Correction: This article originally reported that, by 2014, food stamps would be reduced to $59 for a family of four. In fact, they will be reduced by $59, not to $59. The relevant sentence has been changed. CJR regrets the error.
Campaign Desk
03:52 PM - August 11, 2010
Food Stamps and Health
Let’s not forget the connection between the two
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What to do if you find a baby bird
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What stories have appeared played the issue very matter-of-factly, delivering the news that food stamps will eventually be cut in 2014—down to $59 a month for a family of four
I don’t know if its just the wording here, but this leaves the impression that in 2014 a family of 4 on food stamps will receive only $59 a month. It should read will receive $59 less a month. For perspective in 2009, the average benefit per month per person in Illinois is $132. For a family of four that’s $528. If you cannot feed a family of four on $470/month, your spending priorities are seriously out of whack.
Teachers unions pulled out all stops to save their members’ jobs
It aint about saving teachers jobs … it about preserving their salaries. If they were concerned about “saving jobs” then they would take pay cuts to preserve staffing levels. Whatever the case, its pretty clear what their priorities are … and it aint about the kids.
If families have too little money to buy expensive fruits and vegetables, they will make do, eating ramen noodles or fast foods—anything that provides calories to fill them up. Cheap food does not always equal healthy food.
Its been my experience that people on food stamps tend to purchase far more prepared foods than fresh vegetables. Nothing kills me more than seeing a shopping cart full of frozen pizzas and hamburger helper when the customer whips out their LINK card to pay for it.
#1 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Wed 11 Aug 2010 at 04:30 PM
mike h: yes there are plenty of ignorant people out there. however, in reference to your comment about people on food stamps buying more prepared food...this has nothing to do with food stamps, its more of an epidemic of the whole country. hence the obesity and heart attack rates. i myself recieve food stamps. i buy tons of fruits (strawberries, blueberries, bananas, apples) as well as vegetables (broccoli is our favorite, squash, zucchini, corn and others). you will never see a bag of potato chips in my shopping cart! there was a time when my husband was laid off his job and being a college student with very little money, we found ourselves restricted to 30 dollars in groceries a week. at the time we did not have food stamps and had a 2 year old to feed. i must tell you we ate the most unhealthy, cheap, processed foods available because we didnt want to starve to death! it was all we could afford. my 2 year old would get the bread and milk and my husband and i would live off mere water and spaghetti noddles and eggs. so when our family began recieving food stamps, i didnt ever want to have to eat so poorly again. and we dont.
#2 Posted by ashley a, CJR on Thu 12 Aug 2010 at 03:53 PM
This is just another liberal cover story...
It isn't about "nutrition" and it isn't about fiscal efficiency, despite Ms. Lieberman's silly screed. Food stamps can be (and routinely are) used to buy Twinkies and lard, for crying out loud. You won't see the liberals moaning about the need to restrict food stamp purchases to healthy or reasonably priced food products.
This is just typical liberal bitching about a program that cuts one welfare program to fund another one. The liberals won't be happy until the government provides every service and product and they won't be happy then unless our national defense program is scrapped.
#3 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Thu 12 Aug 2010 at 04:39 PM
Now now Padkiller … cant make a good homemade pie crust without lard.
#4 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Thu 12 Aug 2010 at 04:47 PM
I wonder if Lieberman has spent much time in the grocery line observing what people using food stamps buy for food.
In any event, in a country in which obesity is now more of a public health problem than hunger, the food stamp program survives? Why? Because it wasn't initiated to feed the hungry, it was initiated to help farmers unload their surpluses, keep demand up, and help support prices and subsidies for the farm bloc. If we had 'gasoline stamps', I expect BP and the rest would be all for them, too.
#5 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Fri 13 Aug 2010 at 12:36 PM
I wish Ms. Lieberman or one of her self-proclaimed "professional journalist" colleagues would take this food stamp/nutrition angle to the next level.
What percentage of food stamp benefits goes toward the purchase of unhealthy foods?
What percentage goes toward the purchase expensive processed food versus lower-priced ingredients?
What percentage goes towards brand name products versus cheaper off-brand or store brand products?
What percentage to fraud? Theft? Waste?
It wouldn't be difficult to obtain this information from public sources or through minimal actual investigative journalism (what a concept!), but one thing's for damned sure - it will be a snowy day in Hell before we see any of the progressive activist "journalists" of the MSM dig into this story.
The truth is the LAST thing these "watchdogs" want in the hands of readers - namely the truth that the food stamp program is a failure of a boondoggle that is rampantly abused and that the best thing to do for both public fiscal policy and public health would be to restrict food stamp purchases to cheaper, healthy ingredients.
Food stamp recipients don't know how to vote for anything without a D next to the candidate's name in the election booth and clamping down on the access to free King Crab and Ho-Ho's isn't going to go over well in the trailer park or in the projects.
Ms. Lieberman's newfound feigned interest in the health of food stamp recipients is no match for her "professional" duty to run cover for the liberal welfare agenda - and neither she nor any of her colleagues will dare risk stepping on any liberal political toes merely to get to the bottom of this public health issue.
Advocate? Sure! Report? HELL no!
The vast majority of these CJR people are nothing but liberal mouthpieces. How they maintain any self-respect is beyond me.
