ISSUE:
State Rep. Rick Brattin from Missouri has proposed a bill regarding SNAP benefits. SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Food Stamps] benefits are benefits in the US which provide assistance to purchase food. To qualify one must provide several proofs, including income, bank statements, employment, living costs, etc. Often one has to resubmit to continue such benefits. The assistance is not much at all. It's helpful to get anything- but it's certainly not enough.
The proposed bill would eliminate the following from being eligible for purchase with SNAP benefits: "cookies, chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood, or steak". If on the surface that seems to make reasonable, let us think about the entire year every possible occasion when any of those things might be appropriate.
Holidays, birthdays.
Today sucked and I want to feel like a human being kind of days.
Also: What makes a cookie? There is no definition in the wording of the bill for any of these things save "energy drink"- which makes an exception for "coffee like drinks" so that's just absurd. Soft drink? So... any "fruit type drink" that is fizzy? Most of those don't even contain juice. Any red meat that isn't ground can't be bought. If it's cut into stir fry, can we then buy it on SNAP? No seafood? so... I can't buy tuna fish?
The bill wording can be found here:
HOUSE BILL No. 813 To amend chapter 205, RSMo, by adding thereto two new sections relating to the supplemental nutrition assistance program.
A quote from this article at care2.com puts it well:
“Eventually you understand that buying that beer/coffee with a friend, bottle of wine for home, or Snickers bar for a sugar rush to get through the afternoon isn’t going to make or break you. Even if all those decisions were added up over the course of the month, they’d maybe hit $20 or $75. That’s not even enough to pay a utility bill. At some point you determine that the joy from that $5 purchase that allows you time with friends or a little relief during the day is the best thing you can do with that money. Denying yourself any joy at all would leave you, what, $200 ‘ahead’ at the end of the year? Would your mental and emotional state be better served by the coffee and the Snickers? Probably.”
What I wrote about it:
If you know how and when to shop? You can end up buying last day meat on major sale and it will frequently be cheaper than fresh produce. There are days that certain cuts are on last day and pound for pound cost less than apples, carrots, or broccoli. I know this because that is how I always have animal protein in my freezer.
Specifically, I always have at least a few things that I bought myself, not something my mother made and dropped off when she was visiting. I rely on the last day price cuts. I often know which stores make these last day cuts and when they do it. You can't do that with vegetables nearly as much. They often are in very poor shape and freezing vegetables is more difficult generally even when they are in good shape.
That is not actually the point.
There have been pilot programs running where people gain extra benefits for buying healthy foods. They have yet to become widespread beyond test/pilot programs. They have been greatly successful because they gave people the means to actually buy things like fresh vegetables but not been run to benefit entire regions.
The point is not actually that it's a nutrition assistance program.
If it was those incentive programs would be continually growing and be adopted all over the country. If fraud was so widespread [it isn't] it is quite easy to track and and investigate, given the program is done electronically- by debit essentially.
The point is that poor people shouldn't have anything even remotely nice. ever.
I have a busted ass ipod- like the screen is crumbling and I've had it for at least five years. I bring it to the store with me pretty much every time so i can track precisely what I am spending. If someone notices I am using EBT I get the visual equivalent of a death threat. Despite all the yellow mark down stickers noting that what I'm buying is on clearance; that my meat is last day; that the mp3 player in my hands is literally losing bits of its screen.
---
It doesn't occur to people that I had a life before benefits. There was a Me before Poor Me.
Though now I am just Poor Stranger. A monetary value in the present. I have no future and no past in which I could be or was anything else. I have an EBT/SNAP card. I paid into this system for years but if I don't use cash for a soda then I am perceived as 'gaming the system'.
...because I'm buying a Redbull so I don't pass out on the T on the way to my doctor's appointment tomorrow- as I have done before and missed said appointment. Between the seizures and the asthma and the rheumatoid whatever I never sleep or am constantly on the edge of collapse.
...because I am buying last day markdown meat even if it is 60% off.
...because I am buying a GODDAMN PIECE OF CHOCOLATE.
...because I wanted to buy a nice dessert for my friend who is having a hard time. The only way I can get it at the end of the month is to use my SNAP after I have paid all my bills and everything else is balanced out. No one wants a story.
The fact that I order food is used as evidence that I don't need SNAP because these are the times that I simply wouldn't eat if I didn't order food. That is irrelevant in most equations assembled by people who can work [or don't have to] They are not in that situation so can't believe it actually happens. Therefore? I abuse the system. No one wants a story.
I'm not a person in this almost-narrative that strangers construct based on how I am getting my food at the check out. I'm a one dimensional Manifestation of Poor, reaching into everyones pocket but my own.
I contribute nothing to the universe.
