Food Stamps

Most of the folks "dying on the streets" have significant substance abuse issues. Substance abuse kills more americans than hunger.

Should SNAP reciepiants be drug tested? Should parents who are receiving public assistance for their minor children be drug tested? How 'bout college students receiving federal loans and grants?

feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hungerfacts.

NYC-PD picks bodies off the street on a daily basis as well as other large cities in America. Check out Coroners reports and Hospital deaths and how they are reported.

Look up the various sites on the internet regarding hunger. I gave you one. there are many more. I'M saying that Children, Poor, and the elderly should not go hungry and they do. People should not starve to death and they do. Insignificant numbers that die of starvation not worth reporting. According to who? you. How much do you pay for the SNAP program. Like I've said to others, leave the "SNAP food stamp) people alone.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_die_from_starvation_each_year_in_America

I couldnt find the WHO source but thats the best info I could find on it. It is not according to ME, but according to the people who would report such data.

Cityguy I challenege you to find just one reference of someone in the US starving to death because they could not get food. Not because they were not fed by someone or were mentally ill, but someone who starved to death because they were not able to get food. Think you can do that?

And if people who are on SNAP are still hungry, why is that? Doesnt that prove that the program is not working?

Hospitals report death by malnutrition everyday. Do you know the difference between hunger and malnutrition.

http://www.worldehunger.org/us:htm

You will not change my mind or statements regarding the benefits of the SNAP program. Without the program more sickness and deaths will and would occur.

There is a lot of information available to you, do the research!

cityguy, you said that people in the US are starving to death. You have also now claimed that in big cities the police pick up multiple bodies every day of people who have starved to death. However you cannot provide one reference to this so called epidimic that exists in your mind.

So do you have any legitimate facts to back up your belief?

http://frac.org/initiatives/hunger-and-obesity/are-low-income-people-at-greater-risk-for-overweight-or-obesity/

Theres a great link for you. It shows the relationship between poverty and obesity. If low income people getting food stamps are starving, then why is there so much obesity? The problem has become such an issue with kids that Obama recently changed the school lunch programs to be more healthy! New York put a ban on large amounts of soda!

So which is it? Are people starving or obese?

The reality is that with food stamps, WIC, school lunch programs, churches, charities, soup kitchens, food pantries, etc. there is NO ONE starving to death in the US because they dont have access to food.

If someone dies from malnutrition its either someone who has mental issues, or its someone who was relying on someone else for food(elderly, children, disabled). Taking away the food stamp program would make little change to these victims.

Again, if you believe that with all these programs that people are still starving to death, then that should prove to you that they are not working.

Welfare gone wild!

Welfare recipients take out cash at strip clubs, liquor stores
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/poor_some_ugar_on_me_0Hq1d3iPnvj2RwpsEDS7MN

Should SNAP reciepiants be drug tested? Should parents who are receiving public assistance for their minor children be drug tested? How 'bout college students receiving federal loans and grants?

Been tried and shot down as violating the 4th amendment.

People do starve in this country for numerous reasons. Sometimes it's substance abuse, sometimes it's mental health, even as simple as depression untreated, sometimes it's foolish pride. It doesn't matter and it's always sad. It's intellectually lazy and dishonest to look at this problem and dumb it down to being lazy or drug addicts. People need to be fed. Go volunteer feeding hungry people and tell them they are taking advantage of the system or just keep posting single situations like that's evidence of anything other than some people will take advantage of anything. Big ******* deal. Education and compassion.

Jamison, I'm not trying to "dumb down" the problem. Only suggesting that "street side starvation" is rooted deeper in substance abuse. Soup kitchens for homeless is sticking a band aid on a problem which requires a surgical team.

Jamison, I'm not trying to "dumb down" the problem. Only suggesting that "street side starvation" is rooted deeper in substance abuse. Soup kitchens for homeless is sticking a band aid on a problem which requires a surgical team.

It's a lot more than just people with substance abuse problems. Much more. I agree there is a problem.

Theres a great link for you. It shows the relationship between poverty and obesity. If low income people getting food stamps are starving, then why is there so much obesity? The problem has become such an issue with kids that Obama recently changed the school lunch programs to be more healthy! New York put a ban on large amounts of soda!

So which is it? Are people starving or obese?

Obesity does not equate to being well-fed.

