If YOU want to fix the food stamp problem then PAY LIVABLE WAGES, reduce the pay gap, bring jobs back here. Otherwise If I have to pay taxes so my fellow citizen doesn't starve to death. I DONT GIVE ONE FUCK WHAT DADDY WARBUCKS WANTS until Daddy Warbucks starts giving a shit how they make a buck.

"get a job"

LISTEN ASSHOLE, I have a job and I am not lazy, neither are most poor. You just think that class and money equals right and moral.

GET A FUCKING CLUE, your idea of what you want you have no right projecting on the rest of society, otherwise go make a law making it a crime to be poor, Then be willing to jail or fine or execute those who haven't managed to make your pay scale. Otherwise if you don't want to wash dishes or collect trash, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND BE HAPPY THAT THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO ARE WILLING TO DO IT.

You promote genocide through money. Those who have it live, and fuck anyone who doesn't have it.

I am so fucking sick of your bullshit.

Been there, done that.  Not a big deal.  But living in the city, the neighbors complain.  Last I heard, it was against the law within city limits here.  Check with your local enforcement agencies.  Living in the country, it was legal to slaughter your own meat.  And I have done it, and it was excellent.

And I did/do hit the local farms for produce.  Sometimes the local farmers allow gleaning for free to people receiving food stamps.  Looking forward to apple season locally.

As for providing incentive -- I would be off of food stamps in a heartbeat with or without a pig to slaughter if I could get someone to hire me.

http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/menu/Published/snap/FILES/Participation/2009CharacteristicsSummary.pdf

29% of recipient households have earnings. Which means that at least one recipient in the household has a job. That is hardly "most" unless most food stamp recipients lie and actually have jobs. 

The average monthly income of food stamp recipients is $711/month so if they are working, they certainly are not working full time. Only 64% of working age (16-64) are even participating in the workforce, so it really isn't that big of a surprise that most food stamp recipients don't work.  http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm 

@ CJ

Yeah, I could see a problem with the idea in highly urban areas, even if you provided an area for butchering some areas wouldn't have enough local supply. A more practical alternative (but less fun, I find the idea of city slickers having to go to the farm and receive a manure covered animal amusing) would be to arrange deals with butchers to simply quarter the animals, freeze the meat and ship it. By avoiding the grocer and the trimming work you can save significantly on costs. Which really was my main point. If you are concerned about the food stamp program as far as costs and health, make a radical change to provide meat at a huge discount. If you aren't willing to do that, I don't see why you would fret over taco bell. 

No, they are all lazy fuckers who deserve to starve to death, well, according to some, not me.

I think food stamps should be legal only for basic, inexpensive nutritional foods: meats, dairy. starch, etc. Not for Coca-cola, Taco Bell, or Whoppers. Hell, I'd like to see basic household necessities availble for food stamps, like toilet paper, toothpaste, etc. It should be for bare-bones necessities, not luxuries.

I'm not totally sure how the program works, but I work at home for a sales contractor, and one time I received a caller who was ordering a workout DVD system, and he tried to pay for it with an EBT card.

As far as this story goes though - I guess it shows how little these corporations actually care about the economy - the one pushing for the new law is a fast-food conglomerate - they want our tax dollars funneled into their own pocket.

 Since when is Taco Bell a luxury? Their food is cheap and it tastes like shit.

In my area, it is $1780 US per month for a family of 2.  About $11.25 an hour.  And it is prorated - so if you have a job and you are paid less than that, your food stamp amount is reduced proportionally.  Don't know how your state handles it - since every state has different administrative rules.

The allowed amount goes up or down depending on the number of people in the household.  We are not eligible for cash payments since we are adults and not disabled.  Not yet, anyway. 

I'll go along with you there. 

I personally don't see the difference between buying a frozen dinner at the grocery store and hitting one of the fast food places.  The two are very likely equally high in fat, salt and calories, and low in nutrition and taste.

And the point of my comment was to refute your statement that "most people who are on food stamps probably have jobs". They don't. I don't see how it matters why they don't have a job. Actually, I don't see why it even matters if they have a job or how their job status ties into the conversation except to my offhanded remark that butchering a pig would encourage them to get a job.

