Matt Bors for November 07, 2013

That’s about a 4% cut in the program that has doubled in size under Barry. Maybe people will have to cut back on their Snicker bars or Pepsi’s when spending other people’s money. Or maybe they can work and buy their own groceries like the rest of us?

Don’t believe me?So what exactly can SNAP recipients buy with their benefits? There are a few restrictions, against alcohol, and tobacco for instance. But curiously, most junk food is fair game, calling into question whether the “nutrition” in SNAP means much to lawmakers at all. Here are just a few of the items one can buy:

Red BullSugary SodaCandyMixes for alcoholic beveragesArtificial sweetener

5 Surprising Things You Can Buy With Food Stamps | TIME.com http://business.time.com/2013/11/01/5-surprising-things-you-can-buy-with-food-stamps/#ixzz2jwKR8PeD

Let’s not mention the card holders that now will have to collect a few more aluminum cans to get enough cash for their drug fix either…

Actually Oscar, in my case I am not heartless! I have the heart of a small child and I keep it in a box on my dresser at home!.;)

People are using their EBT cards to purchase luxury items (steak and lobster) as well as junk food. EBT cards should be highly restricted and tightly regulated. We would all be better off if they were only valid to purchase healthy and sustainable food items.

You’re really a liberal mole, aren’t youThere are still plenty of conservatives who think Saddam was behind 9/11, convinced he sent his WMDs to Syria, & that we did the right thing.The architects behind the Iraq invasion are still out there getting on cable news & writing op-eds.http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/10-years-later-the-architects-the-iraq-wa

You mean like the FAIR TAX!!!You mean, “the job-killing consumption tax”.

“What we need is fewer people so easily corrupted by the right-wing radio and TV ideologs…”You are correct, but failed to add that we also need fewer people so easily corrupted by the left wing media and TV ideologs.

“Considering that the median income for Americans has declined for past 20 years while the cost of living has increased”You sure you don’t mean the last 4 years? 20 years ago it was actually lower than what it is now and in 1993 took a pretty steep rise upwards.

Candy, Redbull Assistance Program (CRAP?)That’s funny! I think most of the attention the right gives to abuse & misuse of SNAP, is more about why we need to eliminate the program than it is about any sincere desire to make the program more effective.

Explain? I say it would be a job creator! And considering low tax and no tax states that only have consumption tax are growing while Tax states like NY and Cal. are losing. Florida and Texas thank them.In the long run, Output = Consumption. Fair Tax makes goods more expensive, obviously causing less consumption.Fairtax.org claims a 23% tax would be revenue neutral, but pretty much every outside analysis says the tax would need to be at least 30%. Some go as high as 44%. Low income families would be exempt. High income people would see a big tax reduction. Guess who gets stuck with the bill?Actual 2012 GDP growth rates:Texas 4.8%California 3.5%Florida 2.4%New York 1.3%The growth rates have more to do with the local economic base than anything else. New York will almost certainly grow more than Florida this year. North Dakota is posting double digit growth rates. West Virginia’s coal industry is growing nicely, too.Many more people will turn to barter & black markets to avoid the Fair Tax. Lobbyists who make a living by massaging our current tax code will jump right in on getting their patrons preferential treatment under the Fair Tax. And the IRS will just be replaced by another bureaucracy that tries to make sure everyone pays. One look at the countries that have passed VAT should tell you this idea isn’t so good. At the end of the day, Fair Tax is a pipe dream.

Forgot to add that Fair Tax would free up even more investment capital for the wealthy. Nothing on the site suggests that they will invest that money in our economy. Nothing in real world experience suggests that, either.

I remember a pop quiz in Ministry to Youth class in seminary. To see if the class was keeping current in their reading (sex, at this point), one question involved the text’s “great American fairy tale” (love at first sight). A lot of the class wasn’t current and desperation answers were frequent. One was “the stork brings the baby”, but the one that the class lobbied to have accepted was “that America is a Christian nation”.

I read an article about how the CEO of Panera Bread tried to get by on a foodstamps budget. He was shocked at how little he got to spend, which was about $5 a day. People who think that food stampers live large don’t have a clue. I know a few foodstamp families. They subsist on diets of baloney sandwiches and instant mac n cheese.