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USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

thehill.com

71–80 of 105 posts

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#71
I have some things to note as a non-US:

1) 42 million people underfed in the richest nation in the world is worrisome

2) killing one person is headlines, killing millions is statistics. Today, replace killing with starving

3) people reached at the state to need SNAP because of other incidents (health issues, loss of job, bankruptcy) which are much more expensive to prevented

4) saying to millions just to reapply seems more like social bulling to bring cheels to the masses than an effective fraud measure

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#72
post #60
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Nobo…

The guy bringing food he personally hunted back to the tribe and trying to ration and apportion according to everybody's input & needs is the enemy? Terrible analogy.

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#73
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?!

There are a limited number of children/families in need of this help. Feeding them is great for the economy. There is no need to spend more than that on the program, although there are other social programs that do contribute to making them into more productive individuals in the future, like education and healthcare.

May I recommend leaving out the snark in the future - it gives the impression that you are a heartless person who wants others to suffer. Your life is short - go outside and touch the grass, it'll do you some good.

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#74
post #22

This is utterly disgusting. It took me 6 months to actually fully apply to SNAP (and I count the time it took for me to actually get a card). I seriously can't imagine this is legal, but if it somehow is ruled to be so, I can't imagine the idiots doing this actually have a plan for processing the millions and millions of applications. This is the same government who thought putting a bunch of teenagers in charge of m…

Most functional states / local county offices have emergency benefits issuance processes that offer same-day service. I'm not sure but I don't think anyone gets SNAP directly, every state has an EBT-based "food stamps" program.

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#75
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahaha. Wait, did you mean this as ironic comedy, or are you serious?

Answer the question

Oh at this point, with the way we've treated countries with military action, insane tariffs, masked deportations, embargos/blockades, threatening the sovereignty of a G8 country, threatening to annex another, supporting Israeli genocide, the list goes on...

We're on the downward slope now, but it will take awhile.

The future requires investments in education, infrastructure, healthcare, and energy generation (in particular, cheap energy), and we're simply not doing it. Being lonely sucks, and the US govt has alienated long standing allies. Economically they doesn't bode well.

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#76
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Nobo…

The guy bringing food he personally hunted back to the tribe and trying to ration and apportion according to everybody's input & needs is the enemy? Terrible analogy.

Oh it was certainly no Aeneid, and I'm open to hearing a better one.

In the tribal societies I'm familiar with, hunter isn't a position of honor or something, it's just a job. The hunter is a tool, like the basket weaver or the primitive doctor.

The part about "their kill" is not familiar to me in the tribal way because that's the tribe's kill. The tribes food. The elder(s) would decide to ration, not the hunter.

That aside, screw the analogy. If you have 40,000,000 people on food rations and decide to withhold said food rations because you think some of them are misappropriated, that's some very stupid thinking. Only an idiot thinks like that. The only other person that thinks like that is a sociopath, one that wishes harm on said group. Either way, they're clearly a danger as a decision maker.

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#77
post #60
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Nobo…

> You don't starve 41 million people even if you think there is some corruption, that's absolutely inhumane shit. Enemy of humanity shit.

Agreed, of course, but realize that for the current administration the cruelty is the whole point.

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#78

For 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

> It is always a wonder to me when people downplay something that is "just" 1.5% of nearly $7 TRILLION

If (assuming correct) it is 1.5%, then it is 1.5%

Which is a tiny percentage. That's how percentages work. Adding that it is a large number out of a huge number doesn't change anything, it is still 1.5% which means not much at all.

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#79
post #15

I have a friend with life circumstances that are complicated and she survives on SNAP. Every move like this is detrimental and jeopardizes the ability for her to stay alive. I do not understand or fathom why this program is run in such a cruel, uncaring way. I’m sure there is fraud, but there are many people with permanent disabilities and other things going on who don’t have the capacity to “just reapply” without si…

> I do not understand or fathom why this program is run in such a cruel, uncaring way.

For the current administration, maximizing cruelty is the whole point and goal.

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#80
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I would also keep in mind that the 180k number is almost certainly inaccurate Right? Why is anyone taking this as a good faith number, let alone a fact, given who said it and where it was said? It’s quite clearly made up nonsense.

> It’s quite clearly made up nonsense.

If it suits a certain narrative and suspicion, then anecdata is perfectly acceptable and even preferred by some people.

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