You see a lot of obesity among low income people precisely because they are low income and can only afford cheap, unhealthy, fattening foods such as "McDonald's...deeply rooted in the Black community".

the healthy food markets are not in the poorer neighborhoods. that means for those who don't drive, they shop at the high cost high crap food markets and don't have access to the good healthy stuff.

Starvation isn't just what you see on feed the children commercials. it is right in our own backyards. have you ever been to the Appalachians and seen the poor malnourished people there, probably worse than in the "ghettos"

New data show 1 in 4 children on food stamps in FY 2011

I lived in the Appalachian Mountains as a child. There are indeed many hungry children there. Our neighbors had 12 children living in a tar paper shack. They had no shoes and very little food. They could get free lunches at school and food stamps but that was considered charity. No one I knew would accept charity. They would trade, however. My mother often traded milk, eggs and flour for whatever their father had trapped or shot that day. We were not poor by mountain standards but a squirrel or rabbit in the pot was always welcome. My mother always packed extra in our lunch to "trade" with children who were not allowed to accept free lunch at school.

The most incredible thing I learned in my 7 years of living there was poverty does not equate to unhappiness. My brother and I wanted to be liked and accepted by those remarkable children. We ran barefooted even in winter, bathed in the icy creeks, caught crawdads and boiled them up in a tin can, ate anything we could trap or fish and in the spring we ate wild berries until we felt like we would burst.

Their lives were hard and most of the time their tummys were rumbling with hunger but they were the most remarkable resilient children. Those 7 years were the best of my childhood.

dougtamij

they are a proud people.
and also, lets not forget the extreme poverty of the reservations.

Tam, This is so awfully sad for the powerless children. No doubt it continues today. Shame on those horrible parents who confuse pride and honor with neglect and child abuse. Denying proper nutrition has lasting detrimental effect on developing brains, cognitive function and bodies--especially when access to supplemental nutritional programs is/was available in the form food stamps and free lunch. Those kids may have appeared "happy" at the time. But do you really know what went on inside the homes of your classmates? Are you in still in contact with your childhood friends? Do they have health or emotional or subtance problems stemming from the lack of care they experienced as children. Are they stuck in life of inherited poverty? I can't imagine anything worse than watching my kids suffer. As a mom I would do anything to keep my kid's "bellies from rumbling".....

I believe there is a fair amount abuse in the SNAP program. The kids who need help most are usually the last to receive it.

blu4u.
What qualifies you to make a statement."The Kids who need the most help are usually the last to receive it." There are more children on SNAP today since 1959. The recession that started in 2008 has increased the numbers of kids on SNAP.

Cityguy. My bad, The statement "The Kids who need the most help are usually the last to receive it", is my opinion. I thought i made this clear by prefacing the paragraph with "I believe". But, you are correct I should have been more clear and added something like "in my opinion". Sorry.
I can not offer any blanket solutions to the complex problems of wholesale child neglect or welfare abuse--I'm just not that smart. Here in the Vi I see kids everyday suffering from neglect and I do see people every day that are "working the system". I wish I could do more.....

I believe SNAP is important!

Holy smokes. talk about abuse.

This food stamp topic seems to a be pretty personal and has brought out the worst in some people. Honestly, we all have our opinions based upon our real life experiences or lack of experience in some case. Debating the facts is good. Expressing opinions is good. But the wierd pasive agressive insults only make the poster seem like a jerk. We already had one poster implode and 'quit the board (which is probalbly a good thing, since the overall tone of "VI now" is kinder and gentier since her firey departure). If you want to act like an A-hole, then there alot of other public forums avaible to waste your time. I fing it very strange that people come on here and write horrible things that they would nver dare say to thier nieghbor's face.

I love that we drop bombs all over the Middle East which cost over 1 million dollars a piece but the $700 or so a month a family with 7 kids gets in food stamps bothers so many of you. We don't have a say in how many bombs we drop but everyone wants a say in how we protect our children. Stop with the abusing the system crap until the US gets her priorities back in order. Trying to help the nation's youth is not among America's problems. Start bitching about simultaneous wars thousands of miles away, paying farmers to NOT farm their land, appeasing the rich with tax loopholes, defending the right of mentally ill persons to buy semi-automatic machine guns at gun shows without background checks, corroding infrastructure across the entire country.
Shut up and let the nation's poor children eat. They don't want to hear your reasons for why they shouldn't.