Ok, consider it amended to "butchering a pig will encourage them to find a way off food stamps ASAP". It was meant mostly as a jest, I guess you need to have actually butchered a pig to get it. Pigs are by far the most disgusting animal to butcher and visiting a pig farm is a decidedly unpleasant experience that takes forever to wash out of your skin.

That is a distribution/poverty problem, not a quantity problem and specifically here in the US we have more than enough food to easily feed our entire population (probably several times over).

You said that people have excess time they should be compelled to spend slaughtering animals which is not only deranged but also wrong. 

The majority of people who receive food stamps don't have jobs because they are children or they are passed retirement age. I was talking about people who can seek employment. 

If they were working 60 to 80 hours a week they would be making too much money to qualify for foodstamps even at minimum wage, therefore, they have time. We are not talking about a massive time commitment like raising an animal might be, we are talking about cutting up some meat. You can take one day and butcher the meat into meal sized portions for a month or two. And I'm not saying they should be compelled, just given the animal, they can butcher it or throw it away if they want but since they are hungry, I imagine most would choose to butcher it. Why is that deranged? Or wrong? 

I'll tell you what, abolish workers unions abilities to stranglehold companies into paying insane wages for menial labor, which would allow for individuals and guilds to bid on contracts, where their 'performance/cost' ratios have to stay competitive, just like business has to.

The other answer is to put an end to illegal aliens infiltrating, and sweep the country for illegal aliens.

Well, that's the problem. You should give a shit. It's a symptom that there is a huge problem with the way policies and laws are structured.

The fact that so many need food stamps is because they can't 'bid' on jobs, and undercut 'union' labor. Which leads to companies resorting to exploit the option to 'exporting' manual labor. And if your answer is to eliminate their ability to do that, you really don't have any grasp of how to problem solve, or economics.

1- It's not. The US is not a 3rd world country.

2- Have them become civil servants, fill potholes, garbage pickup, which would lower the costs governments incur which drive up the deficit.

Well ypu're right about the 2-dollar menu, but here's the "nutrients" they'd be getting:

http://www.tacobell.com/menuitem/two-dollar-meal-deal-beefy-five-layer-burrito

Basically fat, sodium, artificial preservatives, and processed carbs, 3 meals a day.

In comparison I spend about $200-240 on food each month, but I get in 2000-2500 calories a day, all from healthy sources, along with fruits and vegetables. It's not really extremely expensive to eat healthy.

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Butchering need not be that complicated. You cut the right way and you can get the pig apart with little risk of tainting the meat. Grtanted, most professional butchers use band saws but that is really more to get the job done faster. Then too, a whole neighborhood could go in one one and split the meat up, thus ending the storage issue.

Also, reusable jars cost about ten buks a dozen.

I know exactly what it entails as I am an avid hunter and have butchered hundreds (thousands?) of animals ranging in size from squirrels to moose and no there is no special "wrong cut" that will poison the meat, in fact contamination is far less likely when you do it yourself because if you get shit on the meat you will clean it off immediately rather than let it sit there. Saws do make it easier and quicker, but are not a necessity. I do the vast majority of my butchering with a 6 inch fixed blade buck knife the do the finishing work with a basic kitchen knife set. Obviously the nicer knives you purchase the easier it will be, but cutting a pizza is easier with a nice knife too. There are hundreds of thousands of hunters every year who manage to butcher their own meat without killing themselves, I'm sure you could do it too. 

The freezer is easy. The cost savings in having a deep freezer more than make up for the initial investment. We are giving there people a ton of money anyway, why not give them something that will be useful even after they get back on their feet? A 5.5 cubic ft freezer would be more than sufficient for most people and sells for around $150 and will last for many years. The electricity cost is negligible (around $30/year I think depending on where you live). There is absolutely no question that butchering your own meat saves a ton of cash.

Same thing with canning. You can get a pressure canner for less than a couple hundred bucks and much cheaper used and the rest of the required tools are cheap. Again, we are giving them a bunch of cash already, why not give them something they can USE. And many of the poor are doing it. Rural Ohio is about as poor as areas get and people canning and butchering for themselves to save money is common. Those poor just aren't the ones standing in the beggar line demanding that government give them something.

I'm just saying that since we are so insistent on throwing money at people, instead of giving them handouts, give them the tools to take care of themselves so they aren't on the government dole for extended periods.