The Republican government protects pedophiles while starving and abusing the poor. What will it take to wake people up? These people *despise* anyone who's not part of their sick little cabal.
USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply
51–60 of 105 posts
Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
You added the "just", not me. But to your point, there are much, much larger and controversial line items in the budget to argue about than feeding the poor. Preventing starvation is important to a functioning society, as widespread hunger has ended many a government throughout history.
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Do you know how much money SNAP gives people, and how much junk food and soft drinks cost? Like have you actually done the math on anything that would lead you to your opinion?
Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply
#53For perspective, SNAP constitutes somewhere around 1.5% of the total Federal budget[0], and provides supplemental income for over 41M Americans[1]. So they're making everyone reapply because their disbursement headcount is off by less than 1% (180k vs 41M). It's hard not look at stuff like this and not see gross oppression. 0: https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-does-the-federal-gover... 1: https://www.cbpp.org/res…
A quibble… The 180k is just for the states that responded, if I understand correctly. They suspect that the rate of fraud could be much higher in other states. How much high? I have no idea. I don’t think anyone does. I think they want to reboot the program to try to remove the corruption.
>> I think they want to reboot the program to try to remove the corruption.
A reasonable thing to do - in principle. In practice that many people applying at once is going to cause all kinds of problems and delays for people. No big deal to inconvenience fraudsters, but delaying for people legitimately in need isn't good. Forced reapplication 5 percent at a time would be better. Or maybe thats what they're doing?
Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is always a wonder to me when people downplay something that is "just" 1.5% of nearly $7 TRILLION
It's an investment. Every dollar spent returns $62 to the economy[0]. [0] https://www.cbpp.org/blog/snap-food-assistance-is-a-sound-in... There are much bigger wastes of money. Tax cuts for billionaires for example. Even SNAP itself is effectively welfare for billionaires - it means they don't have to pay a fair wage.
We should just put a trillion dollars into it then, and the returns would pay off the national debt! Right?!
Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
You added the "just", not me. But to your point, there are much, much larger and controversial line items in the budget to argue about than feeding the poor. Preventing starvation is important to a functioning society, as widespread hunger has ended many a government throughout history.
100B for SNAP vs 850B for defense in 2024. Interest on govt issued debt was 880B.
Imagine if the debt were 1 trillion dollars instead of 38! How hard is it to say "no budget increases this year"? And that wouldn't even eliminate the deficit and they can do it.
Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem here is that healthier food tends to cost more, so you'd essentially be forcing people to buy less food unless you also simultaneously raised the disbursement. And then a certain wing of the media starts screaming about how the poor are eating organic salads on the backs of taxpayers. Sounds reasonable in theory but has little basis in our current political reality.
I hate this common trope about health food costing more. Beans, lentil, rice, potatos, carrots, onions, cabbage, garlic don't cost a lot, add some additional cheap proteins like chicken and eggs and you're good to go for like $50 or less per week per person. And if you can buy in bulk and freeze, then it can get even cheaper.
Assuming access to a reliable cooker, safe storage, time to food prep and enough education in cooking to be able to cook. Some people on assistance fail all of those boxes, many fail at least one
Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply
#57For perspective, SNAP constitutes somewhere around 1.5% of the total Federal budget[0], and provides supplemental income for over 41M Americans[1]. So they're making everyone reapply because their disbursement headcount is off by less than 1% (180k vs 41M). It's hard not look at stuff like this and not see gross oppression. 0: https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-does-the-federal-gover... 1: https://www.cbpp.org/res…
A quibble… The 180k is just for the states that responded, if I understand correctly. They suspect that the rate of fraud could be much higher in other states. How much high? I have no idea. I don’t think anyone does. I think they want to reboot the program to try to remove the corruption.
I would also keep in mind that the 180k number is almost certainly inaccurate, if we go by this administration’s behavior during the DOGE efforts of manufacturing false claims of “fraud” out of benign circumstances as an excuse to tear down the social safety net systems.[1]
> Bobba [DOGE engineer] had sorted people with a Social Security number by age and found more than 12 million over 120 years old still listed in the agency’s data. Bobba said he knew these people weren’t actually receiving benefits and tried to tell Musk so, to no avail, according to SSA officials. Dudek [SSA employee] watched in horror as Trump then shared the same statistics with both houses of Congress and a national television audience, claiming the numbers proved “shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors.”
[1]https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-doge-social-securi...
Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply
#58For perspective, SNAP constitutes somewhere around 1.5% of the total Federal budget[0], and provides supplemental income for over 41M Americans[1]. So they're making everyone reapply because their disbursement headcount is off by less than 1% (180k vs 41M). It's hard not look at stuff like this and not see gross oppression. 0: https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-does-the-federal-gover... 1: https://www.cbpp.org/res…
It is always a wonder to me when people downplay something that is "just" 1.5% of nearly $7 TRILLION
> $7 TRILLION
Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks* around it and it will get italicized.*
Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
You added the "just", not me. But to your point, there are much, much larger and controversial line items in the budget to argue about than feeding the poor. Preventing starvation is important to a functioning society, as widespread hunger has ended many a government throughout history.
100B for SNAP vs 850B for defense in 2024. Interest on govt issued debt was 880B.
What would be the value of the US dollar if we didn't have a military to back it up?
Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply
#60For perspective, SNAP constitutes somewhere around 1.5% of the total Federal budget[0], and provides supplemental income for over 41M Americans[1]. So they're making everyone reapply because their disbursement headcount is off by less than 1% (180k vs 41M). It's hard not look at stuff like this and not see gross oppression. 0: https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-does-the-federal-gover... 1: https://www.cbpp.org/res…
A quibble… The 180k is just for the states that responded, if I understand correctly. They suspect that the rate of fraud could be much higher in other states. How much high? I have no idea. I don’t think anyone does. I think they want to reboot the program to try to remove the corruption.
You don't starve 41 million people even if you think there is some corruption, that's absolutely inhumane shit. Enemy of humanity shit.
Sometimes I wish we could go back to just living in Dunbar -sized groups.
If a hunter came back to the tribe and people start gathering around to eat and the hunter said "A few of you in the past have taken too much meat for themselves without doing their fair share.. I suspect. Nobody is gonna eat until we figure this out."
You know what would have happened? The village would have taken that hunter and thrown them off the cliff onto the rocks, because that motherfucker was a problem and a danger to the rest of the tribe.