Well Well well.... tell ya. You forgot to rail on the corporate welfare sham named "TARP"; The deregulation of the lending insitutions and investment banks and insurance companies; and the mortgaing of our kids future's to the Chinese for cheep frills sold at walmart. ANy way you slice it, tommorow looks bleak for the poor kids and the middle class kids don't have it easy either (but at least most of them can still eat). The average collgel kid graduates 30K in debt and takes 16months to land a "professional" full time position (usually without benefits).

Tam, This is so awfully sad for the powerless children. No doubt it continues today. Shame on those horrible parents who confuse pride and honor with neglect and child abuse. Denying proper nutrition has lasting detrimental effect on developing brains, cognitive function and bodies--especially when access to supplemental nutritional programs is/was available in the form food stamps and free lunch. Those kids may have appeared "happy" at the time. But do you really know what went on inside the homes of your classmates? Are you in still in contact with your childhood friends? Do they have health or emotional or subtance problems stemming from the lack of care they experienced as children. Are they stuck in life of inherited poverty? I can't imagine anything worse than watching my kids suffer. As a mom I would do anything to keep my kid's "bellies from rumbling".....

I believe there is a fair amount abuse in the SNAP program. The kids who need help most are usually the last to receive it.

Well blu, I guess it was sad and horrible but for the most part we were all just happy kids. The parents for the most part weren't horrible, just very poor and very proud. The Appaliachians are populated with people of Scotch Irish descent and going on the dole, (welfare) is terribly shameful. Better a rumbling belly then take a hand out. The dads either worked in a coal mine, tried to farm in that rocky soil or made moonshine. Moonshine was a good living but the government shut most of the stills down.

Yes, I have kept in touch with a few. My very best friend became a sheriff in a neighboring county. My second best friend was sold off to an old widower down the street by her father for a couple of cows at 13 and had her first baby at 14. She's a grandmother now with a ton of grandchildren. Loretta Lynn used to play cards on Saturday night with my parents and became a famous country music singer. Some of the older boys I knew that were bootleggers, (running moonshine), became nascar drivers. I guess it is like anywhere else. Some of those kids moved on and became great successes and some just stayed where they were and carried on the way their parents did. The one thing they all have in common is that they are survivors.

There are a few stills making moonshine but most have moved on to making meth. That's the really sad part. So it's worse now. They have lost their family values, they are on the dole and killing their kids in meth labs.

Holy smokes. talk about abuse. .. We already had one poster implode and 'quit the board (which is probalbly a good thing, since the overall tone of "VI now" is kinder and gentier since her firey departure). ... I fing it very strange that people come on here and write horrible things that they would nver dare say to thier nieghbor's face.

No worries, blu, still pop in every few days to see what's going and it's always such a pleasure to read more of your exaggerated negativity. To correct your latest dig, I did not either "implode" or make a "firey departure" but made a calm and measured exit primarily because of personal attacks from such as yourself which continued unabated. Since I've contributed for so many years I felt it only proper to give my reason for doing so. I too, "fing it very strange that people come on here and write horrible things that they would nver dare say to thier nieghbor's face."

Hi Tart!

I love that we drop bombs all over the Middle East which cost over 1 million dollars a piece but the $700 or so a month a family with 7 kids gets in food stamps bothers so many of you. We don't have a say in how many bombs we drop but everyone wants a say in how we protect our children. Stop with the abusing the system crap until the US gets her priorities back in order. Trying to help the nation's youth is not among America's problems. Start bitching about simultaneous wars thousands of miles away, paying farmers to NOT farm their land, appeasing the rich with tax loopholes, defending the right of mentally ill persons to buy semi-automatic machine guns at gun shows without background checks, corroding infrastructure across the entire country.
Shut up and let the nation's poor children eat. They don't want to hear your reasons for why they shouldn't.

I tell ya...people are generally not ready for the conversation that you want to have...although it is desperately needed.
The bloated Pentagon budget was off-limits for the 'fiscal cliff' discussions, even though that particular 800-pound gorilla is the cause of the problem. The Pentagram wants to use the entire planet for live-fire exercises. Just wait until they develop DNA-specific viruses and entire ethnic groups start dying off...yes, there is that much evil in the world.

They are building a spanking new complex on St. Croix for military training while the high schools fall apart at the seams.

It costs one million dollars per soldier per year to keep National Guard troops (who are illegally being sent to foreign countries) in places like Afghanistan.

By the time the fuel gets to the troops in Afghanistan, the average cost per gallon is $400.00.

Everybody loves to holler about 'support the troops', but more troops died from suicide last year than from combat.

People don't want to hear this conversation, and you'll likely get severely flamed for attempting to start it.