TRUMP Proposal to Reduce Food Stamp Funds on EBT Cards

Quote:

The Trump administration is proposing to save billions in the coming years by giving low-income families a box of government-picked, nonperishable foods every month instead of food stamps.



White House OMB Director Mick Mulvaney on Monday hailed the idea as one that kept up with the modern era, calling it a "Blue Apron-type program" — a nod to the high-end meal kit delivery company that had one of the worst stock debuts in 2017 and has struggled to hold onto customers. Mulvaney said the administration’s plan would not only save the government money, but also provide people with more nutritious food than they have now.

The proposal, buried in the White House’s fiscal 2019 budget, would replace about half of the money most families receive via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, with what the Department of Agriculture is calling “America’s Harvest Box.” That package would be made up of "100 percent U.S. grown and produced food" and would include items like shelf-stable milk, peanut butter, canned fruits and meats, and cereal.

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Asked about how delivery would work, USDA spokesman Tim Murtaugh clarified that states would “have flexibility” in how they choose to distribute the food to SNAP recipients. In other words, the federal government almost certainly would not be picking up the tab for any type of Amazon-style delivery system. “The projected savings does not include shipping door-to-door for all recipients,” Murtaugh said.
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Kevin Concannon, who oversaw SNAP during the Obama administration, was aghast when he saw the proposal.

“Holy mackerel," said Concannon, who said it reminded him of when poor people had to line up and wait for local officials to dole out food and other welfare benefits. "I don’t know where this came from, but I suspect that the folks when they were drawing it up were also watching silent movies.”

Other anti-hunger advocates said the concept was reminiscent of wartime rations or soup lines during the Great Depression. The Food Research and Action Center, a prominent nonprofit group, called the harvest box idea “a Rube-Goldberg designed system” that would be “costly, inefficient, stigmatizing, and prone to failure.”

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In budget materials, USDA said it would be able to deliver this food at "approximately half the retail cost," a claim advocates found hard to believe. Food-stamp recipients would get their remaining monthly allotment on debit cards that they can use in grocery stores, as they do now. The proposal applies to households receiving at least $90 a month in benefits, which covers more than 80 percent of SNAP recipients. That’s more than 16 million households.

“This proposal focuses on ensuring that all SNAP recipients receive the nutritious food they need at substantial savings by harnessing USDA’s purchasing power and America’s agricultural abundance,” Murtaugh told POLITICO.

Grocery retailers also balked at the proposal, including the Food Marketing Institute — which represents major retailers like Walmart, Kroger and Albertsons, where tens of billions of dollars in SNAP benefits are spent each year. The industry argues that government-packed food boxes would simply be inefficient.

Jennifer Hatcher, the trade group's chief public policy officer, said grocery retailers had worked with USDA and Congress over many years to “achieve a national system, utilizing existing commercial infrastructure and technology to achieve the greatest efficiency, availability and lowest cost."

While the poors are waiting for their boxes of healthy food staples they can get signed up for Voter ID cards right?

Of course this idea will never get enacted but I do think it is a signal that there will be a push to reduce funds allocated for SNAP.

FYI

There is part of me that has always liked the idea of rations doled out from a benevolent all powerful government.The idea has had a certain visceral appeal to me ever since imagining it when reading 1984 so many years before. I also think this program could replace college food courts and end the curse of freshmen 15.

This is a flat out terrible idea.

If you want to cut the benefits then just cut the benefits.

If you want to discourage purchases of low nutritious food then forbid SNAP from being used for soda, chips and cookies.

Great idea, this one.

This way they can make sure the government buys from their friend's company instead of allowing the free market to determine who gets the money.

*Trump's "Harvest" Box does not include fresh fruits or vegetables

I'm sure it will have ketchup.

This fits in nicely with the gop idea of a smaller federal government. Imagine if obama had proposed this. Lol

Disregarding everything else, wouldn't the size and weight of a box containing a month's worth of food for a family be a little unwieldy? Maybe everything's going to be freeze-dried.

Amazon Pantry is $7.99/shipment or $5.99/month, and that's on top of paying for Prime.

Instead of training and maintaining job skills/readiness?

They could low-crawl the boxes to the poors' doors in full gear, two birds one stone etc

what do all those cities have in common?

I like how they were not even smart enough to mention eggs, which were 18 large count for 79 cents on my last trip to the market.

Also, why the **** would it be delivered? And how would that be "cheaper" for the government?

Did the price of eggs drop recently? I remember a while back a dozen cost more than a gallon of gas.

They basically want to go back to this



(it was actually decent cheese iirc)

this is comedy

Harvest Box is people!

Lazy ass USPS just sitting around wasting money when they could be a poor people food delivery service instead.

Looten Plunder to head up the newly-announced Department of Subsistence. A program to pipe foodsludge directly into homes via the extant tapwater pipes to be considered.

I mean, this is Rome. This is the grain dole.

I see a dozen go from around $1 to $5 or $6 at my local store depending on the source

Don't leave ICE out. You want your monthly rations? SHOW ME YOUR ****ING BIRTH CERTIFICATES, POORS! NO SOUP FOR YOU!!!

Yeah, they aren't delivering this... It's going to be dropped at some distribution center - one per city, and the poor can pay to get there, and carry their box home. If they don't like it, they should get another job... Only the poors who REALLY want to eat will be able to get their food.

Maybe we can make a reality show out of it... We could call it The Journey. A poor single mother from West Baltimore makes the weekly 3 mile trip downtown to get her food, but wait, it must be picked up between 9 and 5, and she works. Will her boss let her leave 30 minutes early? Can she make it in 30 minutes? Tune in next week to find out if the kids get to eat!! Or will she be too lazy to pick up free food??? OH THE EXCITEMENT! THE INTRIGUE!!!

This is just a program to make conservatives even more angry at the benefits poor people are getting. Lazy brown people getting "harvest boxes" from the government for free? Get of your ass and get a job and buy canned meat from Walmart like the rest of the deplorables in their right to work to states.

This is going to work out as well as Trump Steaks.

This is to appease the "You won't believe what happened to me at the supermarket. A loud obnoxious family cut in front of me at the grocery store. They had like 20 items in the 10 items or less line. A cart full with Doritos and 2 liters of soda.....and guess what? They paid with food stamps!" crowd.

i actually support this idea, except i would tweak it slightly to make it exactly like blue apron where you go online and choose what meals you want delivered. and instead of powdered milk and canned food, it would be fresh fruits and vegetables; completely vegan.