Letters to the Editor
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Stores
And there's also the issue that there are few true grocery stores any longer in poorer urban neighborhoods. Residents either have to have transportation (a car with high gas prices, or public transportation) to go to the stores, or they use the higher priced convenience stores that are local.
This Macardle woman sounds like an idiot, and a typical right winger. Let the poor fend for themselves, while she waits for her $600-$1200 (or more) rebate check.
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Hmmm...
What did poor people do BEFORE food stamps? Did they just die from starvation? Is it possible that food stamp/welfare programs have a negative effect on American society, even though the intentions are good?
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Umm, yeah,
they did just die of starvation.
WTF?
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Living on food stamps.
You know, maybe it's just me, but during a time when I was jobless and my SO was making a pittance as a graduate student, we applied for food stamps. I got a job *just* before we got approved, but the amount we were going to be approved for was *more* than our entire grocery budget as it was. (We spend about $100 every two weeks for two of us, although now it's a bit more since we've added some outright luxuries. We could probably have cut it down below even that, though, in a pinch.) Our grocery receipt routinely tells us that we saved at least $25, sometimes up to $50 by shopping sales.
Not that I disapprove of more assistance, but I wonder if some help with how to shop and cook and whatnot couldn't be just as useful, if not moreso. More money when you still don't know how to shop won't go nearly as far.
But educational programs, obviously, cost money, too. So does improved public transit to let people get to grocery stores instead of convenience stores, that sort of thing.
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Cheaper to eat like crap
McDonald's, et al., is cheaper than buying healthy organic produce or other healthy eating options. It's cheaper to buy sodas than it is other, healthier types of drink. All you have to do is go through your local grocery store to see this. High fructose corn syrup and transfats über alles.
As for Megan McArdle, her comments are extremely offensive. You can't take someone seriously who says stuff like "even if they spend it all on drugs. . ."
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Sad.
Where is the compassion for others?
Oh, I forgot... poor people -- and fat people -- do not deserve it. We only give compassion to beautiful young white girls who "go missing".
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Where is the compassion for others?
How about compassion for the people who REALLY need it, i.e. people in other countries. Look at the poor people here, and then try places like Myanmar and Kenya. Poor people here have cable TV, Playstation 2 (darn, not 3!) and receive all kinds of benefits. Poor people over there are happy to find some clean water. The reasons people are poor in America are very different reasons than why people are poor in other countries. If you think throwing food stamps and welfare checks at these people is going to cure anything, you are mistaken. Educating these people is the key. There's not too many "smart" poor people, are there?
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how to shop
Ah yes, can't help the poor because their lifestyles are so....declasse.
As far as what people eat goes, yes organic veggies are more expensive per calorie than junk food. But eating healthy isn't black and white -- you don't have to eat like a foodie aesthete, living on local organic produce and pasture-raised eggs, to eat healthier. There are lots of cheap, nutritious foods in the grocery store, if you know where to find them and prepare them. I think ThoughtsofSusan has a good point about learning how to shop. This is a basic life skill that ought to be at least addressed in school (along with basic financial management and comprehensive sex education).
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Food Stamps
are not the way to go. I defy anyone to show me someone who uses Food Stamps who doesn't use it to buy non-healthy foods. Further, people did NOT starve before Food Stamps...I know, I lived thru those times. Granted, they didn't eat well, but they DID eat.
Now, as for poor FAT people being not being encouraged to eat more...that's NOT the problem. The problem is, poor people (whether they are on Food Stamps or not) do not buy HEALTHY foods. Why? Because it's more expensive than non-healthy foods.
So the main solution to the problem is to LIMIT what they can buy with Food Stamps. You want a leaner, healthier poor class? Force them to use the Food Stamps to buy only healthy foods...and take ice cream, cake, cokes, candy (yes they CAN buy all this crap with Food Stamps) and all the other junk foods off the list.
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I have one thing to say to Mrs. McArdle
And that is:
Go to Hell.
As someone who remembers my parents buying food with food stamps in the mid '70's, who still remembers how to make powdered milk, and who, until a couple years ago, never went to Red Lobster even for special occasions because I was told my whole childhood that it was "too expensive to eat there" I am outraged at the callousness and ignorance of Mrs. McArdle.
No one of my family has ever been fat, nor were any of my friends whose parents also were using food stamps. My mother had just began her teaching career and was at the low end of the pay scale, and my father was just starting his construction company (that damn entrepreneurship that Republicans LOVE to worship).
Could we have made it without food stamps? Probably. But food stamps helped give my family a crack of monetary daylight that allowed us to better ourselves to the benefit of our community and this country.
What exactly, if anything, has Mrs. McArdle done that has made this country better? Cruelly condemning anyone and everyone ever on food stamps sure is something that this country could do without.
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If You Were Raised With A Poor Diet Would You "Suddenly" Know How To Cook Healthy Meals?
Whoever said education is necessary is absolutely right. Go to the ghetto and you see cycles of poverty because a) broken families do NOT teach their children basic economic skills and b) they generally aren't interested in cooking or teaching their kids how to cook healthy meals. And then all the annoyed whites whine, "Why don't these morons JUST do this or that?" They don't know how. So they end up just repeating what they saw their parents do.
That's just reality. Unless some outside agent (government) comes in and specifically sits a poor person down and says, "Here's how to manage a basic household budget" or "Here is how to shop for and prepare a nurtious meal based on the available amount of money you have in foodstamps" then nothing will change. We can all hope really hard that they magically get the knowledge -- but the reality is someone will have to show them.
Here's where the Conservatives scream, "It ain't MY problem! Don't waste MY taxes on poor minority drug addicts!"
Oops. Is your car missing now, Mr. Conservative? I guess one of those iritating "Not Your Problems" just stole it.
We dont live in a vaccum. You can shrug your shoulders all you want -- but eventually it WILL be your problem one way or another.