#6 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sun 15 Aug 2010 at 12:23 PM
Hmmm... what "padkiller" is failing to see (or at least mention) in his/her attempted dismissive ad hominem attacks on critical reporting as being everything liberal (and therefore wrong) is that foodstamps, which spend just like money to those taking them, are in effect a different form of a huge subsidy for corporate grocery stores and the product manufacturers that sell to them which are well-known, and monied supporters of the conservative agenda (and often either own corporate media or are drinking buddies with those who do, ie: Cox, Blethen, Johnson, and Waltons).
Seriously, if the widely-reported numbers are correct that 1 in 6 households are receiving benefits then I'd wager that the percentage of shoppers receiving aid at Wal-Mart are even higher than that, so that the Walton family which is among the very richest in the world is such because of Food Stamps, though granted they are just one of the many forms of welfare Wal-Mart accesses (including tax breaks, abatements, enticements, and more including paying their employees so low they are unable to survive without governmental assistance themselves further directing that help into Wal-Mart's coffers). Meanwhile, Wal-Mart (and Safeway as well as many other corporate grocery stores and their product manufacturers and suppliers such as ADM, Smithfield, Cargill, Tyson) are voracious backers and lobbyists of staunchly conservative factions in DC and across the states and even the world. They spend millions upon millions on politics and propaganda including the output of massive amounts of misleading press releases (all of which are paid for with amazingly generous profits by the returns of subsidies, various tax breaks and guaranteed buyers such as federal lunch programs and food stamp recipients).
I'm actually quite surprised the corporate interests are not more involved in assuring they don't lose this income (as they do with the farm bill by playing it up as 'give us farm -- read corn, soy, rice, wheat, meat -- subsidies or we won't fund hunger programs' -- which include Food Stamps and are ironically a major dumping ground of all things subsidized). But, there is a fine line between getting the money from taxpayers and having a ready supply of desperate workers who will consent to terrible pay, poor hours, lousy or no benefits and on-call status (so they can't even take on a second job) and $10 to $15 times several million. If you have enough insecure potential employees to exploit you can play one against the other to make them feel even more desperate willing to accept even more abuse AND also make them feel they don't have enough to shop anywhere else.
Sam Walton started by drawing on those ravaged by the dustbowl and corporate agricultural consolidation. He would praise his employees but in the next breath rarely missed an opportunity to let them know they could be replaced.
Steve Colbert was absolutely correct when he said, "Reality has a well-known 'liberal' bias."
I prefer to live in reality.
#7 Posted by Cheyenne, CJR on Sun 15 Aug 2010 at 04:46 PM
So now we've moved on the "evil Walmart" schtick...
Let's stay on topic here, Cheyenne.
Ms. Lieberman contends (without a shred of supporting evidence) that food stamps keep people healthy.
My own observations from the checkout line indicate otherwise. People I see using food stamps mostly buy ready-made, processed, unhealthy food. I don't see the EBT card come out to pay for whole wheat flour and green, leafy vegetables. Other commenters have pointed this out.
With obesity being the biggest healthcare problem there is, Ms. Lieberman's claim is highly suspect. Shs owes it to her readers to either subtantiate this claim with some of those "fact-thingies" that they used to teach about in J-school, or to just admit that she is presenting her opinion as fact in order to toe the liberal line.
#8 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sun 15 Aug 2010 at 05:10 PM
The plot sickens.
Now we get word that Michelle Obama is getting a few billion in food stamp funds to pay for her pet program - child obesity.
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/114271-dems-consider-more-food-stamp-cuts-to-fund-child-nutrition-bill
How's that "Hope and Change" thing working out for you leftists?
#9 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sun 15 Aug 2010 at 06:18 PM
The day I start believing Stephen Colbert on 'reality', I hope I have sense enough not to say so. Apparently he doesn't know many cops, military personnel, small business owners, emergency-room workers, etc. If reality had a 'liberal' bias, the Democratic Party wouldn't have spent decades trying to explain the failures of Great Society programs, argue that Social Security was not really a Ponzi scheme, dig themselves out of the mess liberal brainstorms made of the urban public schools, and assure the public that this year/decade's health or environmental scare was really authentic this time. And blue states would be out-performing poor dumb red states in population (=job) growth, which they have emphatically not in the lifetime of Stephen Colbert, or Cheyanne. Sometimes people just disagree about trade-offs - which are what real life actually consists of. Pardon the grammar.
#10 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Sun 15 Aug 2010 at 07:48 PM
Apparently he doesn't know many cops, military personnel, small business owners, emergency-room workers, etc. If reality had a 'liberal' bias, the Democratic Party wouldn't have spent decades trying to explain the failures of Great Society programs, argue that Social Security was not really a Ponzi scheme, dig themselves out of the mess liberal brainstorms made of the urban public schools, and assure the public that this year/decade's health or environmental scare was really authentic this time.ebooks novels
#11 Posted by alex, CJR on Mon 16 Aug 2010 at 11:08 AM
Ms. Lieberman's claim is highly suspect. Shs owes it to her readers to either subtantiate this claim with some of those "fact-thingies" that they used to teach about in J-school, or to just admit that she is presenting her opinion as fact in order to toe the liberal line.
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#12 Posted by gary coleman, CJR on Mon 16 Aug 2010 at 11:11 AM