...Right.
State Rep. Rick Brattin from Missouri has proposed a bill regarding SNAP benefits. SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Food Stamps] benefits are benefits in the US which provide assistance to purchase food. To qualify one must provide several proofs, including income, bank statements, employment, living costs, etc. Often one has to resubmit to continue such benefits. The assistance is not much at all. It's helpful to get anything- but it's certainly not enough.
The proposed bill would eliminate the following from being eligible for purchase with SNAP benefits: "cookies, chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood, or steak". If on the surface that seems to make reasonable, let us think about the entire year every possible occasion when any of those things might be appropriate.
Holidays, birthdays.
Today sucked and I want to feel like a human being kind of days.
Also: What makes a cookie? There is no definition in the wording of the bill for any of these things save "energy drink"- which makes an exception for "coffee like drinks" so that's just absurd. Soft drink? So... any "fruit type drink" that is fizzy? Most of those don't even contain juice. Any red meat that isn't ground can't be bought. If it's cut into stir fry, can we then buy it on SNAP? No seafood? so... I can't buy tuna fish?
The bill wording can be found here:
HOUSE BILL No. 813 To amend chapter 205, RSMo, by adding thereto two new sections relating to the supplemental nutrition assistance program.
A quote from this article at care2.com puts it well:
“Eventually you understand that buying that beer/coffee with a friend, bottle of wine for home, or Snickers bar for a sugar rush to get through the afternoon isn’t going to make or break you. Even if all those decisions were added up over the course of the month, they’d maybe hit $20 or $75. That’s not even enough to pay a utility bill. At some point you determine that the joy from that $5 purchase that allows you time with friends or a little relief during the day is the best thing you can do with that money. Denying yourself any joy at all would leave you, what, $200 ‘ahead’ at the end of the year? Would your mental and emotional state be better served by the coffee and the Snickers? Probably.”
What I wrote about it:
If you know how and when to shop? You can end up buying last day meat on major sale and it will frequently be cheaper than fresh produce. There are days that certain cuts are on last day and pound for pound cost less than apples, carrots, or broccoli. I know this because that is how I always have animal protein in my freezer.
Specifically, I always have at least a few things that I bought myself, not something my mother made and dropped off when she was visiting. I rely on the last day price cuts. I often know which stores make these last day cuts and when they do it. You can't do that with vegetables nearly as much. They often are in very poor shape and freezing vegetables is more difficult generally even when they are in good shape.
That is not actually the point.
There have been pilot programs running where people gain extra benefits for buying healthy foods. They have yet to become widespread beyond test/pilot programs. They have been greatly successful because they gave people the means to actually buy things like fresh vegetables but not been run to benefit entire regions.
The point is not actually that it's a nutrition assistance program.
If it was those incentive programs would be continually growing and be adopted all over the country. If fraud was so widespread [it isn't] it is quite easy to track and and investigate, given the program is done electronically- by debit essentially.
The point is that poor people shouldn't have anything even remotely nice. ever.
I have a busted ass ipod- like the screen is crumbling and I've had it for at least five years. I bring it to the store with me pretty much every time so i can track precisely what I am spending. If someone notices I am using EBT I get the visual equivalent of a death threat. Despite all the yellow mark down stickers noting that what I'm buying is on clearance; that my meat is last day; that the mp3 player in my hands is literally losing bits of its screen.
---
It doesn't occur to people that I had a life before benefits. There was a Me before Poor Me.
Though now I am just Poor Stranger. A monetary value in the present. I have no future and no past in which I could be or was anything else. I have an EBT/SNAP card. I paid into this system for years but if I don't use cash for a soda then I am perceived as 'gaming the system'.
...because I'm buying a Redbull so I don't pass out on the T on the way to my doctor's appointment tomorrow- as I have done before and missed said appointment. Between the seizures and the asthma and the rheumatoid whatever I never sleep or am constantly on the edge of collapse.
...because I am buying last day markdown meat even if it is 60% off.
...because I am buying a GODDAMN PIECE OF CHOCOLATE.
...because I wanted to buy a nice dessert for my friend who is having a hard time. The only way I can get it at the end of the month is to use my SNAP after I have paid all my bills and everything else is balanced out. No one wants a story.
The fact that I order food is used as evidence that I don't need SNAP because these are the times that I simply wouldn't eat if I didn't order food. That is irrelevant in most equations assembled by people who can work [or don't have to] They are not in that situation so can't believe it actually happens. Therefore? I abuse the system. No one wants a story.
I'm not a person in this almost-narrative that strangers construct based on how I am getting my food at the check out. I'm a one dimensional Manifestation of Poor, reaching into everyones pocket but my own.
I contribute nothing to the universe.
...Right.
